'Do,' not 'Due'

The Sun's editor who wrote "Hoyer's Archives" (editorial May 11) should be immensely relieved that among the oldest traditions of newspaper publishing is that the editorial writer remains anonymous.

For surely he/she would be mortified to have The Sun's readers know the identity of the writer who failed to understand the difference between due and do.

In the second paragraph the editor wrote, "So the agency made due with an outdated building . . . " The rule, sir, is that you don't "make due," you "make do."

Now I might ordinarily be willing to overlook this careless gaffe as simply an inadvertency in a time-pressure day. But The Sun, I see, has re-launched its campaign of derision and defamation aimed at Dan and Marilyn Quayle. It did this by selecting an insulting cartoon for publication on May 12.

Dan Quayle, as all recall, had a problem with "potatoe." Yet here is a Sun editor, with, no doubt, impressive educational credentials, who had a mental block with the correct use of "due" and "do."

And let us remember, too, that earlier this year Vice President Al Gore, Jr., with the most expensive education money can buy, St. Albans and Harvard, was unable to translate correctly our national motto "E pluribus unum." He got it exactly backward.

As a 50-year reader of The Sun I've noted that in recent times it has succumbed all too frequently to preachy editorials. You'd find it particularly healthful, I believe if, occasionally, you'd ingest a generous slice of humble pie.

And by the way, the archives you wrote about are not Hoyer's, as you worshipfully referred to them. They are the National Archives . . .

Martin W. Mayer

Arnold

Steak Dinner

I must take issue with Roger Simon's May 15 column.

What Mr. Simon fails to understand is that anti-hunting demonstrations are never peaceful. I commend Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., for supporting mainstream legislation that attempts to protect the constitutional rights of hunters.

Mr. Simon has done the readers of The Sun a great disservice by casting his lot with a fringe group, Fund for Animals. The fund represents a very vocal minority that attempts to force its beliefs and view of morality on others.

Its members would like to take the life of a deer or the life of a laboratory rat and elevate it to that of human beings.

The bottom line is that whether it be under constitutional law or natural law, animals are not entitled to any rights.

If the animal rights activists want to do something useful, they should fight to end human suffering throughout the world. In the meantime, I think I'll buy my wife a fur coat and take her out for a steak dinner.

Tom Dougherty

Crofton

Drunk Drivers

I for one am fed up with all the talk of the lawmakers and their "cracking down on drunk drivers." Obviously the current tactics of fining, suspending their licenses and even in rare instances jail time aren't working. I think it's time for more drastic measures.

With the jails being overrun as it is, the driving-under-the-influence criminals do not do much time. Obviously suspending a person's license isn't doing the job since there are so many repeat offenders.

Why not impound the car the person is driving at the time? Perhaps this will give the driver some incentive not to drive drunk if that means going to the car pound to bail out the car.

Linda Campbell

Columbia

Sour Note

Sometimes it pays to be ignorant.

I was part of a very appreciative audience at a concert by the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, I was part of a very appreciative audience which gave two call-backs and a standing ovation to Robert Macht after the first performance of his work, "Kreast Baru."

In his May 12 review, Stephen Wigler not only omitted this response by the audience but healso took exception to Mr. Macht's "prefatory remarks" and labeled the work "harmless" and called it "New Age elevator music."

Happily, my uneducated ears and those of the audience found it delightful. I thought the gamelan ensemble's sounds truly delicate and lyrical.

With the performance of the Mozart and Mendelssohn, this concert was a charming finale to a truly excellent season by Anne Harrigan and the BCO.

Unlike Ms. Harrigan's consistently fine performance, Mr. Wigler's generally positive review seemed to be marred by this one sour note.

Nancy L. Boyce

Glen Arm

Job Criteria

In a May 20 article detailing congressional hiring statistics, The Sun singled out Rep. Helen Delich Bentley's hiring practices.

In its use of broad population statistics, The Sun has failed as usual to be accurate. Such statistics, however popularly applied, fail to take in consideration actual job requirements -- education specialty and level -- and the actual number of available applicants meeting those criteria.

As someone who spent more than 10 years actively engaged in && structuring affirmative action programs as well as measuring their effectiveness within a large corporation, I reached a single conclusion.

There can only be one criterion for hiring in this country: the most qualified. Until and unless we can all accept this single criterion, we will continue along the path of mediocrity and endless cries of racism from all sides.

Race statistics do not supply answers. I prefer to believe that Mrs. Bentley has flown in the face of popular liberal notions and accepted the risk of unwarranted public criticism to obtain the very best staff possible regardless of race or national origin.

I applaud her efforts.

Edward J. Naumann Jr.

Baltimore

Patient Costs

I read with interest your brief article, "Assisting the mentally ill at one-third the cost" (May 10).

is wonderful that the state found a way to offer community treatment for the chronic psychiatric patient at one-third of the cost but, if your intention is to inform the public about these matters, the article failed to mentioned that when a mental patient receives the care in the community the cost is not only the $29,000 funded by the state.

We must add the costs of Medicare, Medicaid and SSI that will cover medical and psychiatric care, emergency rooms, hospitalizations in general hospitals, psychosocial programs, medications, courts, police and much more. The difference is that these costs are hidden or covered by the federal government.

In the article the statement that one patient in a state hospital costs $100,000 a year should be qualified.

It seems that this number was reached by dividing the budget of a hospital by the number of beds. If this is so, one must realize that many, many patients use that one bed in one year.

Also, the programs for the chronically mentally ill in a state hospital cost much less than that because they are less staffed than the admission wards.

Last but not the least, it is distressing to learn that these severely disabled people will be placed in programs where the money that is saved from their care will revert back to the administrators, and that to avoid further expenses they will be held in the community even when they need hospitalization.

It seems that the state is copying the worse feature of the private "managed care" profit-making corporations where the money saved from patients' treatments is to be added to their profits (in this case, savings).

In this context it is not difficult to imagine patients being placed with the cheapest bidder, and being kept out of hospitals at all costs, regardless of need.

Everyone will agree that we must develop good community programs for the chronically mentally ill who can put them to good use and live a better life in the community.

But many of them need extended and intermediate care in state hospitals, and this door should not be closed behind them when they are trying to live in the community.

I hope that the people administering these community programs will not allow these economic "incentives" to blind them to the patients' clinical needs.

Marcio V. Pinheiro, M.D.

Sykesville