Hickey School

Editor: Every three months we are reminded of failures by Rebound Inc. to maintain the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School for juvenile delinquents. Now a legislative audit reveals that vocational programs have not been started six months after Rebound's contract began.

The excuse? The programs take six months and most inmates only stay about four months. If that isn't a Catch 22, I've never heard one.

Did anyone ever consider implementing a three-month training program? (Maybe they could increase the length of incarceration.) Are they interested? I doubt it.

Last December, it was revealed that escapes had increased an alarming 700 percent since September. Rebound has still failed to train their new staff and security. Volunteer tutors are discouraged, clothing and blankets are inadequate, no records were kept for a 45-day period, etc.

The secretary of juvenile services, Mary Ann Saar, wants to give Rebound nine more months to comply with their contract obligations. Nine more months? Enough is enough. Do it now. Or else.

Karl Pfrommer.

Baltimore.

Clinton's Friends

Editor: In one of his columns, Roger Simon pointed out that perhaps Gov. Bill Clinton should fear his friends more than his enemies. Comments by "friends" during the recent controversy over his Vietnam conduct confirm Mr. Simon's observation.

When Mr. Clinton told an incredulous group of reporters that he had known nothing about the Sept. 19, 1969, proclamation decreasing the likelihood of someone being drafted, his classmates from Oxford, having rushed to the defense of his wartime actions, inadvertently recalled that at the time Vietnam or "Vietnam and me" dominated all talk.

It appears highly unlikely that the Sept. 19 announcement would have gone unnoticed. More damaging, however, was the rejection by the "friendly" Arkansas Democrat-Gazette of his claim that he did not dodge the draft.

In an editorial on Feb. 16 the hometown newspaper concluded, "he had in fact, evaded, avoided, dodged -- whatever the semantics -- a near-immediate call-up in September and October. His best defense is that he was 23 then and he is 45 now and he has matured."

He certainly has matured and became more "courageous." Just a year ago, didn't he stand up and be counted in support of the gulf war and weren't we being told that this stance made him much more "electable" than those Democrats who opposed the war?

But then, someone like Roger Simon might be so unkind as to point out that it is not so difficult to be macho and gung-ho for war when you are sending others off to fight and don't have to

go yourself.

Richard K. Marshall.

Baltimore.

Popcorn Profits

Editor: In her Feb. 22 feature article about "Popcorn's starring role," Jean Marbella, writes that "the cost of popcorn and the soft drink you need to wash it down are both wildly marked up."

She does a disservice by not considering all of the services a movie theater provides at absolutely no cost at all to the moviegoer.

Construction, equipment, utilities, staffing, space allocation and the cost of keeping auditoriums and rest rooms clean are just a few of the services which the patrons receive free -- thanks to a fair mark-up of movie food service products. Required additional services of record keeping, collection of taxes, salaries and bills are ignored by Ms. Marbella as expenses that need to be paid for.

Ms. Marbella indicates she thinks that Kevin Costner probably receives the lion's share of the $6.50 it costs to get into many theaters. She does not have a problem with this.

However, she seems to have a problem with the theater management company making a profit that will be spread it around to many hard-working American employees.

Irwin R. Cohen.

Reisterstown.

The writer is president of R/C Theatres Management Corp.

Saving Forests

Editor: I'm amazed at Americans' fixation with the felling of the Brazilian Amazon while the U.S. government sells off our largest northwestern rain forests to Japan.

Old growth forests in the United States are being cleared at an alarming rate and raw trees, not finished products manufactured by American workers, are being sold to the Japanese. But let's not blame Japan. Americans elected this Congress and must urge their representatives to forbid the export of raw timber.

A restriction to export only wooden products manufactured in the United States would create jobs for Americans, save our last North American rain forests and allow the U.S. economy to benefit from the profitability of manufacturing and marketing American products from American resources.

Concerned Americans who donated money to halt Amazonian clear-cutting should also call their congressional representatives to support severe limits on U.S. timber exports.

This action could have an immediate effect on the destruction of American rain forests.

Bruce T. Gayle.

Baltimore.

