A prep course for the month-long World Cup soccer tournament, a worldwide pheno

graphy , that generation of American kids sealed themselves inside an impenetrab

le play world where war was a dreamy reality at best and death was an abstractio

n . There was no television to speak of during World War II and the immediate po

st-war years . No slaughters in Los Angeles , Bosnia , Haiti , Sudan , Gaza or R

wanda that anyone could see , no nightly pictures of rotted , fly-buzzed corpses

 baking in the sun . No wretched victims dying right there on the screen , nothi

ng on a mass scale that could convey to the very young just how gory and grim wa

r was . That wouldn't happen until Vietnam . `` Real war is never like paper war

 , '' Ernest Hemingway wrote , `` nor do accounts of it read much the way it loo

ks . '' To many kids of that era , it looked this way : Bang-bang , you 're aliv

e . I remember playing lots of baseball with my friends as a kid in Kansas City 

, Mo. . Just as vivid are my memories of having fun playing guns . For us , only

 one thing could compare to the crack of a bat hitting a ball , and that was the

 crack of gunfire , at least as we innocently imagined it . We provided our own 

sound effects , even our own danger ( dum-de-dum-de-dum-de-dum ) music . There w

as something very romantic about the fantasy of both shooting someone and preten

ding to get gunned down yourself , grunting and clutching your chest in mock ago

ny while keeling over , then getting back up and starting the game again . To us

 , war was a game , an exercise in heroism minus real casualties . Some things s

tay in your head . One afternoon in the winter of 1949 , my neighbor Jody Aldric

h and I returned from the Fiesta Theater excited and energized after watching a 

Saturday matinee of `` Battleground , '' a movie about Americans fighting and dy

ing in the Battle of the Bulge . Hearts pounding , we tore into our houses and i

n only a few minutes were back outside with our plastic guns ( I think mine was 

a Thompson 's submachine gun ) , brown infantry helmets and other soldier gear ,

 re-fighting World War II in the snow . Being two years older than I , Jody pull

ed rank and , as a result , I got killed probably a dozen times that afternoon ,

 hitting the white ground so often that my clothes took on a glacial rigidity . 

What fun . It all came back to me while watching `` Turning Point . '' I contras

ted my childhood war games with the recollections of Normandy survivors , their 

voices at times cracking with emotion after all these years . `` I curled up as 

small as I could . '' `` Twenty or 30 G.I.s who had gotten up ran smack into a s

hell . '' `` They were just mowed down . '' `` Men were getting hit , you know ,

 drowning . '' `` His eyeballs .. . were hanging down . '' Reuniting America wit

h its dead sons , the 90-minute program ended with an overview of white crosses 

at Normandy 's military cemetery , where so many soldiers are buried beneath a b

it of the ground they fought to free . During `` The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour '' 

on PBS Tuesday , artist and Normandy survivor Tracy Sugerman asserted that the m

emory of what happened there will be `` dusty and meaningless '' to today 's chi

ldren and future generations . A disturbing thought . Yet sadly , he 's right , 

and it 's something that cannot be changed by all the history lessons in the wor

ld . Time is too great a barrier to overcome , rendering us all uncaring amnesia

cs when it comes to the major crises experienced by our predecessors . Thus , a 

lot of people are probably tiring of this history lesson that is now preoccupyin

g so much television , even though it memorializes a seminal event of a war that

 changed the 20th century . It must seem as abstract to them as it was to war-pl

aying kids in 1949 , especially compared to the contemporary violence that inter

sects their lives nightly via their favorite newscast . On CNN Thursday came thi

s report from Rwanda : `` We saw nine bodies . When we got closer , we could see

 five were alive , barely alive . Then we witnessed a government soldier shootin

g one . '' In the 1990s , business as usual . Unfortunately , it 's hard for man

y to get worked up over Normandy when there 's so much in the present that compe

tes for our attention and fear , as television relentlessly reminds us of today 

's killing fields both abroad and in the United States , where even children no 

longer the innocents of yesteryear have access to firearms . And instead of toys

 , these guns are real . Bang-bang , you 're dead .

