The Miami News from Miami, Florida • 13

13A ie Miami NewssJ Li Jack Kassewitz Dear Abby Abby takes pot shots for advice to tattler Lawyer's affair shouldn't anger client's spouse Thought for today: Nothing is potent against love save impotence morada Chamber Is having Its Wednesday gathering at the Theater of the Sea, starting at 5 p.m. with a full show by trained dolphins. They'll also eat barbecue and meet the Monroe County Commissioners. Chamber president Ken Masters and vice prez Edison Archer host the event. The Chamber encompasses 114 businesses from lower Matecumbe to Ta vernier DEAR ABBY: At a long-time reader and admirer, I was shocked at your advice to the parents of the 12-year-old boy who, with his parents, had visited relatives In another city.

On returning home, he told his parents (In confidence) that his 15-year-old cousin had offered him some pot, but he refused. The parents Immediately phoned the cousin's parents to report it. Instead of being grateful for the infor Should a lawyer have sex with a female client while representing her In a divorce action? The Oregon State Bar Committee on Legal Ethics says "no" If child custody is involved or if the sexual relationship would sufficiently irritate the client's spouse. However, says the Oregon Bar, in cases where no chil-ren are Involved, or a default proceeding takes place, "it does not appear such conduct would necessarily NOW WE KNOW why Key West mayor Charles (Sonny) McCoy was making those long distance water-skiing treks. He wanted to be In condition to practice his art in leading the Guantanamo "invasion." These are the jokes in the Keys! Abby Kassewitz tired, and still a fashion plate In his dress.

(Well, in' Palm Beach, one does dress for dinner.) WITH A commemorative stamp, Bob Biel of Cordis Dow, reminds us that the U.S.Postal Service is issuing a complete series of stamps, envelopes, postal cards and aerogrammes for the 1980 Olympics. New York artist Robert Cunningham, who designed all of the items, was challenged to achieve racial and sexual balance in depicting competitors in 15 events. He had to maintain a balance between winter and summer events, and had to select events popular in countries other than the U.S. He appears to have skillfully reached some solutions, if the first stamp of a javelin thrower is any indication ALONG RESTAURANT ROW, the Prince Hamlet is the latest to open for lunch and Jorgen Moller also has his eyes on another Biscayne Boulevard restaurant The silly season is at hand. At least three press agents have advised that waiters and waitresses in their restaurants will be wearing Halloween costumes In the next few weeks.

That's might help mask the food in. some of 'em The Top Draw, a private club on the 79th Street Causeway, is going public Bon party-goers of the travel industry, gather Tuesday for a luau at the Marco Polo Hotel. Call Paul Isenbergh at 661-1809 for reservations How do you keep the longest running floor show in South Florida running? With hard work and Innovation, says Bob Thornton, owner of Mai-Kai in Fort Lauderdale. And he should: know. Cast of the Polynesian Revue working on new numbers for 23rd anniversary date in December HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Aaron Krieger, Bob Kuchen-berg, Milton Grusmark, Richard Renick, Brunelle Berthe Columnist John Keasler is on vacation affect the client's Interest or the attorney's judgment, and would not, per se, be unethical." One wonders, says lawyer Xavler L.

Suarez, who sent us this world-shaking bit of Information, whether the Oregonians expect this sort of ruling to improve the shaky image that lawyers already have Interesting observation MIAMI LAWYER John Aurell is credited in Tallahassee with giving a new look to Gov. Bob Graham's office, bringing a strong semblance of order to the chaos that has prevailed among the Capitol staff recently. Aurell Is acting as the Governor's legal counsel for six months. He's the son-in-law of former Gov. LeRoy Collins and has his family with him until January, when they'll return to their home on Hardee Road, Coral Gables.

The Aurells have been living in a Tallahassee home rented from Miami Herald reporter Bob Shaw, who's spending a year in study at Stanford. And, quipped one had to pull a lot of strings to get Shaw out of Tally that long" WHERE ELSE but in the Florida Keys can a Cham-, ber of Commerce have a general membership meeting where dolphins (the finny kind) can also vote? The Isla- RECORDING FOR THE BLIND urgently needs skilled readers of physics, chemistry, math, law and) computer languages. The organization provides free taped textbooks for hundreds of blind persons in Dade County. It's all voluntary and at no cost to taxpayers. The only unit in Florida is at 5801 SW 57th Ave.

