I am a young brother from Toronto, Ontario. I need guidance and comfort of some kind. I need to know that I am not the only one who found this sad, cheap and incorrect. What happened is in my opinion untrue, misleading and harmful to the image of one of very few things in my life which I hold dear and think of something very pure.

Last week (Friday Dec 6th 2002) I watched re-runs of one of my favorite TV sit-coms: The NewsRadio on A&E channel. The show is easy to watch, doesn't require viewers to follow it religiously, characters are witty, plots simple... I like it (or should I say, I once did).

I was unpleasantly surprised by the plot of the episode which aired on Friday Dec 6th 2002 around 9:30am ET on A&E. The jest of the plot was: The owner of the radio station, Mr. James, purchased movie memorabilia form an unreliable source and wanted to sue since the merchandise turned out to be fake. As his legal council in Mr. James' case against the seller, who turns out to be a minor to make the matter funnier, appears the radio station's electrician--Joe. Why? Why would an electrician make a good legal council? Because Joe knows a certain secret and knows how to harness its power. Joe claims that all, or most, of judges are Masons and that there is a certain word which when spoken makes judges find in your favor, after which verdict judges must go off to a secret cave and paddle themselves with large paddles with letter "M" on them. At first Mr. James was skeptical and I had hoped that this would be the end of it, but when Mr. James insisted that Joe disclose the secret word, I was unpleasantly surprised to hear Joe speak out the word which many of us would find very familiar and which sounds a lot like: "true-bowl-cane". The show goes on, and we are laughing at the display of junk Mr. James had bought and is trying hard to present to a judge as evidence of con by the youngster, who is defending himself with calculations of a full fledged lawyer... The sentencing is upon us and the show is near its end and I am hoping that it will be objective and dismiss Joe's wild allegation and sure enough the judge is criticizing Mr. James for wasting courts time by listing all the evidence and having all this brought to court in the first place. And when the judge gives a mean look and asks Mr. James if he has anything else to add, Mr. James' "legal council", Joe, quickly leans over and whispers something to Mr. James who carries out loud: "TRUE-BOWL-CANE", to which to my surprise judge turns from disliking Mr. James to say that he finds in Mr. James' favor and convicts the boy to one year in juvenile detention. And while the boy is being dragged away by the court's clerk, and while Mr. James is shaking hands with Joe, while I am shaking my head in disgust, the judge is leaving the court room with a big red paddle with letter "M" inside a circle on its top.

Now, am I the only one who feels like asking why this was necessary?

Fraternally yours and just blowing some steam off,

B

Metropolitan Lodge No.542

Toronto, Ontario