which may be of interest to Royal Gazette readers: Los Angeles Times, on moviemakers and copycat crimes: For 15 years or more, crime victims and their families have brought lawsuits seeking to hold filmmakers or television networks liable for copycat crimes -- acts of violence possibly inspired by violence on the screen. Each of those lawsuits ultimately failed, and for good reason. The First Amendment's guarantee of free speech is properly broad, and the Supreme Court has permitted restrictions only when speech is intended to incite or produce lawless action.

So it is disappointing that the court ruled Monday that a lawsuit against director Oliver Stone for his film "Natural Born Killers'' can go forward.

Stone, Time Warner and others involved in making the 1994 movie were sued by the relatives of Patsy Byers, a convenience store clerk in rural Louisiana who was shot and seriously wounded in March 1995. She died later of cancer.

Testimony at trial brought out that the shooter and her accomplice had watched a videotape of Stone's movie time and again before shooting Byers. They subsequently committed a killing and were convicted.

Stone, personally provocative, is surely a tempting target. His movies, including "Platoon'' and "Natural Born Killers'' are unabashed in their depiction of bloody, senseless violence. But to hold him and those associated with him legally responsible for the acts that others commit makes about as much sense as excusing a murder defendant on the ground that his mental capacity was diminished because he ate too many Twinkies.

The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, on Monica Lewinsky: The impeachment trial ended the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal as a legal and constitutional issue, but the sense of absurdity lingers. That, perhaps, is why tens of millions of Americans tuned in Wednesday evening to watch the president's ex-girlfriend telling all to Barbara Walters.

It was quite a spectacle. Monica Lewinsky, was by turns telegenic and weepy, apologetic and self-justifying. But beyond all that, she was a clear product of the 1990s.

In fact, if Ms Lewinsky hadn't talked so much about her parents, you might have thought she had sprung spontaneously from the silliest, undercurrents of today's popular culture.

Having shown her undergarment to the leader of the free world and described the gesture three years later as "small'' and "subtle'', Ms Lewinsky might still need a reality check.

Still, Ms Lewinsky seemed clued-in enough to recognise the preposterousness of her own situation.

All the elements of 1990s self-absorption were there: self-exploration, self-revelation and self-deprecating humor. Ms Lewinsky's underlying message Wednesday night was, "Isn't everyone fascinated by me?'' And, embarrassingly enough, we are.

The News-Journal of Daytona Beach, Florida, on land mines: As delegations from 133 nations gathered last week in Geneva to celebrate the inaugural of the international treaty to ban land mines, word arrived that two children were killed and six others seriously wounded when a land mine exploded in northern Rwanda.

Conspicuously absent from the Geneva ceremony was a delegation from the United States.