(Red Road), where recordings are made in a studio setting to give the much-needed books a professional quality. So, if you're a good reader with equally good diction, call Penny Gardner at 666-0552 WHERE ARE the famous radio voices of yester-. year? Most of them are In South Florida. Handsome Tony Marvin, who announced for Arthur Godfrey from the Kenilworth Hotel, makes his home with his wife, of course in Boynton Beach and occasionally does a commercial Remember soft-voiced Andre Baruch and his wife, big band singer Bea Wayne? They've been doing a radio talk show in Palm Beach but are leaving soon for residence in California to be closer to their children Who could forget the frightening voice of Frank Gallup, he of the mystery shows on radio and Milton Berle's foil for years? Gallup lives also in Palm Beach, where he is re mation, they reacted angrily, saying their son had never smoked pot, and the younger boy must be lying. When the visiting parents asked if they were wrong to have called the other parents, you said yes.

(You also said, "Children should not betray their Abby, If the kids had stuck up a gas station, or shot someone, would you still have said, "Children should not betray their peers'? I Just can't believe you would advise parents not to tip off the parents of children who are breaking the law and doing harm to themselves. If I misunderstood your answer, please explain. DISAPPOINTED IN YOU DEAR DISAPPOINTED: You did, and I will. If you had read the letter carefully, you would have noticed that the boy said his cousin had offered him some pot. He admitted that he never actually saw his cousin smoke pot.

It was my feeling that the older boy was only talking big to impress his young cousin. Had he actually smoked pot in the boy's presence, it would have been a different story. No pot was in evidence, and none was smoked! I'm sorry I didn't make myself clear, and judging from the critical mail I received, I did not. Marijuana is still illegal, and those who break the law should be reported and dealt with accordingly. However, in this case, no law had been broken.

I should have said, "When no law Is broken, children should not betray their peers." And to have reported back to the parents with such flimsy evidence, thus creating a rift between the families, was uncalled for. Face to face Gas prices may hasten metric use Mirror, mirror LOUISE COOK Aiioclattd Prats William Safire The truth be known. Satire's a poor speller mm MliMIHM The United States is still crawling along the road to the metric system, but the soaring price of gasoline may speed up the switch. Authorities say it is easier and cheaper to convert fuel pumps to liters than to adjust them to register prices of more than $1 a gallon. Bill DeReuter, a spokesman tor tne u.s.

Metric r. Board, said a growing number of service station operators particularly independents are starting to sell Most of us are proud of two things we ought to be ashamed of: illegible handwriting and poor spelling. If our scrawl makes no sense, we assert defiantly, "Einstein had terrible handwriting" (he did not); when we are caught writing "minis-cule" or "embarassing," we congra-dulate ourselves as if busy writers have no time to be bothered with silly corrections to "minuscule," "embarrassing" and "congratula Safire 71 I YANKEE GO HOME Witnesseth gasoline by the liter. DeReuter said that $iuu million could be saved by converting to liters instead of changing price-recording mechanisms. It has been almost four years since the passage of the Metric Conversion Act, designed to encourage Americans to voluntarily adopt the measuring system used by most of the rest of the world.

Thus far, however, there have been few changes for the average consumer. The Metric Board itself did not get completely organized until last year; a proposal to convert road signs from miles to kilometers was abandoned because of negative comments. in a report late last year, the General Accounting Office said the alocholic beverage industry had done more to convert than anyone else. But the office also said: "Most wines and distilled spirits that were converted to metric sizes experienced unit price increases greater than those that did not convert." DeReuter said part of the Metric Board's job will be "making sure that consumer interests are He also said the board is not out to force people to go metric; that would be against the law. What the board 1 a a it HVRRY HVRRY does want to do, DeReuter said, is make sure that consumers understand the system when they are faced tions." Regular readers of this space ought to be burning with chagrin for flunking the Hidden Spelling Bee cleverly embedded in these lines a few weeks ago.

One test question identified a letter writer as a man working in the U.S. Embassy in Columbia. Gordon Bock, on the city desk of United Press International in New York, whose booming adjuration "Downhold mistakes!" sends shivers of inspiration through his colleagues, passed the test and wrote: "One question: Is Everett Briggs employed in the U.S. Mission in Columbia, S.C., or on the Columbia University campus?" The South American country is, of course, non-U: Colombia, with an Another test passer, Liane Gut-man of New York, wrote to explain: "There is no English spelling for Colombia. Chrlstobal Colon is the Spanish name for Christopher Columbus, and I assume the South American republic is named after him.