 It was almost a year ago that five male livery cab drivers in suburban New York

 accused a male police officer of rape , and for most of that year local reporte

rs , usually gluttons for sex and sensation , didn't write a word . Now , when t

hey do mention the charges , many employ adjectives like `` outlandish '' and ``

 bizarre , '' as though the very idea of male rape by a law officer is almost be

yond belief . So it may come as a surprise that at least one highly regarded ant

i-rape organization estimates that the rape of men is as common as the rape of w

omen in our society , and that law enforcement officials frequently play at leas

t a peripheral role . I 'm referring to male rape in prison , which claims about

 290,000 victims a year , according to the group Stop Prisoner Rape . By compari

son , the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice estimat

es that 150,000 females are raped annually . True , some independent experts con

sider SPR 's 290,000 estimate which does not include consensual sex in prison so

mething of an overcount , and some anti-rape activists consider the BJS ' 150,00

0 figure something of an undercount , but that still leaves the figures for male

 and female rape in roughly the same ballpark . ( For the record , anti-rape act

ivists distinguish male rape from homosexual rape : Whether in prison or out , m

ale rapists are seldom gay . ) Why , then , do we hear so little about male rape

 ? For one thing , SPR president Stephen Donaldson says , victims of male rape a

re rarely middle-class types with easy access to the media , and even if they we

re , the stigma attached to male rape dissuades most victims from complaining . 

For another , there is a widespread sentiment in this lock-'em-up society that v

iolent criminals who get raped are getting just what they deserve . The irony , 

says Donaldson , is that the victims are generally the least violent inmates . B

ut perhaps the most problematic aspect of prisoner rape is the tacit acquiescenc

e of many law officers . It 's one thing for some violent male criminals , locke

d away for years , to attempt rape as a vehicle for social domination , sexual r

elease or both . It 's quite another for law enforcement personnel to wink at th

e problem . Or worse , contribute to it . Yet , says Donaldson , prison authorit

ies generally deny that rape exists in their institutions , take few steps to pr

event it , and sometimes even set it up . Donaldson himself , a Quaker pacifist 

arrested during an anti-war demonstration in 1973 , says a guard placed him amid

 violent criminals as punishment . He was raped more than 40 times his first nig

ht in the cellblock . As to the rape of prisoners by guards themselves , Donalds

on says , `` It is not as common as assaults by prisoners , but more common than

 most people realize . '' Yet we virtually never hear about it , which is hardly

 surprising . `` Where it 's a prisoner 's word against a guard 's , nobody 's g

oing to take the prisoner seriously . '' His group advises those who have been s

exually assaulted by guards to `` band together and show a whole pattern of abus

e , on the assumption that a guard who gets away with raping one prisoner is lik

ely to be doing it to others . '' That sounds logical . Demonstrating a pattern 

of rape by a law officer should be more convincing than a single accusation . Bu

t it doesn't seem to have convinced law enforcement officials in the Rockaways ,

 where five civilians have charged that that a cop raped them , four others clai

m to have witnessed one of the rapes , and yet there is no indictment . I don't 

know what , if anything , happened in the New York incident , and neither does D

onaldson , but he isn't surprised at the reaction to the charges . `` On the con

trary , '' he says , `` what I find incredible is the notion that a bunch of wor

king-class guys would invent a story in which they would popularly be considered

 to have lost their manhood . In that sense , it 's far more incredible to think

 that this didn't happen than to think that it did . '' Provided , of course , o

ne acknowledges that male rape happens regularly in our society , and often unde

r the watchful eye of the law .

