The Star-Mangled Banner

Editor: Now that the baseball season has started, foes of our national anthem will resumed their bombardment against it.

The fact is, however, that the only thing bad about "The Star-Spangled Banner" is the singers or musical groups who mutilate it with their own interpretations.

A fine example is the recording used at the Laurel and Pimlico Race Tracks. This rendition is so dragged out that it resembles a dirge or requiem.

There are countless excellent recordings of the anthem. It shouldn't take a musical scholar to select one.

W. K. Lester.

Round Bay.

Bentley-Bashing

Editor: Harris Factor's letter, April 17, rambles on against Representative Helen Bentley and displays ignorance of some facts.

When Mrs. Bentley was smashing a Toshiba radio with a sledge hammer, she was calling the public's attention to the fact that Toshiba had given some of our top secret defense technology to the Soviet Union.

She has continuously objected to our government's handing over to the Japanese technology that was developed at U.S. taxpayers' expense and used by the Japanese against our economy and defense.

Mr. Factor stated that Mrs. Bentley is "saying and doing whatever will 'play' in her district." As a member of Congress she is supposed to represent her constituents and I, as one of them, hope she will continue to do so.

Representative Bentley was criticized for wanting someone to bump Saddam Hussein off. Why not? He is an enemy commander and his being out of the picture would obviously save many lives, mostly Iraqi ones.

Joseph W. Doughney.

Parkville.

Poor in America

Editor: In response to the observations about poor people in Chris Ferro's April 22 letter, "Capitalist Nature," I offer the following clarifications:

Poor people do not make themselves poor. Census data reveal that most poor people are rural white children, the working poor, elderly black women and disabled persons. These Americans did not choose either the capitalist system or their place in it.

To deny them medical care because of a notion that they made themselves poor would be to deny our constitutional imperative, defy our religious heritage and decry our claim to be a humanitarian nation.

Most poor people in this country did not get that way by dropping out of school, spending all their money on instant gratification or having kids that they can't afford. Many have few educational or training opportunities, work hard for the little money they earn, make do on meager Social Security and have few options about instant versus deferred gratification.

With the rising cost of everything, growing unemployment and underemployment and the disappearance of entire crafts, jobs and industries from technological change, poor families more than ever live and die on a tightrope of survival with little or no medical insurance.

Medical care is a right, not a special privilege. It can be cost-effective. Presently, for every dime we niggardly save on preventive health we spend thousands on niggardly social support systems that perpetuate themselves.

To her shame, America, as rich as we are, is the only First World country that makes no provision for the medical care of its neediest. Our infant mortality ranks among those of developing nations. Our treatment of the mentally ill is a national disgrace on our city streets. The mistreatment of our aging parents, many of whom choose suicide over their medical care options, is a dismal reflection of our capitalist greed.

It is true that in nature an animal too weak or stupid to survive dies. Hopefully policy-makers deciding who shall live or die in America have compassion on children, the elderly, the disabled and, yes, even the retarded or "stupid" free-loaders from mental institutions.

Hopefully they remember that "weeding out people" is dangerous business. Who chooses? A master race? I thank God that the Constitution protects the weak or stupid, helpless children, the elderly, disabled and the growing numbers of homeless poor on city streets.

The capitalist system is flawed. Let's fix it.

Grady Dale, Jr.

Baltimore.

Rinse a Can

Editor: Nobody is asking me to recycle. Born of a desire to help to preserve the environment and stabilize the ecology, it is no great problem to rinse a can as soon as it is empty and leave it in the dish rack to drip dry.

Bottles with glued lables that require soaking are, I admit, an irritation, but one I take in stride. Visits to the recycling center are simply scheduled to coincide with a trip to the hardware store . . .

However, we recently received a grim announcement -- the MTA parking lot recycling center at Northern Parkway and Wabash Avenue was being closed without any prior notice.

The Poly/Western High School lot recycling site, closed six months ago, was a convenient and very popular site. When it closed, I, like many others, traveled a little out of my way to the MTA site. Now I will be forced to travel a greater distance, affording a certain inconvenience, while using more gasoline and expelling more exhaust into the air.