The reason for the change from 'n' to 'm' before 'b' i.e., Colombia and not Colonbia is a phonetic one." (Co-lonbia Is a vacation spot for ulcer sufferers.) Am I getting away with this spelling-bee charade? I think not. Nor is it advisable for me to try to shift the blame to copy editors who have been putting together an extensive file of embarassments (embarrassments?) from which they have saved me, for blackmail purposes. Nor is "transmission error" a good alibi: the fast fist who usually sends this copy from the Washington bureau of The New York Times is an orthographic superstar who would retaliate by sending my stuff out warts and all. The truth is that I have never been good at spelling, which most of my teachers and friends never knew, because they couldn't read my handwriting. But at least I'm not proud of either.

with it. He said the main push toward metrics right now is coming from multinational companies that want to be able to sell their products in the rest of the world. Gen- m. I 1 I I Do not bend, fold, P3K)DAH(L RODEO RSST PEACE YOU CORDIALLY era i motors, lur example, exyecis iu uc iicuuiuiiiaiiiiy metric within the next few years, DeReuter said. Supporters of the switch to metrics concede there has been strong public opposition to abandoning the traditional system of feet and inches, pounds and ounces.

But they also say that a lot of the ill will is due to unfamiliarity and a lack of understanding. To help educate the general public, the Metric Board has proposed spending more than half a million dollars for advertising, toll-free telephone information lines, pubications and research studies. The nonprofit American National Metric Council, including businesses and trade and technical organizations, also is trying to ease confusion. The council has prepared a Metric Consumer Information Kit, including a wallet-size conversion card and two pamphlets, "The Metric System Day-to-Day" and "A Metric Reference for Consumers." There is a $1.30 charge to cover postage and handling. It is available from: MCIK-ANMC, 1625 Massachusetts Ave.

N.W.. Washington, D.C., 20036. Enclose a self-addressed label with your order. Like our monetary system, the metric system is based on multiples of 10. The most common units of measurement are the gram, the liter and the meter.

Temperature is expressed in degrees Celsius; under the metric system, water freezes at zero degrees and boils at 100. The U.S. Metric Association, a volunteer, nonprofit group in Boulder, which has been promoting the use of the metric system for more than 50 years, says the easiest way to learn the new measurements is to forget the old ones. Don't try to convert back and forth. DON RUBIN Tli Real ipr type, designs in the right-hand column.

And vice versa. We'd like you to match them up, face to face, by drawing lines between the appropriate pairs. Remember, you have to match the items in two directions. Here, we'll start you off. "Hurry, Hurry" (in the chiseled typeface) should have been set in the carnival-like face "Dear Sir" (in the carnival-like typeface) should have been set in the typewriter-like face The answer is on 1 3A.

Every typeface has its own personality, its own nam, its own unique sat of well character traits. You wouldn't print an obituary in a cutesy "decorative" face any mora than you'd wear a clown'a outfit to a funeral. But maybe that's a bad example. Each of the massages (or type names) in the left-hand column should have been set in one of the "Feel like hell?" goes a snappy advertisement taken by Beverly Sills's New York City Opera. "Come see Faust." Ever since the Fall (not the season, but that of man, as reported In the Book of Genesis), writers and typesetters have puzzled over the capitalization of the underworld.

William F. Buckley always puts the first letter in uppercase: "It's a place, like New York Times Manual of Style and Usage almost completely disagrees: "As the nether-place name, it is lowercase, but Hades Is uppercase. As profanity and slang, hell is also lowercase." For the hell of It, the manual adds: "It is also best avoided as common and tiresome." When I write a stylebook, sometime after I learn to spell, here's I'll handle that nether-nether land: in alt secondar lowercase: hell's bells, what the hell, the hell with it, hell-raising, hellbent for election, come, hell or high water. But in all cases where the sense of place is clear and primary, I'll capitalize it like Scarsdale as deserving of a place name: You've made my life Hell. Hell hath no fury like a woman called a "girl." to hell," and "To hell with you," though they originally referred to Hell as a place, have lost that specific meaning.