Baker's Lust

Editor: I am furious that Sen. Walter Baker has taken it upon himself to block the democratic process in Maryland. Rather than allow the "clean-car" bill to be voted on by the General Assembly, he has decided to keep it stuck in his committee.

Baker is fully aware that his irresponsible actions will have a damaging effect on the health and well-being of his own constituents. He knows that nitrogen from auto exhaust is keeping the bay cloudy, crippling Maryland's fisheries.

Nevertheless, he chooses to put his own ambition to become Maryland's attorney general first, affecting an "individual rights" Astance that is nothing but a cloak for a selfish lust for power.

Ron Huber.

Owings.

No Guarantee

Editor: The $10 billion loan guarantee that Israel is asking from the United States to resettle Russian Jews on occupied land is not only absurd, but the desire of our elected officials to give the guarantee is hard to believe. Would these officials agree to pay if we were asked by Saddam Hussein to pay him to build housing for his troops in Kuwait?

As an American I would be glad to pay to create new jobs for American workers who are desperate for them, health care for the elderly, better education for our children. I am not, however, willing to pay for jobs and housing for Russians to be settled on occupied territory.

It is time for our elected officials to do the job they were elected to do: get the economy moving, create new jobs, provide for our young and elderly. If they are more interested in providing money for resettlement of Russians than settlement of Americans, it is time to clean house.

Ahmed G. Awad.

Towson.

No New Taxes

Editor: Your Feb. 24 editorial, "Speaker Mitchell Is Wrong," is a shallow response based on results obtained from a Sun poll in which, I believe, questions were engineered to elicit a response of, "we want more taxes." I suggest someone help to formulate more objective wording of poll questions in the future.

No one gets elected on a promise to raise taxes, yet your editorial would have us believe they do. Why don't you tell the public that over the last four years state government head count has grown at twice the annual rate of the general population? Bigger government, bigger budgets, bigger problems. Why don't you tell them that more realistic actuarial pension assumptions could save $100-$150 million annually?

John F. Gaburick.

Timonium.

Nuclear Waste: A Different Perspective

Editor: I would like to comment on Tom Horton's recent Sun commentary on the problems of cleaning up nuclear waste sites. I do not disagree that it is a major problem, although I do not think it is as great as his hand-wringing presentation might lead one to believe. The magnitude of the problem depends on what is defined as a satisfactory cleanup. Since radioactive material cannot be destroyed, a cleanup can only consist of concentrating such material and placing it in a location considered safe until it decays. Obviously, no reasonable evaluation can be made of the problem until the criteria for doing this are decided.

It should be pointed out that probably the most serious problem is not the wastes, but the product. I see no way to handle the plutonium removed from dismantled weapons or, for that matter, in weapons that continue in service, except to provide perpetual care. The possibility of a nuclear reaction could be rather easily eliminated by alloying it with a material having a high neutron-absorption cross section or similar methods, but it would remain an extremely toxic material.

In my opinion, much of the political problem results from the continued discussion of high-level waste. By definition, high-level material decays rapidly and if its radiation level were the only problem, handling it would be much simpler. More serious problems arise from isotopes that have a fairly low level of radiation but a long half-life: strontium, cesium and plutonium. The extent of the problem also depends on the way in which people might be exposed.

External exposure to the electromagnetic radiation is relatively easy to control and to avoid. However, particulate matter that can be ingested is a much more serious matter. In my opinion, it is the possibility of airborne particulate matter that should be given the most importance in waste disposal and, to switch to a slightly different subject, in the emergency planning of all nuclear installations.

As an alumnus of the Savannah River operation, I find the denigrating remarks about its plans for handling high-level waste extremely objectionable. After spending two-thirds of his article saying what an expensive job waste cleanup would be, what did Mr. Horton expect? That the situation at Savannah River would be easy?

I myself had no connection with high-level waste, but I understand that the development of the process was a rather brilliant piece of work. I also think that 15 years is a reasonably short time to clean up a problem that had been accumulating for 30 years because the Congress would never appropriate money to tackle the situation.

James A. List.

Bozman.