Clinton's Promises

As the heat of Whitewatergate intensifies, I see, hear and read with greater repetitious rage and fury by the Clintons (both the elected and unelected family members) the promotion of the need for health care reform -- a plan, in the words of the president, that will provide "universal health care coverage for all, that can never be taken away."

The president's promises disturb me and should frighten every taxpayer. The intrusion and takeover by the government of our health care carries with it the inevitable corresponding assurances of increased regulation, inefficiencies, less quality service, excess costs, fraud, higher taxes and never-ending uncontrolled government expansion and spending.

I am reminded of former President Ford's comment that a government strong enough to provide for all our needs is strong enough to take everything away from us.

Joseph B. Geyer

Baltimore

A Little Help

Much thanks to Susan Reimer for her piece on tracking in the public schools system (March 10). My daughter attends a Baltimore County elementary school where the students are grouped for math. My daughter is in a math group that proceeds at a slower pace.

Thanks to Ms. Reimer, I've finally got the real scoop on the evil grouping system.

Not only is my daughter a "poor learner," but she is subjected to the "poorest teachers" and "the most banal curriculum."

The public school system in Baltimore County has apparently consigned her "to a group that is not expected to succeed," where she is relegated to "worse than second-class citizenship" and doomed to failure.

Gee, and all I thought was that she needed a little extra help in math!

Lori A. Brozek

Reisterstown

Urban Mediocrity

For 45 years, I lived in and loved much of Baltimore City, so I was excited to read in The Sun March 11 of the possible plans for the Inner Harbor -- the grass knolls in the shape of a crab, the proposed blue crab lights, the continuation of the brick walkway (to which we have contributed) to other parts of the harbor.

We need more imaginative structures that will take away the terrible mediocrity of a cityscape and the upscale shops that make every urban scene a carbon of another city.

Marjorie B. Jones

Cockeysville

No More Lies

During the 1992 election year, Whitewater paperwork was being shredded. Subsequently, more paper was shredded.

No more fraud and lies. Trashy, devious people must not be allowed to trash our national integrity. Their whitewash will never cover the truth.

Thomas H. Mehnert

Annapolis

Innocence Lost

They got on the Metro after I did, two girls.

One had a huge purple balloon and both had crowns from Burger King. They were talking as they took their seats across the aisle from me.

At first their conversation was about their crowns. One girl put her crown on her head, and it slipped down over her eyes.

They both thought that was funny. Then the other girl said:

"I saw [I didn't hear the name] get shot."

"You did not."

"I did, too. And I heard it," making her finger like a gun.

"It went, pow."

What has happened to us? Four-year-olds talking about death instead of dolls?

Richard Krebs

Westminster

Dangerous Words Are the Beginning

I am an orthodox Jewish-American and proud of it. I am also enraged and saddened at the recent events at Howard University.

Having recently graduated from Howard's dental school, I feel the need to respond to the ongoing plague of hate emanating from the very halls founded on racial equality.

I was once asked in my sophomore year by a classmate (and a member of the Nation of Islam) if I considered myself to be white or Jewish.

"Of course I consider myself to be Jewish. Being white is simply part of my genetic background. If I were from Yemen or North Africa, I would be dark skinned and still be Jewish."

"Yes," he responded, "but being white allows you greater movement in this society and acceptance by non-Jewish whites."

He had a point, yet I am different, since I nearly always wear a yarmulke. I removed it only when I attended classes at Howard.

Why remove something I consider part of me? For two reasons: To be a white at Howard was challenging enough, but to be white and openly Jewish would have placed me under academic and in physical jeopardy.

My safety was always in question. Not more than 100 yards from the dental school, Louis Farrakhan would spew his repugnant rhetoric.

I rarely left the confines of my building and avoided the undergraduate campus completely. I simply never felt secure.

There are individuals like Malik Zulu Shabazz, strolling the campus and freely espousing dangerous and idiotic statements. Yet, he is admired and loved because he announces what some blacks think and feel.

And as long as a speech is sprinkled with slavery and oppression, it's OK to throw in anti-Semitism as well. But what is truly frightening is Mr. Shabazz's belief that true anti-Semitism is strictly violence-based.

In his own words, "If we were preaching anti-Semitism, you would see the results of that in the harming of Jewish people."

Yet words are harmful and can certainly bring about violence. Remember when Stokely Carmichael fed the fires of the Washington riots (from Howard University) with "harmless words." My grandfather was beaten senseless in his shoe store on 7th and R streets. The store was set on fire with the rest of downtown D.C.

