RUST COMMENTARY: OVERRIDE MAY TURN ON ONE VOTE AGAIN; COULD IT BE HOWARD'S?

Jefferson City and the entire state are buzzing with talk about whether Gov. Mel Carnahan's veto of House Bill 427, The Infants Protection Act, will stand or be overridden next week during the Legislature's annual veto session. A visit this week from Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, formerly bishop of the Springfield-Cape Girardeau Roman Catholic diocese, is raising the stakes enormously. Cardinal Law is returning to Missouri to attempt to persuade lawmakers to override the governor.

Along with all Republican House members statewide, Republican state Sen. Peter Kinder will vote to override the governor's veto of HB 427. So will the only Independent in the House of Representatives, state Rep. Denny Meredith of Caruthersville. Recent news reports have added three Southeast Missouri House Democrats to the list of those who have told reporters they plan to vote to override this veto. They are state Reps. Phil Britt, D-Kennett; Marilyn Williams, D-Dexter; and Don Koller, D-Summersville. The latter two are among those whose firm position wasn't published until reported by our Poplar Bluff newspaper, the Daily American Republic, in a story by reporter Linda Redefer this past Sunday,

With these reports, one thing has become clear: Every state representative of all parties, from Ste. Genevieve County south to the Arkansas line and as far west at Shannon County in the Ozarks, has in recent days gone on record telling either the news media, the public or both that he or she plans to vote to override the Carnahan veto.

This leaves as one large question mark the position of a state senator from our part of the state. He is state Sen. Jerry Howard, D-Dexter. Two years ago, Howard voted for Senate Bill 275, the bill banning partial-birth abortion sponsored by Kinder and passed by the Legislature, before switching and voting to sustain the veto in September under pressure from Governor Carnahan. Kinder's override attempt failed by one vote. Calls by a reporter from the Southeast Missourian to Howard seeking information on his stand on HB 427 went unreturned last week.

By now, all the arguments on both sides have been published on this bill. The voters in each member's district deserve to know where their representatives and senators stand. Will they vote as they did just months ago to support the bill, or will they switch to prevent the veto override? This is an issue that may be decided by only one vote, as it was two years ago. Or if it looks as though the veto will be overridden, you may see many votes cast against the governor's position, as some members make a political decision rather than one based on principle.

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Small, but wired: Half of all small businesses have Internet access, and about 20 percent have their own Web sites, according to a survey for Bank One Corp., Chicago. It polled businesses with 10 or fewer employees and annual revenue ranging from below $50,000 to more than $1 million. The bank says businesses with fewer than 10 employees account for nearly 80 percent of all U.S. companies. -- The Wall Street Journal

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A habit of trust: The revelations last week about the FBI's handling of the Waco standoff with David Koresh and his followers are more evidence that a decline in public trust may be one of the worst legacies of the Clinton era. For years, the Clinton administration has battled with civil libertarians, liberal and conservative, over the expansion of wiretaps and other law enforcement measures designed, the government says, to get a better grip on terrorist and criminal activity. These measures carry inherent dangers to privacy and personal freedom. If the public is to accept these intrusions because terrorist threats are all-too-real, it must have complete confidence that government will not use such measures against innocent citizens and that any abuse of such measures will be checked and punished by the other branches of government.

The news that the FBI used incendiary tear gas canisters at Waco and had a video in its possession depicting the discussion among two special agents regarding the canisters is a trust shatterer of the first order. It follows on the heels of Filegate, the Clinton impeachment trial, and the Chinagate scandal. Every Administration has its encounter with scandal and policy failures, but so many of the Administration's scandals involve not just lack of truthfulness at the highest levels but lack of accountability for those involved. The U.S. marshals' seizure of the FBI videotape is meant to dramatize accountability. Appointment of an outside investigator will help (though the fate of such investigators in this administration is not a happy precedent). The bottom line is, it's late in the day for this Justice Department and White House to convince the public it has any taste at all for the truth.

Pornography boom: In 1992, adult video rentals and sales were $1.6 billion. Last year that number climbed to $4.1 billion. In its seven years in power, the Clinton administration has done nothing to enforce obscenity laws and combat the pornography industry. Now, when major studios are trimming the number of features they produce annually, adult video producers are stepping up production. The adult video industry is projected to release 10,000 new titles this year, up from 8,950 last year, prosecutions should strike little fear in the hearts of porn producers, but some say they worry about a return to the days of the Reagan-era anti-pornography commission. -- Washington Update

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Study: 6 percent are Web addicts: Almost 6 percent of Internet users suffer from some form of addiction to it, according to the largest study ever of such people.

"Marriages are being disrupted, kids are getting into trouble, people are committing illegal acts, people are spending too much money. As someone who treats patients, I see it," said David Greenfield, the therapist and researcher who did the study.

The findings, which were released Aug. 26 at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, appear likely to bolster the expanding acceptance of compulsive Internet use as a real psychological disorder.

Kimberly Young, a pioneer in the new field of research, said the latest study is so broad that it "adds a layer of legitimacy to the concern that Internet addiction is real."

However, the 6 percent figure is lower than some estimates of 10 percent or more stemming largely from research on college students.

Greenfield, who is a psychologist in West Hartford, Conn., carried out the study jointly with ABC News. He collected 17,251 responses to an Internet use questionnaire distributed and returned through the Web site ABCNEWS.com.

He adapted his questions from a widely used set of criteria for gambling addiction. For example, the questionnaires asked if participants had used the Internet to escape from their problems, tried unsuccessfully to cut back, or found themselves preoccupied with the Internet when they were no longer at the computer.

If participants answered "yes" to at least five of 10 such criteria, they are viewed as addicted. A total of 990 participants, or 5.7 percent, did answer "yes" to five or more questions. With an estimated 200 million Internet users worldwide, that would mean that 11.4 million are addicts.

The question about using the Internet as an escape yielded more "yes" answers than any other: 30 percent.

Greenfield's analysis of the data suggests that Internet users' feelings of intimacy, timelessness and lack of inhibition all contribute to the addictive force of the Internet.

"There's a power here that's different than anything we've dealt with before," said Greenfield.

Researchers did caution that, while one of the best estimates yet, the 6 percent figure is based on a group of people who use only one Web site, however broadly aimed. The questionnaire also followed ABC news coverage on Internet addiction, so relatively more compulsive users might have been drawn to the survey.

Researchers have said Internet addiction will ultimately be broken down into several categories, perhaps revolving around sex and relations, consumerism, gambling, stock trading, and obsessive Internet surfing for its own sake.

Therapists at the psychology meeting said they have successfully treated some Internet addicts, often with a mix of talking sessions and programs aimed more narrowly at reducing a sharply defined set of behaviors. -- Washington Post

~Gary Rust is president of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian and other newspapers.