Hot Line

The East Los Angeles Sexual Assault Program and the Bilingual AIDS Hotline are seeking bilingual volunteers to answer emergency calls. Separate training sessions will be held for the two hot lines over the next few weeks. The East Los Angeles Sexual Assault Program's 24-hour rape hot line, (800) 585-6231, founded in 1974, will hold eight training sessions, beginning Saturday, at the Huntington Park Recreation Center, 3401 E. Florence Ave. The sessions will meet on Tuesdays from 6 to 9 p.m.

Two Los Angeles school board members expressed reservations Thursday about a plan to reward students who turn in classmates who have weapons or drugs, or who are seen vandalizing campuses, saying they need more information on the proposed hot line.

Los Angeles County arts director Laura Zucker got her call-to-arms last week via fax machine. She then called Kristen Madsen, president of the California Assembly of Local Arts Agencies, to tell her about it--only to find that Madsen already had the same fax.

Three Ventura County school districts are considering adopting a telephone hot line that would reward students who anonymously turn in weapon-carrying classmates. Officials with the Oxnard Elementary and Moorpark Unified school districts said they hope to have the Weapon Watch program--an offshoot of the countywide Crime Stoppers system--operating as early as February. Conejo Valley Unified School District officials also are considering the program, said Sheriff's Sgt. Kitty Hoberg.

When Ventura County bookstore manager Alex Roe died more than two years ago from pneumonia, the legal machinery that acts as a restraint on medical malpractice in California began rolling. The family won almost $2 million in a lawsuit last year, alleging that two physicians had misdiagnosed Roe as having a routine case of chickenpox.

The nameplate for the apartment in Midtown Manhattan's flower district reads simply "Apology." Inside, a bank of answering machines in a back room beep and click regularly, recording sad, anonymous stories and dark, painful secrets. Most callers apologize for crimes against humanity, large and small. But they also can listen to a taped recording of other people's transgressions and comment if they like.

The Boys Town of Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney, the Boys Town that offered haven to dirty-faced street urchins caught up in minor mischief--this Boys Town does not exist. But yes, Newt Gingrich, there is a Boys Town. Today, Father Flanagan's dream has grown into a sprawling complex where the dormitories and mess halls have been replaced by 76 family homes for girls as well as boys. A national hot line, research hospital and parenting classes also are part of Boys Town.

First it was the innuendo, the chiding, the degrading remarks. Then came the threats, and finally, physical violence. "He grabbed me by the arms and threw me through a sliding glass door," said Maria St. John, recalling the March incident that led to her husband's sixth misdemeanor conviction for spousal abuse--six weeks after getting out of jail for one of the convictions. "I didn't know what to do or where to go. . . . He hurt me many times before I called the police," said St.

Millions of people out there carry the private shame of the grammatically challenged. Short-shrifted by their public schools, or simply baffled by their mother tongue, they suffer the torment and sometimes public embarrassment of poor spelling, bad grammar and awful punctuation.