I wonder how many people will revert to throwing everything away, thinking it all to much of a bother.

Mary Wolfe.

Baltimore.

Rethink

Editor: Your editorial, "Peyton Place on the Potomac" at first seems like an accurate analysis of the Exterminator of the Elite -- Kitty Kelley. As you point out, most of the "factual" statements of the book were already known to the public.

In the same edition (opposite page) George Will attacks Ms. Kelley's style of writing and reporting. Both of you make excellent points of how the book needs to be evaluated by the discerning consumer. However, your conclusion, shows that you (and other newspapers who are slaves to market place newsmaking) are part of the problem, not the solution.

You conclude that the Reagans were so honest as to be "hypocrite enough to pay lip service to long-neglected values -- love of family, self reliance and integrity." You go on to offer the Democratic Party the advice to learn from this is that they adopt the attitude that image and not substance is what is important in this culture. Indeed, a valuable moral (or at least value-laden) position to take!

In other words, if the Democrats don't learn to convincingly distort the image of their presidential candidates, so that the American people will be fooled, then they will not win the presidency.

Methinks you need to rethink your position.

Cornelius J. Feehley.

Towson.

Sullivan's Smoking Ban

Editor: Louis Sullivan, secretary of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, wishes to make our work place free of health hazards through the total elimination of smoking.

I suggest a few other issues for his bandwagon. One is the banishment of rude, obnoxious and self-righteous people from all federal, state and local office buildings and from private work places.

These radical types spend more time demanding the reform of others than they do performing the job at hand. In turn, the recipients of their babbling suffer increased stress and decreased job performance since they have to sit there and listen to their jaberwocky.

As Dr. Sullivan surely knows, stress is a large factor in many health-related issues, including the number one killer, heart attacks. Just think of the thousands of lives that would be saved by eliminating these radical do-gooders from the work place.

Job performance would dramatically increase. American companies would become more competitive in the global marketplace. Workers would be relieved of the pressures of trying to be polite to these radical types. This could be the start of something big!

After the successful elimination of the radical element from our society, you should then force the destruction of all fossil fuel burning equipment. Of course the implementation of this plan would have to be phased in over a period of time since there are so many of these stinking, dirty machines.

Outlawing motor vehicles is a good place to start. Here you could set up a social program that would be in charge of issuing bicycles to every man, woman and child. Hundreds of thousands of jobs would be created in the bicycle manufacturing field, not to mention the service-oriented companies needed to support our new way of life.

This venture would dramatically clean our air of unnecessary pollutants, making our world an even safer place to live. Just think, no more greenhouse effect and global warning.

Dr. Sullivan wishes to achieve a smoke-free society by the year 2000.

Since tobacco products are heavily taxed on the federal and state levels, there will be the need to eliminate a few social agencies due to decreased revenues. Might I suggest the Department of Health and Human Services? Its job is now complete and its funding will no longer be necessary.

Jake Holmes.

Denton.

____________

Editor: Following Dr. Sullivan's brave call to ban smoking in government buildings, it is now time for Marylanders to join in the battle.

Tobacco is the leading cause of cancer and cancer-related deaths. This year in Maryland, we will see 3,200 new cases of lung cancer alone. Only one out of six of these unfortunate victims will be alive in three years.

The leading cause of death for all ages is heart disease, followed by cancer, cerebrovascular disease and chronic lung disease. All of these can either be caused or exacerbated by tobacco.

We need not content ourselves with expressions of mutual frustrations. We must do more.

We must guarantee workers, shoppers and diners an environment free from passive smoke.

We must protect our children from this alarming addiction through better educational efforts and removal of unsupervised vending machines. Banning tobacco billboards from the new stadium sends the right message.

We must demand of our legislators the political courage to resist the tobacco lobby's pressure when considering legislation. With the nation's highest cancer-related death rate, it is time for Marylanders to join in the battle by forcefully saying "enough."

Robert K. Brookland, M.D.

Towson.

The writer is director of continuing medical education at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center.