118 Acts of Violence in 30 Minutes
I think there is too much unnecessary violence on television, and it's harmful to viewers. The effect TV has on today's society is very strong, and it may result in something harmful.
In just four minutes of viewing time on a public television station viewers can see one act of violence, according to a survey conducted in our English class.
Even on Saturday afternoon, "Bedknobs and Broomsticks," a Disney movie that had been edited and broadcast on TV, there were 59 acts of violence in just one hour.
Many children watch Disney movies that have the family rating of If the G-rated movies that are broadcast on TV have an average of 59 acts of violence in just one hour, imagine what happens when TV stations broadcast PG or PG-13 movies.
For the past two nights I've watched two hours of one movie, "Sudden Impact," and a half-hour of a Stephen Segal movie.
In the first movie on TV I saw 183 acts of violence, and on the next night I saw 118 acts of violence.
That sounds far-fetched, but the funny thing is, both movies appeared on the same station at 9 p.m. on different nights.
Viewers that tuned into that station at the same time on both nights saw almost the same amount of violence in a half-hour as they did in two hours.
For both movies, a sign flashed that "parental discretion is advised," but viewers tuning in 15 minutes after the movie had started would never know that the sign had been shown.
In both movies the "heroes" were solving crimes and getting revenge by murdering people. We need to create movies that solve conflicts peacefully, instead of creating movies that make and solve crime by hurting other people.
When those "heroes" kill other people, it usually causes someone else to try to kill them. What kind of an example is that setting for children?
Those opposing my point of view may say that TV does not really affect the way children act when they become adults, but a study done by the University of Michigan proves that wrong in criminal cases.
They found that criminals that watched TV frequently at the age of eight committed the most serious crimes. All of this violence affects society, especially children because they are vulnerable.
Many children have a harder time distinguishing between fantasy and reality than adults do. When those children see a person who has killed another person let free, they might think that if they hurt someone they would be let free, too.
Many children are searching for a role model. Children try to imitate and be like adults. If the adults they are trying to be like kill and hurt people, what kind of example is that setting for children?
In fact, just the other day my four-year-old brother, after seeing a violent scene on TV, tried to re-enact what he saw.
If TV has that much of an impact on a child who doesn't watch it that much, imagine what happens to a child who watches TV frequently.
In an article in TV Guide called "Don't Blame Violence on the Tube," William F. Buckley Jr. comments, "There will always be violence. Don't blame it on TV."
That is true to an extent. We can't fully blame every crime on TV, but TV does have an impact on the way people act.
People may say that TV is only a reflection of real life, but according to USA Today, in real life there are 32 crimes committed per 1,000 population, and on TV there are 59 crimes per 1,000 population. Therefore, how could all of that violence on TV not affect the way some people act?
If TV violence keeps on getting worse and worse and doesn't go unchallenged by companies and businesses that buy advertising time, or by people who write and call in to complain about a show they don't want on the air, TV stations will keep on broadcasting violence.
Sure, they post a few "parental discretion is advised" signs just to be able to say that they put the signs on the screen, but as long as TV stations make money, they don't care if that show has a bad affect on people.
OK, so it's been proven that people enjoy seeing violence on TV . . . Has today's society made people believe that violence is no big deal, and that it's perfectly normal to kill people on TV?
A lot of people even laugh when something violent appears on TV. I don't know about anyone else, but I surely don't laugh when I see someone being stabbed to death because someone wants revenge.
Why does society laugh at such a serious matter?
Can't society see that when we laugh at violence on TV, we are really laughing at children and at our country's future?
Christy Beauchamp
Pocomoke City
Nixon, for Better or Worse
The Sun's April 23 article recounting President Richard Nixon's past association with Maryland was quite interesting.
One thing that wasn't mentioned, however, was the fact that Mr. Nixon once lived in Baltimore.
According to Nixon biographer Stephen Ambrose, the future president and his wife moved to Baltimore in 1945 after Mr. Nixon was assigned to Middle River by the U. S. Navy.
Lieutenant Nixon was charged with winding up contracts with Glenn L. Martin and Bell Aircraft. He was credited with saving millions of dollars, and he subsequently received a citation from the secretary of the Navy praising his efforts.
In fact, Mr. Nixon was living in Baltimore when he received the fateful telephone call informing him that he had been selected as the 1946 Republican candidate for his home congressional district in California.
Whatever your opinion of Richard Nixon, it is nonetheless intriguing to realize that Baltimore served as the backdrop against which a young naval officer was transformed into a politician destined to move the world.
Richard J. Cross
Timonium
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Americans have always had a problem with short attention spans. We see it everyday in our news programs. The horrors of Rwanda can be barely found in the papers . . .
Americans are also a very forgiving people, again due to a short attention span . . .