 Utopian writer Edward Bellamy put it this way : `` If bread is the first necess

ity of life , recreation is a close second . '' That was a century ago . Since t

hen , through the cycle of the Industrial Revolution with all its gilded promise

s of machines to save us time and work , Americans remain uneasy with play . We 

yearn for it , fret about it and throw our money in quest of it . But we don't r

egard it seriously . `` It 's a very contradictory part of America , '' says Joh

n R. Kelly , professor of sociology and leisure studies at the University of Ill

inois . `` There is increased emphasis in people 's lives on what we call leisur

e . Still , in the social ideology is the concept that if something is not produ

ctive , it 's not important . '' Now the nation crosses the threshold of a new I

nformation and Technology Revolution . And it appears Americans once again are b

eguiled by the promise of machines . These new electronic devices will make us s

marter , bring to our fingertips the wonders of the world and worlds beyond , en

tertain us and delight us . If you follow the breathless promotions closely , yo

u might even arrive at a neo-utopian vision wherein technology can erase the dis

tinction between work and play , so we willn't have to feel guilty about leisure

 any more . One machine will do it all we will earn our livelihoods from it , pl

ay on it , learn , organize ourselves , establish friendships , let it entertain

 us , and have the unheard of mobility to do all of this while we roam the count

ryside on our own schedules . Finally , we will be in charge of our lives . Not 

buying this promise are some of those who study leisure as a necessary component

 to human balance and satisfaction . These thinkers offer at least two contrasti

ng expressions of skepticism about tomorrow 's technology . Kelly subscribes to 

the `` big mirage theory . '' That is , technology is evolutionary and not revol

utionary ; it may alter how we do things , but not what we do . `` Vastly overbl

own , '' Kelly says about foretold changes in American life . The huge costs of 

technology , its inherent complexity and longstanding patterns of cultural behav

ior will naturally , and significantly , modulate the process of social transfor

mation . `` Technology doesn't change things very much in the small worlds in wh

ich people live . Most people still live in families , they eat dinner , go on v

acation . Change will have to fit in with that , '' he says . So , a 12-year-old

 obsessively playing with dolls or toy soldiers in 1950 is not so much different

 from today 's youngsters fixated on their beeping Game Boys . A more disturbing

 view comes from other scholars . As they see it , technology is rapidly separat

ing us from the natural world , blurring the distinctions between what is real a

nd what is not , substituting vicarious stimulation for actual experience , and 

giving us no leisure relief from the relentless acceleration of time . The bally

hooed coming of virtual reality is particularly unsettling to these experts . As

 envisioned , these machines will simulate places and experiences without requir

ing physical effort or skill , for instance deep sea diving without getting wet 

. `` Our definition of mental illness and sanity is the ability to distinguish b

etween what is real and what is not , '' says Geoffrey Godby , professor of leis

ure studies at Penn State . `` People already are yearning for what is real . Wh

y else would a highly sugared nut beverage be marketed as ` the real thing ? ' .

. . Leisure is giving oneself to an act , not taking something from it . And tec

hnology is no friend of that . '' ( Optional add end ) At California State Unive

rsity , Northridge , Al Wright , professor of leisure studies , says he is stagg

ered , overwhelmed and depressed at how little students know of the real world a

round them . For example , urban youth have seen so many images of rivers that r

eal rivers hold no mystery . `` Then I take them out to a river , and they say ,

 ` Oh my gosh , I didn't know this is what a river sounds like. ' ' ' Wright fea

rs that Americans will accept simulated experience and never know what they are 

missing . `` And it willn't result in the same benefit , '' he adds . Virtually 

all experts in the field say Americans undervalue leisure even in the face of ov

erwhelming data that show that well-rounded individuals live longer and happier 

. Rather than trying to intermingle work and play , these scholars say Americans

 need more thoughtful emphasis on leisure apart from toil . How important is it 

? `` I 'll answer that with a question , '' says Brett Wright , a professor of r

ecreation at George Mason University . `` How important is it to sleep ? To eat 

? To breath ? We can't continue to rob ourselves of it . We can't sustain our li

ves without it . Psychologically , we 're beginning to reach that point . '' Per

haps the most important ingredient of leisure is the release from the pressure o

f time . And in this regard , even the most enthusiastic futurists offer little 

consolation . Rather than measure time by the seasons as their ancestors did , A

mericans now rush to upgrade their IBM 286 computers for the marginally faster 4

86 , compressing time into ever quickening bursts . This , despite their lament 

, expressed in poll after poll , that society is too fast-paced already . Says G

odby : `` Efficiency is the most important value in American life . We are becom

ing ever more efficient , at the resultant death of tranquillity . Whatever happ

ened to tranquillity anyway ? ''

