Westinghouse honors won by local students

Marylanders should be extremely proud of the high school seniors who ranked well in the most recent Westinghouse Science Talent Search. Maryland has less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, so proportionately it should have had less than six participants ranking in the top 300 in this prestigious national science project contest. Yet there were 13 such students -- 15 if you include the two who live in Maryland but attend Georgetown Day School in Washington, D.C.

Marylanders won four (or five) of the top 40 places. California had just four; Florida had only one in the top 40. Only New York can boast having more students than Maryland in the top 40.

In the top 10, Maryland had the ninth-place winner: Benjamin Jun of Bethesda, who attends Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, won a $10,000 college scholarship. He plans to study electrical engineering at Stanford University.

The following Maryland schools, all of them public, were represented in the top 300: Walt Whitman in Bethesda, Atholton in Columbia, Frederick (2), Oxon Hill (3), Winston Churchill in Potomac, Colonel Zadok Magruder in Rockville, and Montgomery Blair in Silver Spring (4). Oxon Hill, Rockville, and Silver Spring (2) students made the top 40. Oxon Hill's Mark David Pilloff, was, at age 15, the youngest of the 40.

In terms of the scientific promise of its ablest and most ambitious students, Maryland need bow to no other state. These young people deserve at least as much acclaim as the star athletes in their schools. For the sake of their futures and that of our country, I hope they get it.

Julian C. Stanley

Baltimore

The writer is professor of psychology and director of the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth at the Johns Hopkins University.

Two absurdities

Among the many absurdities associated with government and our current deficit and budget crisis are two of particular note. One is "mandated programs," the other is "matching funds."

The mandate, of course, is backward. Instead of legislating programs that require ongoing funding, we ought to mandate that no program be legislated unless it has an unencumbered source of funds.

The acquisition of matching funds is often cited as justification for passing legislation, and it is absolutely the worst reason to legislate. We end up requiring the federal government to give us funds that it doesn't have to match funds that we don't have.

Dave Reich

Fallston

Elkton parade

I can't believe your newspaper would write an editorial encouraging the town of Elkton to deny the Ku Klux Klan its First Amendment right to parade ("Standing up to the Klan," March 10). If it were The Baltimore Sun's First Amendment rights in question, you'd certainly be on the other side of the issue.

Perhaps the most telling flaw in your argument is the final sentence of the editorial. "Whether or not Elkton loses the war, fighting the battle against hate and racism is always right." Does this give us license to kill all Klansman? Of course not. Nor does it give us the right to trammel their civil liberties. Your editorial espouses an "ends justifies the means" philosophy. That is a dangerous position to take.

Karl Pfrommer

Baltimore

Begin's death

For many years I have defended The Evening Sun to friends who are New York Times and Washington Post snobs. However, your coverage of former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin's death March 9 was appalling.

To put news of Mr. Begin's death on Page 5 was a travesty, not to mention an insult to Baltimore's Jewish community. I am not ordinarily a letter writer but this kind of disrespect cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged.

Robin Silver

Baltimore

Orioles fans?

Hurrah for Bob Miller, the Oriole spokesman who responded to Del. Howard P. "Pete" Rawlings' assertion that the Orioles fail to encourage team support among African-Americans. The Orioles' programs in the Baltimore City public schools are positive; they promote enthusiasm, encourage recreational reading and reward good citizenship among school children.

I believe that Delegate Rawlings' efforts should not be limited to the city's black majority but should extend to the entire population. Those with the means to purchase baseball tickets do so regardless of race. I wonder whether the issue is race or demographics. The Orioles should continue to encourage the active participation of all city residents.

Ronne J. Lippenholz

Reisterstown

On Buchanan

It is difficult to know where to start in response to Richard P. McBrien's anti-American-Irish Catholic article (Other Voices, March 2). He compares the politics of Patrick Buchanan with those of Gov. Mario Cuomo.

Mr. McBrien indicates that Buchanan and his family's version of Catholicism and reactionary politics mirrored that found in many contemporary Irish-American homes. Perhaps. However, as a contemporary of Mr. Buchanan's, I would note that ethnic Catholics (including the Irish) have strongly supported most of the progressive candidates and programs of the past 60 years.

He speculates that Mr. Buchanan deplores the disappearance of a Catholicism that validates self-righteousness and indifference. Having been raised in a Catholic family and attended parochial schools for 12 years, I do not recall such a church. Like Mr. McBrien, I admire Pope John XXIII. I simply do not buy the theory that the pre-Vatican II church was as reactionary as he depicts it.

I agree with Mr. McBrien's assessment that Mr. Buchanan is "an abrasive and ideological right-wing Republican given to blunt, bellicose pronouncements." I suggest that fact has little to do with his religion or his ethnic background. It's just the kind of public man he is.

Joseph P. Murphy

Ellicott City

Postal praise

I was completely appalled by the lack of compassion shown by Lynette Reagan's letter (The Forum, Feb. 24) bad-mouthing the postal workers for their current "food drive."

I believe they deserve a great deal of praise and thanks for caring enough to help people less fortunate than themselves. I'm sure it created more work for them and made their work days longer, but I feel they did a wonderful service for the Maryland Food Bank. The postal employees should be commended for their indulgence in this worthwhile cause.

Jeanne H. Hildebrand

Baltimore

We are the scapegoats

Read my lips! A furlough is the most unfair of taxes!

I'm a public servant. "I touch the future." I inspire. I motivate. I explain. I teach. I subsidize.

Yes, I subsidize your children's education -- out of my over-taxed, hard-earned, public service salary. I am one of the public servants who is not getting rich.

Along with my brother and sister civil servants, the firefighters, the policemen and policewomen, the thousands of clerks, secretaries, truck drivers, planners, managers, engineers and computer experts who are paid by local and state governments, I am helping your elected officials spout, "No new taxes!"

We are serving as your scapegoats! We are taking a salary cut so that the general public can be saved from a tax increase.

How long do you think this can go on?

Now, not only must I inspire, motivate, explain, teach and subsidize your children, I must also help our elected officials keep their unrealistic promises, promises that were made simply to get elected.

I work hard every day. It may be difficult to believe, but I put in 8 to 10 hours each day. My husband complains sometimes. He doesn't understand my commitment to my students and my school. But, I expect to get paid for what I do. I cannot tell a plumber or a repairman or the gas and electric company that I have decided to withhold 1 or 2 percent from their bills simply because "the money isn't there."

Perhaps it's true that we need to trim down the bureaucracy. Let's work together to solve this budget crisis.

So, Gov. William Donald Schaefer, Baltimore County Executive Roger B. Hayden, Sen. Michael J. Collins, Del. Leslie E. Hutchinson, Councilman William A. Howard IV, get your acts together!

We need leadership and creative solutions to the problems that we face during these difficult economic times. We need to maintain important priorities -- the education of your children, the safety of our population. But you need to act soon. I can't carry this system too much longer on my salary!

Janice Likens

Baltimore