"Damn it to Hell," though common and tiresome to some, is explicit enough with its reference to damnation to cause Hell to be treated as a place.) This la the evenhanded way. News you can use Preventing and dealing with fires in the home furniture. The National Bureau of Standards has found that the primary problem with upholstered furniture is cigaret ignition. Someone who is smoking drops a ciga-ret onto an item of upholstered furniture; it smolders, creating smoke and an atmosphere that is toxic and perhaps deadly for occupants. REACTING TO SMOKE Smoke contains many toxic gases that may be harmful.

Research at the National Bureau of Standards has found that carbon monoxide, the gas most frequently associated with fire deaths, will affect people mentally before it starts having a physical effect Bureau research has found that people make decisions that are not intelligent just fore they collapse, probably because the brain is deprived of oxygen and judgment is impaired. IN CASE OF FIRE Many people do not know what to do when they discover a fire in their homes. The National Bureau suggests that if the fire cannot be readily extinguished, for ettample with a glass of water, you should make sure there Is no one in the room, shut the door, get out of the house, and call the fire department from a neighbor's house. To give yourself and your family a head start, make sure that your house is equipped with smoke detectors and that they are working properly. THE IMPORTANCE OF SMOKE DETECTOR1 You don't expect your home to burn, but you should make preparations in case there is a fire.

A smoke detector gives you a relatively early warning when a fire is brewing, and either a photelectric or ionization type detector will do the job. But you shold make sure your, family has an evacuation plan and don't wait for a. fire to try it out. BEFORE BUILDINGS BURN You may feel that your home is more fire safe because it's built from brick, for instance. But people are threatened or die early in the fire, long before the building itself has a chance to become fully involved.

Furnishings in a home are an Important factor that may govern whether or not people will survive a fire. Smoke detectors can provide early warnings if your furnishings do catch fire. HOW MANY SMOKE DETECTORS? We probably all recognize the value of smoke detectors in our homes. But where should they be placed to be most effective? Smoke detectors ought to be on every story of your home. A fire is likely to be most dangerous when the occupants of a home are asleep, so the most critical detector is the one on the'floor where the bedrooms are.

The bureau also recommends that it be placed at the top of the wall or on the ceiling outside the bedrooms. Additional detectors should be placed in other locations, particularly the basement. Some advice from the National Bureau of Standards on how to prevent or deal with a fire in your home: TWO MINUTES UNTIL FLASHOVER A small fire can get out of hand more quickly than you And you don't want to be In the room when the fire; suddenly erupts into a phenomenon called "flashover." The National Bureau of Standards has been conducting research to improve our understanding of flashover in a typical room. You may have only two minutes from the time a fire begins from a dropped match or clga-. ret, a wastebasket fire, or a kitchen grease fire, for instance until the room Is entirely flashed over.

If the fire cannot be easily and quickly put out by one person, the bureau recommends leaving the house immediately and calling the fjre department from a neighbor's house. THE REAL KILLER Most fire victims do not die from burns. According to researchers at the bureau, inhalation of toxic gases Is the most common cause of fire fatalities. Carbon monoxide is the predominant killer and approximately 70 per cent of fire victims with elevated carbon monoxide levels have pre-existing cardiovascular disease. FLAMMABLE FURNITURE The single product most frequently linked wilh fire deaths in the United States may be right in you living room upholstered Six years ago, in my first appearance as a columnist, I vowed never to offend readers with any of the words then rampantly in vogue: relevant, meaningful, knowledgeable, hopefully, viable, input, exacerbate, dichotomy, and the ambivalent use as verbs of program, implement and structure.

Since then, I have adopted hopefully, because no other word better substitutes for the awkward "it is to be hoped that;" contrariwise, I am pleased that most academics have responded to general ridicule of the "relevant meanlngfuls." 1 remain of two minds about ambivalent. Viable, however, cannot be killed, of all the cliches of the 60s, this adjective alone seems capable of survival and growth. The root of the word is, of course "life," though the term is most often used in its nonscientific sense as a hot possiblity, or a good bet for success. Last month, In an article about the popularity of self-destruction, The (Toronto) Globe and Mail quoted a doctor In a usage that carries the still-voguish adjective to the point of parody. Said Dr.

Diane Syer, head of the crisis-Intervention unit at Toronto East General Hospital: "If someone is confronted with certain knowledge that he or she is going to die a painful, undignified death through terminal illness (sick), then suicide can be viable optionl".