 It would probably be overstating things to suggest that revenge was the main th

ing John Lydon had in mind when he wrote his memoir of the Sex Pistols but not b

y much . After all , the Sex Pistols ' saga has been hashed over from every imag

inable angle . There have been music histories , such as Jon Savage 's award-win

ning `` England 's Dreaming , '' cultural analyses along the lines of Greil Marc

us ' wide-ranging and impenetrable `` Lipstick Traces , '' even a few films , li

ke Alex Cox 's `` Sid & Nancy . '' But none of them , in Lydon 's view , came cl

ose to getting the story straight . `` It 's terrible that my own life has been 

taken away from me in that respect , and re-written for me , without me supposed

 to have a word to say about it , '' he says , over the phone from Los Angeles .

 So Lydon ( or Johnny Rotten ) decided to do something about it , and wrote his 

own book : `` Rotten : No Irish , No Blacks , No Dogs , '' a 329-page memoir tha

t traces his path from the slums of London to the height of pop culture infamy .

 It 's a fascinating book , and not just because it tells about the original Sid

 Vicious ( a `` soppy white hamster that used to live in a cage on the corner ta

ble in my parents ' living room '' ) or what Lydon 's audition with the Sex Pist

ols was like ( `` No , I will not mime to ` Maggie May ''' ) . What Lydon offers

 is a warts-and-all view of what was then the world 's most-feared rock band , o

ne that balances his own recollections with sometimes contradictory comments fro

m others who were part of that scene . It 's not the most flattering way to asse

mble an autobiography , but then , Lydon wasn't interested in feeding the Sex Pi

stols myth . `` People seem to thrive on fantasy , '' he complains . `` It 's a 

shame , because I think the truth is far more interesting and certainly more use

ful . Reality at least you can learn something from . '' That 's not to say Lydo

n 's memories aren't occasionally shaded to his own benefit . Just ask Pretender

s frontwoman Chrissie Hynde , who knew Lydon even before the Sex Pistols started

 to pop . Hynde is apparently miffed about an interview Lydon did with the Engli

sh music magazine Q , in which he dismisses the story that he was once to have m

arried Hynde so she could have stayed in England . `` He says , ` Oh , I wouldn'

t have married Chrissie Hynde , that would have been a lifelong commitment , '' 

' she huffs . `` Which was the last thing any of us was thinking about at the ti

me . `` He never mentions in his book that he got married to a woman who was a m

ulti-millionaire , and who was just about to inherit a great deal of money . He 

doesn't really talk about a lot of the stuff that I could have talked about ! Bu

t he turns around and trashes me the minute the book comes out . `` I still love

 him , '' she adds . `` I mean , we all know he 's a back-stabber . Everyone kno

ws that . '' He 's also more than happy to own up to contradictions like that on

e . `` Rotten , '' to its credit , does include a lengthy interview segment in w

hich Hynde gives her side of the muddled matrimony story as well as similar bits

 drawing upon the memories of scenesters like Billy Idol , Julien Temple and Mac

ro Pirroni , plus fellow Pistols Paul Cook and Steve Jones . Why the interviews 

? `` As the book slowly but surely started to come together , I wanted to introd

uce other voices , '' Lydon explains . `` And have you ever tried interviewing y

our own father ? Well , it doesn't work . So I got Keith and Kent ( Zimmerman ) 

