Lucas Collection
Editor: If the Maryland Institute College of Art decides to sell the Lucas Collection, (mostly 19th Century French paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture), which is on indefinite loan to the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Gallery, the art resources of Baltimore will be sadly diminished. We will all be losers -- the museums, the institute and the public.
As a former president of the institute, I do not want to interfere with decisions made by the current very successful administration, but as an artist I must shout from the roof tops: Don't do it!
I, for one, have been inspired for years by a wild and beautiful Rousseau painting, "Morning Frost," in the Walters Art Gallery, and there are many others.
If the collection is sold, this community will be poorer in spirit, poorer in fact, and George Lucas will be poorest of all with his unique gift to the institute scattered to the winds.
Eugene W. Leake.
Monkton.
Relative Suffering
Editor: Recycling in Baltimore can be inconvenient and a lot of work. Out of fear that people will give up or wait till things get easier, I offer a few reminders.
The development of a reliable curbside pickup system (and orecycling as an established way of life) depends on participation now. Citizens have to show a commitment to recycling in order to get governments to cooperate, to encourage markets for recycled goods and to instill new attitudes in our children.
This commitment includes responsible use of recycling centers. I am appalled at the recent closing of the Wabash Avenue recycling center because of its callous use as a dump.
The search for comfort and convenience is one of the things that got us in this environmental mess in the first place.
There is much unnecessary packaging (a.k.a. garbage) done for the sake of convenience. There are many regulating corners cut for the sake of convenience (a.k.a. profit). This has resulted in environmental hazards and disasters.
There are government officials who fear disrupting our comfortable, oil-dependent lifestyles (and their re-election plans) to the point where they draft embarrassing energy policies. The list, of course, goes on.
Please recycle. It is only mildly uncomfortable compared to the Earth's current suffering.
Laszlo R. Trazkovich.
Baltimore.
Human Problem
Editor: Barbara Tufty's Earth Day "Dialogue with a Friendly Planet" taught awareness of the need to get serious about saving the earth before human abuse sickens it to death.
Efforts so far, such as the Clean Air Act, are mere Band-Aids, Mother Earth complained, and she wanted people to go to work on basic requirements, such as renewable energy sources and vehicles that run 50 miles on a gallon of gas.
Alas! Ms. Tufty did not even allude to the most basic cause of pollution and resource depletion -- too many people. The rain forests are being cut down and farmed by desperate people trying to survive when other opportunities do not exist. Efforts to reduce air and water pollution are overwhelmed by the growing number of people.
Why do writers on environmental subjects avoid mentioning the most basic problem of all -- population growth?
Most people needed 25 or 30 years of screaming by such groups as Sierra Club, Audubon Society, Environmental Defense Fund and others before they became aware of the real need to clean up and conserve and recycle.
How many more years before ZPG, the Population Institute and other such agencies reach the consciousness of individuals and governments before the Friendly Planet does indeed become uninhabitable?
Carleton W. Brown.
Elkton.
Good for GM . . .
Editor: Mayor Kurt Schmoke is to be commended for his early efforts to keep General Motors operating in Baltimore. It would seem to be telling evidence that the citizens of this area are behind him if more would choose GM vans and cars.
We have evidence that "What's good for General Motors is good for the nation," in the words of the late GM CEO Charles "Engine Charlie" Wilson. It is truer than believed at its first saying.
Is there not validity as well to the paraphrase, "What's good for General Motors is good for Baltimore"?
Arthur E. Wheeler.
Towson.
War's Aftermath
Editor: Your editorial of April 18, "Quagmire in Iraq," recognizes that the United States "is profoundly implicated" in the desperate plight of the Iraqi Kurds because of our decision to "use force to liberate Kuwait."
Because of the supreme technical skill with which our armed forces achieved that liberation, many assume that those of us who opposed military intervention in January (a majority of the American public, by some counts, together with a large minority of the Senate) were grievously mistaken and ought to slink away in shame.
But can our decision to use military might be judged solely by the 100 hours that forced Saddam Hussein to release his grip on Kuwait? As your editorial implies, those who chose that course in January cannot escape responsibility for the ugly consequences, but other problems are likely to follow.
True, continuing the sanctions against Iraq might also have brought unforeseen outcomes that cannot be known; but a violent course is more likely to generate the kinds of intractable problems we now see as consequences of our military victory.
There are two reasons for this. First, non-violent methods are more gradual and so permit considered adjustment to collateral problems as they arise, unlike armed conflict, which by its very nature soon becomes all-out war; second, because the destruction of life and material resources achieved by warfare intensifies the problems left in its wake.
In today's world, it is not possible for the hero, however righteous, to flatten the bully, brush off his hands and ride away into the sunset.
Abraham Makofsky.
Baltimore.
White Louisiana's Sad Heritage
Editor: I read with interest your editorial of March 17, "The Race From Hell" dealing with the upcoming elections in Louisiana. I read with equal interest the letter of response from Stephen M. Kranz on April 11. Having been born and raised in south Louisiana, I hope my personal perspective may provide helpful insights.
Racism runs strong and deep in Louisiana. In white households racial epithets are taught at quite an early age. "Nigger" and "coon" come almost as early as "mama" and "dada." As with the overwhelming majority of whites, I was taught not only to use these words as part of my normal, everyday conversation, but also to believe that blacks are sub-human.
After much prayer and reflection upon my own experiences I, like many before me, have come to the conclusion that such scorn and hatred is deeply rooted in the ignorance, fear, insecurity and poor sense of self-esteem that is the heritage of many generations; a heritage which all too many white Louisianians enjoy and remain quiet comfortable with.
David Duke, a sharp opportunist, is a past master at manipulating and exploiting this racism and bigotry.
I visited friends and family in Louisiana last May when Mr. Duke's campaign for the U.S. Senate was at a near fever pitch. I listened intently to what my own relatives, as well as lifelong friends and neighbors, had to say in justifying their strong support of the Duke bandwagon. Hatred and bigotry were the overwhelming -- if not the only -- motivating factors. Mr. Duke's previous affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan served only to endear him to them all the more. (I'm certainly not proud of this -- in fact I'm quite ashamed. But I write this not as a wish to confess, but rather as a need to speak openly and honestly.)
As Mr. Kranz pointed out in another letter, though, support for Mr. Duke is not limited to backwoods, uneducated "rednecks." Mr. Duke has strong support among the white-collar segments of Louisiana society. Many white doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc., subscribe to David Duke's political platform. But since when has college diploma assured moral probity?
I dearly love Louisiana. I remain close to my family and friends who remain there. Yet the fact is that my own upbringing and experiences were very much a part of the common, ordinary ways of thinking and believing that make up the large majority of white Louisiana.
Mr. Kranz is correct -- David Duke does enjoy tremendous popularity. He may very well become Louisiana's next governor. But such would be the brute evidence of white Louisiana's sad, ongoing heritage.
evin Guillory.
Upperco.