In politics the same thing happens. Whitewater comes and goes. It depends on what makes it as the news du jour . . .
Now we have the life and times of Richard Nixon. I can think of three things that his administration was responsible for or can take credit for that were positive: detente, opening up China and the Environmental Protection Agency.
But everything else he did in political life was characteristic of a ruthless, passionately anti-freedom (at home and abroad) politician who also made one little mistake -- Watergate.
His carpet bombing of Vietnam, his expansion of the war into Cambodia and Thailand, his support of the calculated overthrow of the elected government in Chile with all its brutal consequences, support of the Shah of Iran, etc. all show a callous disregard for people seeking freedom and self determination.
At home his use of the FBI and IRS matched the KGB's own sense of paranoia toward its own citizenry. His manipulation of the electoral process should be a model for all foreign despots who pretend to honor and respect the voters' choice.
As a president he should be honored. But as a man he should be vilified for all the evil that he did . . . We should not look at Nixon's life in parts, but in whole. We will see a true American mistake.
Myles Hoenig
Baltimore
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Concerning Watergate, and President Nixon, he did not do anything worse than some politicians before, or after him. He just got caught.
Jim Hamilton
White Marsh
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On April 15, 1954 I witnessed the first game of the Baltimore Orioles at Memorial Stadium with Vice President Nixon tossing out the first ball as his friend, Gov. Theodore R. McKeldin, watched . . .
Later in retirement from politics, Nixon could be seen attending the Mets and Yankees in New York.
He could have been a great baseball commissioner -- if only he had stayed out of politics.
Joseph Saffron
Baltimore
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I pose a question to The Sun.
Is there anyone excluded from your petty, scathing editorials and articles who can find peace, or a least a moment of rest, from your attacks even as they lay in wait for burial?
Obviously, President Nixon did not meet your criteria for exclusion. Of course, I almost refrained from complaining since you managed to salvage an ounce of dignity and allowed the man to die before beginning your onslaught.
What you have forgotten is that this nation has lost a president, and one family has lost a father. Despite a justifiably controversial career, this man deserves a great amount of respect for his many accomplishments.
Our president saw fit to ask our country to honor this man with flags at half-mast and a day of respect.
Is it too much to expect that you should have allowed him a proper burial without rehashing all of his shortcomings, particularly those not relevant to history?
Your articles were at the very least inappropriate.
Sec Briselli
Baltimore
Costly Questions
First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's health-care town meeting at Hopkins unwittingly gave a vivid demonstration of a major problem in health care.
For 60 years we have lived under a payment system that pools and redistributes vast sums of premium money in a manner that blinds patients and physicians alike from the costs of their decisions. In 32 years of practice I heard patients ask, "Will it be covered?" instead of, "What will it cost?"
As this lack of attention to cost has come home to haunt us, we seem not to have learned from the experience.
During the meeting, those who would control our economic and health care destinies presented a wish list of all the wonderful things that would be available after the Clinton reform.
Each questioner in turn was complimented on the incisiveness of their query and assured their special interest would be fulfilled by reform.
What was strangely avoided in all presentations and by all questioners was cost.
$Frederick C. Hansen, M.D.
Towson
A Better Station
Who gave the signal for the whining to begin about the programming at WBJC-FM?
I was initially puzzled and then irritated at the letters you published which criticized the station for being too predictable in its selection of music. This is, after all, a matter of opinion.
But the cheap shots about the nasal tones of the announcers or a rare inaccuracy in presenting background material for music were not justified.
WBJC is not only the best source of classical music in the area, but also a major factor in bringing the artistic community together with its announcements of the live performances in the area.
I am recently retired and debating whether or not to stay in the area. When I list the pros and cons of living in Baltimore, I invariably include WBJC among the things I would miss by moving.
I have traveled widely and listened to what passes for classical programming elsewhere. I suggest that the critics of WBJC tune in another station if they can find a better one. I can't.
Jim Robinson
Ellicott City
Force in Bosnia
The Sun needs to demonstrate more backbone than it showed in its April 12 editorial urging a negotiated settlement in Bosnia.
Unfortunately, the continued faith The Sun and the United Nations have shown in negotiating with a ruthless aggressor has come at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. Once again, the folly of appeasement has been demonstrated.
For a negotiated settlement to be possible, the Serbs must be made to understand in the most terrible way that aggression and genocide will not be tolerated by the West.
The Sun must recognize that in Bosnia, as in Europe in World War II, the use of force is a moral imperative and a precondition for peace.
Oz Bengur
Towson
Prior Author
. . . Clarence Page writes in his April 12 column, "If Ben Franklin was right when he declared patriotism to be the last refuge of a scoundrel, religion must be a close second."
Ben may have said it, but Samuel Johnson said it first -- in 1775.
James Boswell, in his "Life of Johnson," records the following: "Patriotism having been one of our topiks, Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone, an apophthegm, at which many will start: 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.'
