Harvard mathematician to blame for juvenile depravity

Keep a short look at him, for that's the scoundrel, there. At least according to the writer of this letter to the Irish Examiner.

YOUR report headlined ‘Gang feeds cats to killer dogs’ (October 16) is a serious indication of how low we have gone in this country.

The behaviour of those youngsters in Cobh, Co Cork, who threw cats to dogs to be savaged alive, was nothing less than sadistic.

Yes, but clearly it's enough to argue that kids are predisposed to be little shits. Someone else must be to blame. But who? Society? Capitalism? The Catholic Church? British colonial rule?

Nope. Tom Lehrer.

Soon after I read Séan O’Riordan’s report about the appalling treatment of the cats, I became aware of the inclusion of a so-called poem entitled ‘Poisoning Pigeons in The Park’ in the English curriculum for secondary schools.

Oh, that Tom Lehrer. It might seem like witty, musically adept satire to you. But to the kids on the streets its deadly serious stuff.

Children are being corrupted by such material and there is no doubt that what is being taught in the classrooms is now being acted out on the streets.

I'm just surprised, and not a little disappointed that this moral crusader did not, in the interests of the children point out that, contrary to Mr Lehrer's assertions that it's not against any religion to want to dispose of a pigeon, Hinduism takes a very dim view of that sort of thing.

I just hope that no one ever tells Michael Sheehan of Ballyarra, Co Cork about Leherer's National Brotherhood Week. "Oh the black folk, hate the white folk." God only knows what it would do to race relations in Ireland.