in to help me on things like that . Because it became impossible for me to do it

 any more on my own . '' Lydon insists that , by writing `` Rotten , '' he can f

inally put the whole Sex Pistols era behind him . On the one hand , it 's easy t

o believe him when he says there will never be a Sex Pistols reunion ( he 's too

 happy with his own music , particularly the solo album he 's working on ) ; on 

the other hand , it 's hard to imagine him passing up the opportunity to wax sar

castic on his old band 's legacy . Take , for example , the Sex Pistols ' impact

 on today 's bands : `` I 'm sure there are some who genuinely do appreciate us 

for what we were , '' he says . `` But I 'm mystified as to what element they ge

t from it . They can imitate the music , but that 's where they stop . They don'

t seem to be dealing with serious problems . They shy away from them , in fact .

 I find that rather sad . ''

 Six days before he was shot while delivering a speech at the University of Cali

fornia , Riverside , Khallid Muhammad , the former national spokesman for the Na

tion of Islam , appeared in a pre-taped session of the `` Donahue '' show . Anyo

ne who saw the show May 23 would not have been surprised by the events of May 29

 . During the show Muhammad expressed love for Colin Ferguson , the man accused 

of killing whites and Asians on a commuter train in New York . In an analogy dra

wn by those who hover perilously close to the lunatic fringe , he confided that 

he loved Colin Ferguson just as white America loved its killers Generals Schwarz

kopf , Westmoreland , Patton , MacArthur and Eisenhower . So suspect No. 1 in th

e shooting might have been some neo-Nazi or skinhead type who took Muhammad at h

is word that white America and black America are in a shooting war in which sold

iers from each side are expected to go out and gun down unarmed civilians . It w

ould be unlike Muhammad to go an entire hour without hurling some bit of invecti

ve against Jews . And so he did . Phil Donahue played a segment of a Muhammad sp

eech in which he referred to the `` hook-nosed , bagel-eatin ' , lox-eatin ' , i

mposter-perpetrating-a-fraud , johnny-come-lately , just-crawled-out-of-the-cave

s-and-hills-of-Europe wanna-be Jew ... '' Since Muhammad repeated the phrase at 

Cal-Riverside in his Sunday speech , we can only assume it must be one of his fa

vorites . So suspect No. 2 might have been some member of the Jewish Defense Lea

gue whipped into a state of high dudgeon after hearing the insult one too many t

imes . Folks on the lunatic fringe , you see , often have a fatal attraction for

 one another . Thus it came as no surprise that the suspect in the Muhammad shoo

ting turned out to be a former Nation of Islam minister one James Edward Best . 

Violence in the Nation of Islam is nothing new . When I mentioned that obvious a

nd well-documented fact in an opinion piece a while back , some folks in the Nat

ion of Islam pretended not to know what I was talking about . One wrote to me fr

om Dayton , Ohio . Dr. Waheed S. Al- ' Araby took issue with my assertion that a

 hit squad from the Newark , N.J. , mosque of the Nation of Islam assassinated M

alcolm X in Harlem 's Audubon Ballroom Feb. 21 , 1965 . `` I challenge Kane to p

roduce any evidence to support this one more deranged innuendo , '' Dr. Al- ' Ar

aby sneered . I don't need any evidence . I 've got something even better a conf

ession from the only man arrested at the scene of the crime and convicted for it

 . Talmadge Hayer 's confession has been on record for some time now . I urge me

mbers of the Nation of Islam to give it a careful reading . But the Malcolm X as

sassination is only the most famous example of factional violence spawned by dis

putes within the Nation of Islam . Others are : The beating of Aubrey Barnette ,

 the secretary of the Boston mosque in 1964 . Barnette left the Nation of Islam 

at about the same time as Malcolm X . ( Louis Farrakhan then Louis X of the Bost

on mosque called Barnette a `` bourgeois Negro '' for asserting his independence

 . ) Barnette wrote an expose for the Saturday Evening Post that same year descr