One-Sided News
In regards to an article, ("Lawsuit accuses priest of sexually abusing teen"), March 12, we are once again led by the news media to character assassination with allegations of sexual misconduct of a Catholic priest. This seems to be the popular thing to do these days.
Why do you think it is your right and duty to report a one-sided allegation concerning a Catholic priest, but sanctimoniously refuse to name the accuser, claiming, "The Sun does not name victims of alleged sexual abuse"?
Whatever happened to being confronted with your accuser? Is that something I dreamed up? I am sure Father Jerome F. Toohey Jr. knows who the accuser is, but if you are going to ruin a fine reputation, should not we know the accuser also?
Yes, I am a friend of Father Toohey, and your rush to get a sensational story will not change that. Don't you find it strange that it took three years of abuse, then five years afterward, to decide to do something?
Could it be the recent rush of people to file these types of allegations, and maybe time is running out to reap a financial gain?
I first met Father Toohey in 1984, and I have known him very well ever since. He has always had the best interests of young people and their problems as a number one concern.
Did you inquire with any of the thousands of young men who have gained from his concern at Calvert Hall about his moral standards?
Did you contact any of the parishioners at St. John's Church, where he has been a weekend associate for more than nine years?
Did you bother to contact anyone at the Shrine of the Little Flower, where he says a signed mass for the deaf on Sundays?
It appears that the answer to the above is no.
Sure, you contacted the archdiocese and John Carroll School, and they gave brief statements, but you need to talk to the people who really know Father Toohey before you smear his name with one person's accusation.
William F. Loeffler
Forest Hill
Whitewater
George F. Will's column March 10 may well be right in believing that a reluctance to reveal chinks in their moral armor may have persuaded the Clintons to attempt to conceal certain aspects of the Whitewater affair which (in Mr. Will's words) "probably are, at worst, dealings too minor and complicated to arrest the nation's attention."
All fair-minded people should be grateful to him for attempting to put the matter in perspective.
Let us hope that Senators Bob Dole and Phil Gramm and their ilk, who are determined to make an Everest out of this molehill, whose greatest fear is that their opponents may succeed in doing what they have promised to do for this country, will now return to the duties which they are being paid to perform: the quest for solutions to critically important national problems.
The president has acceded to the Republicans' demand for the appointment of a special counsel. They should have the decency to wait for him to do his job and report his findings.
William Bader
Towson
Not Watergate
Perhaps in an attempt to make the news simpler for us to understand, our leaders and members of the various media like to call some current happening by the name of a previous event. However, using this technique loosely leads instead to obfuscation and misrepresentation.
Thus, whatever we think about the Whitewater business, we must not equate it with Watergate, as many seem wont to do.
Watergate was perpetrated by a sitting president attempting to circumvent our country's electoral process, a process that is integral to our way of governing ourselves and a direct affront to our constitutional guarantees. Whatever the Whitewater affair is, it is not, and should not be, compared to Watergate.
Matilda Weiner
Baltimore
Irrevocably Harmed
I read your March 15 article, "The Block Raid: Worth It?" with absolute disgust. The article, featuring quotes and statements from block barkers, doormen, dancers and bartenders, about the Maryland State Police was totally one-sided.
The Block, I feel it would be fair to say, is populated with individuals who deal in and profit from sleaze and other nefarious industries.
The underbelly of Baltimore's Inner Harbor development and progress, the Block continues to house the dregs of society.
As an individual who works downtown, I find the area of the "world famous Block" repugnant.
I believe the members of the state police mentioned in the article by persons of questionable character were irrevocably harmed.
Ernest M. Anderson
Bel Air
Nuclear Testing Is Nothing to Joke About
Young boys love to play with firecrackers. Stick one in a model plane, light the fuse and run away. Neat! Or set up a small army of toy soldiers and blow them away with an M-80. Cool!
Of course, every year there are those news stories on the fifth of July about unlucky kids who lose an eye or blow off a finger or two.
As long as children are immature risk-takers, accidents will keep happening. But that's what children are -- immature.
Most grow up. Some, like Robert Burruss, author of the article "Nuclear Testing in Deep Space" (The Sun, March 15), apparently do not.
Mr. Burruss thinks it would be neat to set off a nuclear bomb in space -- say, a million miles from Earth.
Why? Because he always wanted to see a nuclear explosion. He proposes that a future Fourth of July celebration be capped by a really big sparkler.
Not everyone in the world celebrates the Fourth, but we invented the bomb, so I guess we get to pick the date.
Imagine the surprise of the billion people who don't get notice of the festivities when they look up and are temporarily blinded by the brilliant white flash of our bomb. That'd sure put the fear of God into them ignorant savages, wouldn't it?
Imagine the excitement if the rocket carrying the bomb had a glitch and didn't quite make it into space.
If we blew up the rocket (wouldn't that look neat!), a cloud of radioactive debris would drizzle down on us just like those pretty fireworks at the Inner Harbor.
If the rocket made it into orbit but couldn't make it any higher (wasn't there a communications satellite like that about a year ago?), wouldn't it be wonderful to know we had a nuclear bomb passing over our heads every 90 minutes or so?
We could then wait for the inevitable orbital decay and the ensuing light show as the bomb's plutonium entered the atmosphere. That would be really cool! So what if some people die. The scientists know what they're doing, don't they?
Ernest Smith
Phoenix
____________
What on Earth possessed you to run Robert Burruss' piece? Nuclear weapons are not toys.
The idea of launching a nuclear device for visual aesthetics is idiotic and irresponsible. Mr. Burruss may consider himself an engineer, but I don't.
You want a good engineering reason why you don't do this? The reason is because there are risks to humans and the planet whenever a launch vehicle carries a nuclear device.
When we launched the Pioneer spacecraft that have been one of nTC the space program's stellar accomplishments, or the Viking landers that went to Mars, we launched their power sources, which are Radioisotope Thermal Generators (RTGs).
They are loaded with plutonium just like a nuclear weapon. If a launch vehicle fails to make orbit and the plutonium vaporizes in the atmosphere, the death toll would be too horrible to contemplate.
I know what I'm talking about. I built the re-entry shields for those vehicles to prevent just such a catastrophe.
And while nuclear warheads for ICBMs are housed in re-entry vehicle structures that should allow them to survive an unexpected re-entry, that is not the point. Any human and, for that matter, any natural system can fail.
An engineering maxim that applies is not to take unnecessary risks. So we don't launch nuclear weapons into space. We even have treaties that exclude this kind of behavior.
Nuclear weapons are a very serious issue in our world and will continue to be for an indefinite period; possibly for a very long time by human lifetime comparisons.
I am offended that your newspaper would address them in this manner, and I believe that you have shown a serious lack of judgment in this matter.
E.L. "Ted" Paquette
Severna Park