Do harmless words include Mr. Mohammed's speech last November at Kean College? In repeating his spiritual leader's line, he said that Hitler was wickedly great. Hitler, too, began preaching to those who felt apart from society.

Naturally, there will always be a segment of society that feels alienated. In the 1930s, that segment was directly instrumental in forming the foundation for mass genocide. It only starts with one speech, one random act of violence, one pogrom and one death.

When do we begin to condemn the Nation of Islam for who they really are -- anti-Semites, bigots and hatemongers? Mr. Shabazz would be wise to realize that there are those of us who will not tolerate his garbage.

Let's not allow these racists to become great, for it is only a small step to being wickedly great.

Ian E. Shuman

Baltimore

Why County Schools Need Funding

As school administrators in the southwest part of Baltimore County, we continue to be gratified by the support our schools receive from all segments of our communities.

Households with and without children, as well as the business community, offer constant encouragement as we try to attain the state-mandated goal of "success for all."

Despite the best efforts and intentions of all of our supporters, and the boundless energy of dedicated employees, progress toward our goal will be slowed unless the budget proposed by county school Superintendent Stuart Berger is fully implemented.

As many know, Baltimore County public schools are at a crossroad. While our system has continued to perform well, it is beginning to show the signs of wear and tear brought on by years of budgetary neglect.

The facts are there. The realities are grim. During the past five years, Baltimore County ranks last in the per-pupil increase provided by local governments.

Over the past six years, student enrollment has increased by 15 percent while the professional staff has increased by just 4.6 percent.

This is obviously not the kind of commitment to education that can provide sustained educational excellence.

We have fallen so far behind the other subdivisions that the current budget proposed by the superintendent will do little more than begin to reverse an alarming trend.

For example, given that the superintendent has requested 253 additional teaching positions, one might assume that the student-teacher ratio would finally be reduced.

In fact, due to a significant increase in enrollment, the additional positions would simply maintain present staffing ratios.

Maintaining current ratios, which many parents would like to see reduced, hardly seems like an outrageous request.

The salary picture is equally bleak. While Baltimore County once offered employees competitive wages, that is no longer the case.

Teacher salaries now fall in the middle of the other subdivisions, while principals and other administrators rank in the bottom third. It will be impossible to compete for highly-trained personnel unless this trend is reversed.

Do we really want the best and the brightest graduating college seniors to automatically select Howard, Carroll and Harford counties as desirable locations to work? For our children's sake, the answer should be obvious.

Perhaps most importantly, in his budget, the superintendent has recognized a stark reality in Baltimore County: Some schools and some communities are more needy than others.

For all too long, this reality has been brushed aside. In the proposed budget, $5 million is included to provide individual schools with the highest percentage of youngsters coming from the lowest socio-economic areas.

This money must be funded. No longer can we simply try to take money from one area of the budget and move it to another. The funds are simply not there.

If we truly care about all of our children, and not just those in the middle and upper-middle class neighborhoods, we must convince our political leaders that now is the time to be bold.

If our county is to survive, all of our schools must be able to compete. This $5 million is the first step toward the goal.

It is not easy, and certainly not fashionable, for citizens to demand increased funding for public institutions. In the short run, the simple cry of "Cut my taxes, cut my taxes" seems to have great appeal.

We are confident, however, that the citizens of Baltimore County will be able to look beyond the immediate future to grasp the enormity of the task facing our children.

They will be the ones who have to navigate the difficult waters ahead, who will need the scientific and technical skills to compete in a global economy, who will once and for all solve the challenges faced by all living in an increasingly multi-cultural world.

Our children must thrive, and our children can survive. They need help. The time for political games is over. We must put aside our petty differences and stand together for the children. They deserve no less.

Ralph Murray

Catonsville

The writer is assistant principal of Catonsville Alternative School. The letter was signed by 22 other principals and assistant principals from nine schools.

No Need to Rename Francis Scott Key Hospital

Recently I learned that the Francis Scott Key Hospital is to be renamed the Johns Hopkins Annex sometime in the future.

The reason given was that the prestigious Johns Hopkins name could give it additional positioning and recognition.

There is probably no one that is going to step up and take issue with this. It would be hard to defend against such a giant decision, but let me give my reasons why I think we should keep it the Francis Scott Key Hospital.

This hospital complex has existed for a long period of time. For years it was known as Baltimore City Hospitals and comprised a number of units, including acute care and chronic care as well as a number of research units. In fact, the gerontology section was the center for this sub-specialty throughout the world.

