DUE TO ease-taking, the next eight issues of this column will not appear. Following are eight pieces of inspirational material -- some of it's been moldering in our "Ideas" file for years -- on which they would have been based. Mold doesn't matter in this column. Its only concern is timeless philosophical truth.
Each of the eight items will make you instantly visualize quite clearly the entire column it would have inspired. (Saves you a lot of tedious reading.) Each comes with an appropriate headline, compliments of the management.
1. When the Hanging Was Good: Jasper Ridley's "Henry VIII: The Politics of Tyranny" says that by 1536 hanging had long been a punishment in England for all felonies -- murder, rape, sodomy, arson, forgery, robbery and theft. Officials' letters surviving from those days often give the number of people hanged (theft was the most common hanging offense) after a recent assize, or court session.
Ridley found that the figures usually varied from six or eight to 12 or 14. "If an average of 10 persons were hanged at every session, this means that 40 a year would be hanged in every county, which means 1,600 a year in the 40 counties of England."
This would amount to about 60,000 hanged during the 38 years Henry reigned, or over 2 percent of England's 2.8 million inhabitants. This "equals the proportion of the 6 million Jews exterminated by Hitler, who constituted 2 percent of the population of occupied Europe, though it falls short of the 10 million Russians who are said to have been put to death under Stalin's regime -- more than 5 percent of the population of the USSR."
2. More Free Zones, Please: The Long Island Rail Road has declared Car 161 on Train 2710 "cellular free." Also Car 141 on Train 2708. Signs: "Please refrain from using your cellular phones inside these cars." Great blow against the barbarians. Now how about gun-free zones, rudeness-free zones, laptop-computer-free zones . . . ?
3. University Prez Says Mom and Dad Made Him a Breather: Richard Berendzen, former president of American University, says he was driven to make obscene phone calls because he was sexually abused once by both parents, and often by his mom. He has written a book. Of course. How about a confession-free zone?
4. Harold Pinter Yearns for Early Grave: In a 1966 interview Mr. Pinter told Lillian Ross: "My doctor advises me against drinking, but I'm ignoring his advice. It's a short life. And I have no wish to be 88. I feel pretty exhausted now that I'm 36."
How does he feel 29 years later, in 1995, now that he's 64? Or is he dead? Check!
5. Easy Millions Against Anita: The Washington Post reports that one of the Oklahomans fighting an endowed chair for Anita Hill at the University of Oklahoma is E.Z. Million, president of the Oklahoma Conservative Committee.
6. Letting the Side Down: Has everybody heard the one about the space program that didn't cost enough? The government wanted to shut it down. It would have, too, if there hadn't been a lot of TV and newspaper attention paid to pictures it took of the tTC under side of the moon.
7. Deviancy Defined Down at Yankee Stadium: At the New York Yankees' 1994 home opener, says Newsday, materials thrown between the stadium's upper deck and bleachers included pretzels, crushed cans, beer in cups and hot dogs, "not to mention vulgarity." A priest said he couldn't look toward home plate "because you wanted to anticipate the beer and mustard spray or the openly thrown missiles of all kinds."
A stadium official said, "It's not that unusual for a crowd of 56,000."
8. The Grievance Profession -- Father of Whining Dies: British playwright John Osborne died in December. He'd won an Academy Award for his screenplay of "Tom Jones" and Broadway's Tony Award in 1964 for his play "Luther."
His obit writers, however, remembered him, not surprisingly, as Britain's famously "angry young man," whose long kvetch of a play, "Look Back in Anger," marked a new age of British soreheads. The Washington Post obit said, "Grievance was virtually a life's work for Mr. Osborne." In short, he was a total pioneer of the modern age.
He was only a year older than Harold Pinter, who, it turns out, is still alive.
Russell Baker is a New York Times columnist.