By Jae-Ha Kim
Chicago Sun-Times
April 18, 2000
Once you get through reading about Elian Gonzalez, the Columbine anniversary and the effects of testosterone–available by prescription this summer as an easy-to-apply ointment–in this week’s Time, don’t forget to read the uplifting story about a Los Angeles schoolteacher who makes a difference.
For 14 years, Rafe Esquith has spent most of his salary (now $39,000) to buy his students extra books, videos, art and computer supplies and to help fund student trips. Teaching at a school where 92 percent of the kids are poor enough to quality for free lunch programs, the 45-year-old educator opens his classroom an hour early for optional math study, and stays late to teach Shakespeare and coach volleyball. He also tutors former students on Ibsen, Chekov, algebra and SAT preparation.
“Call me the `Education Equalizer,’ ” Esquith says in the article, noting that “middle-class kids get sports, music and extra tutoring, while poor children usually go home to TV and the temptations of the street.”
“Your baby is shaken to death. Your husband is convicted. Your nanny stands silent. And almost no one thinks justice was done.”
So begins an article titled “Every Mother’s Nightmare” in the May issue of Talk. Ten weeks after twins Alex and Derek Reiner were born in suburban Toldeo, Ohio, Alex died.
The coroner ruled the death a homicide: Someone had shaken his 8-pound body so hard “that his brain had ricocheted inside his skull, causing it to bleed, balloon and shut down. . . . The trauma had been so severe it must have been inflicted immediately before Alex stopped breathing. That left only one suspect in the eyes of the law: Matthew Reiner, Alex’s father, the last person with the baby before his collapse. Matthew was indicted, tried–and convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the fall of 1996.”
But instead of turning on him, his community supported him. And, as Abigail Pogrebin reports, evidence concludes that the twins had sustained significant injuries during the month preceding Alex’s death–which coincided with the arrival in the Reiner household of a new nanny, a young woman with a troubled past who was never questioned closely about the circumstances that led to the loss of Alex’s life.
Lest you think that the accusation was fueled by the aftermath of that nasty British nanny incident, the article presents the facts in a clear, logical sequence that makes you wonder why the authorities hadn’t investigated the case better.
Matthew’s conviction, overturned on appeal and under review by the Ohio Supreme Court, may soon be reassessed in a new trial–“forcing this sleeping Midwestern city of 318,000 to once again confront a nagging sense that the local justice system may have rushed to judgment, and let the one responsible for the infant’s death slip away.”
Enough already! Yes, we all agree that Jennifer Lopez has a great body. But must we continue to see her almost naked, in teen magazines no less? The May issue of Teen People features the sexy actress and, ahem, singer in a cleavage-revealing cover photo. Inside, there’s another photo of Lopez modeling that tacky, almost frontless Versace “gown” that attracted all the attention at the Grammys.