"But let it be considered, that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest."
Hubert P. Yockey
Bel Air
Horse Sense
Thanks for your April 25 editorial, "Baltimore's Threatened Arabbers," suggesting "better enforcement of animal welfare" to protect the innocent horses used by arabbers.
Horsepower in a motor or an engine, as a measuring tool, is acceptable, but should be outlawed if it means brutally abusing living creatures, be it in arabbing, racing, etc.
J. Small
Baltimore
Black Privileges
"Blacks protest racism at College Park" was the headline in an April 21 report in The Sun.
Is there evidence of racism on that University of Maryland campus? Absolutely.
But contrary to what the headline implies, the racists appear to be black, not white.
Look at the names of the organizations that staged and supported the protest rally. The Black Student Union. The Maryland Legislative Black Caucus. The Black Faculty and Staff Association.
Also noted in the article were initiatives to restructure the Benjamin Banneker Scholarship for black students and doubling the number of black students, faculty and staff.
An expanded cultural center for African-Americans has apparently been constructed on campus as well.
So it seems to me that instead of being victims of racial discrimination at the university, blacks are the beneficiaries of privileges that are simply unavailable to whites.
Richard T. Seymour
Baltimore
Picking On Smith Island's Crab Pickers
Tom Horton's April 9 "On the Bay" column pointed out how baffling it is to deal with the state of Maryland.
The article told of the plight of the tiny community of Smith Island and its women who pick crab meat to supplement their incomes and keep the home fires burning.
Now, the state wants to impose health standards for disposing of crab waste that will cost the islanders $80,000 to implement -- money the islanders neither have nor want to spend on something they don't believe is a health hazard nor an environmental hazard.
The state insists that Smith Island should be no exception to the regulations imposed elsewhere.
Smith Island is an exception. It is hardly a metropolis pumping pollution by the ton into the Chesapeake Bay. It is a tiny island of 500 people relying on the ever-diminishing bounty of the Bay to live.
For hundreds of years, the island has dumped its waste the same way without ever endangering its waters. Moreover, the island women pick crab meat to make extra money that allows them to stay home on the island while the watermen are out on the bay and still tend to the fragile soft shell crabs.
Their culture is one of the rare finds in Maryland, a tiny preserve in a sea of insanity.
Apparently, that culture is what the state says it wants to preserve as well, because it's spending some $300,000 to build the visitors center on the island.
Ironically, by pushing for health standards they will break the economic back of the community they say they want visitors to see. Given enough time and regulations, visitors will be the only ones on Smith Island. Everyone else will have moved to the mainland to make a living.
The State Health Department doesn't seem to quite get it. It's not as if Smith Island crab is inundating the marketplace. A very small percentage is sold, and by and large it's picked cleaner than most of the rest.
The waste dumped into the bay is done so in small numbers and never has been found to cause any adverse effects on the surrounding waters.
So what's the problem here? Why dismantle a system and a lifestyle that has existed for hundreds of years to just to make sure regulations are enforced?
The phrase that comes to mind: "That which governs least, governs best."
Linda Sherman
Baltimore
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During the 1993 crab picking season, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene allowed the picking and sale of crab meat by unlicensed Smith Island residents.
It was recently reported that Secretary Nelson Sabatini was granting an additional 90-day extension to further violate the requirements. The justification for this position was to help preserve a way of life. By assuming this tack, however, the department knowingly violated its own laws and regulations.
Much has been written by Tom Horton and Timothy Wheeler regarding the maintaining of a lifestyle.
But what of the lack of concern to protect the bay and the consumers of this Maryland delicacy? Tons of crab waste are dumped into the bay annually by this "small cottage industry."
An activity of this nature would never be allowed to occur anywhere else on the bay or its tributaries. It violates not only health department laws, but also those of the Maryland Department of the Environment and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
While it is true that there were no documented cases of food-borne illness last year, let me assure you that it only takes one to devastate not only that specific business but also an entire industry.
There is also another side to the issue, that of fairness and equal justice to all the residents of Maryland.
Why should any entrepreneur be discriminated upon based purely on the geographical location of their facility?
All licensed crab picking plants, including "mini-plants" that are family run businesses similar to those on Smith Island and located throughout the Eastern Shore and Southern Maryland, are mandated to comply with all of the expensive requirements and to pay the annual health department license fees.
Those legitimate businesses would never be knowingly allowed to violate those statutes, which were implemented to protect this state's food supply. If others are held to those standards, so must all be.
While we would never suggest a deliberate action just to alter a lifestyle, we must protect the bay and the consumers which thrive on its bounty.
If this proves not to be the case, maybe the entire crab meat industry should move to Smith Island.
William R. Woodfield
Galesville
The writer is president of Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association.