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation backed up by animal experimentation had its start in an excellent anesthesia department in this institution. One of the first critical care units in the nation was developed in this hospital.

Dr. Mason Lord pioneered the contributions of a social service department in helping to transfer patients back to a home situation (never before done).

There were many excellent physicians and nurses that did an outstanding job for years without the Johns Hopkins insignia.

Prior to being called Baltimore City Hospitals, it was called Bay View Sanitarium, as it had a beautiful view of the Inner Harbor before smokestacks and smog interfered with this beautiful sight.

Unfortunately, like most city hospitals, it was always in financial trouble and, when the crunch came, the city government was begging for someone to take it over.

Johns Hopkins stepped forward and seemingly behaved altruistically in doing so. The chief executive officers at Hopkins knew what they were doing, because it was the land that was valuable, strategically situated between two major corridors. It would provide room for futuristic expansion and development of Johns Hopkins Hospital projects and joint ventures.

It then developed a very positive image, and the new name Francis Scott Key Hospital was applied. It may have been an euphemistic term initially, but it has come to represent, through the staff and administration, a very progressive hospital complex in a very needed part of Baltimore.

It is true that Johns Hopkins has orchestrated most of these developments, and their visionary direction has created not only additional space for needed medical activities, but also for research and for partnerships with business in a combined network which is unique and bound to be successful.

The Johns Hopkins Hospital is to be congratulated for doing all of the above, but what would it gain by renaming the Key hospital?

Besides, Francis Scott Key is a term very popular to most Baltimoreans and also reminds us of the days when the former hospital nestled on a hill overlooking the Inner Harbor and Fort McHenry and where Francis Scott Key wrote the touching national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner."

The more that we hold and bring out our traditional values, the richer we will be. The Johns Hopkins Annex seems too corporate and sterile in the melting pot that we call East Baltimore.

Raymond D. Bahr, M.D.

Baltimore

Reagan Era Scandal

The Romans had a phrase for it: "Si fecisti, qa nega!" or, "If you did it, deny it!" Stonewall!

In recent times former President Nixon is seen by most people as the classic exemplar of this political tactic, but even more recently former President Reagan almost assuredly also has availed himself of this dictum, which seems to have become a fundamental part of the national political and commercial philosophy.

Ronald Reagan should not be permitted to get away with his summary and arrogant dismissal of the Lawrence Walsh findings regarding his involvement in the Iran-contra affair; especially since due to his deceitfulness he has cost us, the taxpayers, at least $40 million to uncover the truth, to say nothing of what he has cost us in national self-esteem and in our international image.

Understandably Reagan's then co-conspirator, Vice President George Bush, isn't saying much, if he is saying anything at all.

Former Attorney General Edwin Meese's shameful, puerile denials and attempted rebuttal of the independent counsel's findings make one wonder how such a facile dissembler held at one time one of the very highest positions in our government.

Oliver North, recently a target of Reagan's self-righteous wrath, probably would be in prison instead of trying to achieve an exalted senatorial seat were it not for his ill-advised grant of immunity.

How in all that is holy can we expect our general populace to remain honest and law abiding while such blatant, gross examples are placed before them with such appalling regularity?

Governmental principals seem to have adopted the attitude that the U.S. public is collectively so stupid, ignorant or apathetic about vital matters that they can be euchred by even the clumsiest dissimulations.

Why are we, the American public, so pathetically submissive about these matters? Perhaps we just don't care any more; perhaps we have become as cynical as those who at the head of government are doing such terrible damage to the public interests.

If that is true, then truly we are doomed. But I cannot think that we, the people, are so dim and uncaring as to permit these practices to continue, no matter what it takes to effect a change the right direction.

I am troubled also by the silence which has descended over news media outlets in regard to this entire affair, and I ask myself, as we all should, why is this so?

Has the groundswell produced by Whitewater, a matter still in its speculative stage, submerged the hard facts revealed by the Iran-contra investigation? Are we to think, as one journalist put it the other day, that no one is interested anymore because it's "an old issue"?

If the murderer of his child, let us say, were still at large after eight or 10 years, would the same journalist take such a breezy attitude?

The press can pursue Clinton to its heart's content, but at the same time can they not just let in a little more fresh air to clear away some of these older mephitic political vapors?

After all, as any astute journalist knows, you never can have too much bad news.

John Pascal

Baltimore