Shameful Editorial

Your May 21 editorial "Jackie" should cause you great shame.

Mrs. Kennedy Onassis throughout her public life demonstrated intelligence, strength and courage. No matter the circumstance, she conducted herself with elegance, poise and dignity.

For The Sun to have coupled Mrs. Onassis with Richard Nixon, who was bigoted, dishonest, self-pitying and mean-spirited, is to me incomprehensible. And to gratuitously inject Hillary Clinton into the editorial and describe her as "a Yale-trained lawyer and policy wonk" was equally offensive.

Mrs. Onassis had qualities that earned her the right to stand on her own. There was no need to compare her with anyone. For The Sun to have done so was unnecessary and inappropriate.

Sara W. Levi

Baltimore

Omitted

The May 13 letter by John A. Micklos urging all Marylanders to visit the War Memorial Building was fine and informative.

However, as a member of Branch 6, Baltimore, Fleet Reserve Association, I was disappointed that we were omitted from the list of veterans' groups that meet there.

Our nationwide organization has been meeting there once a month (now first Friday at 8 p.m.) since 1924, along with our Ladies Auxiliary.

Our membership consists of active duty and retired career Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard men and women.

Charlie Kish

Catonsville

Who's a Slob?

I take great offense to Michael Olesker's reference (May 24) to me and all the other "slobs" who spend our Preakness day in the infield. On the third Saturday of May for the past 17 years, you could find me at the third turn inside the fenced-in "zoo."

In my 17 years, I have never been involved in a fight, never held a "show us your [anatomy]" sign, and have always driven home sober. Furthermore, I am far more knowledgeable about the Triple Crown, the Preakness and Pimlico than he ever will be. In my 17 years, I have brought nearly 100 visitors to Baltimore for the Preakness, many of whom had never been to our great city but now return regularly.

I resent the fact that, based on one trip to the infield, Mr. Olesker now claims to be an expert. In the past, he has tried to represent himself as a "regular guy." Well, Mr. Olesker, regular guys don't have press passes that allow them full access of Pimlico Race Course, nor do they have invitations to each of the corporate tents for a little wining and dining. Luckily, however, the regular guy is still welcome at Pimlico on Baltimore's biggest day, for a mere $20. Twenty dollars that, when multiplied by 50,000, means a lot of revenue for Pimlico and for Baltimore.

Don't blame Pimlico's problems on some over-zealous college students who lose control for one day out the year.

The Preakness is for all of Baltimore, not just those who are privileged enough to not have to purchase a ticket. Next year, Mr. Olesker should stay in the clubhouse and write a column about all of the colorful and exciting people in there.

And while he's at it, why not purchase a ticket instead of using that pass . . . just like the rest of us slobs.

John Kastner

Baltimore

ID Cards

At the recent CardTech/SecureTech Conference held within the Washington Beltway's world of its own, several federal agencies including the Post Office and IRS began detailing their proposals for a national identification card for every American.

The agencies propose that each person have to have the card to deal with any federal agency. The card is proposed to be a "smart card," containing electronic storage of all information available about each person.

Not only will this result in another invasion of the privacy of all Americans, it illustrates the complete insensitivity of federal agencies to privacy concerns.

Equally wrong is the lead in this proposal being taken by the Post Office. It can't even deliver the mail properly.

Imagine its attempting to organize, maintain and handle a database of information about all Americans with even a modicum of security and confidentiality.

'Charles R. Carroll, Jr.

Baltimore

Minority Hires

Having worked in two of Mrs. Helen Bentley's campaigns for Congress when I was a registered Republican, I can attest to the fact that her failure to employ minorities in her congressional office is due more to the demographics of her district rather than any conscious attempt to exclude them, as your May 20 article seems to imply (". . . only Bentley has no black or Hispanic aides. The Sun, May 20, 1994).

The writer Michael A. Fletcher (no relation) seeks to criticize Mrs. Bentley for her "oversight," yet praises Congressmen Kweisi Mfume and Albert R. Wynn for their following the same practice )) which Mrs. Bentley obviously follows: Hire those who help in your campaign or are in some way connected to your constituency.

The African American congressmen who received praise represent districts which are overwhelming African-American. Their political acumen compels them to have and maintain a staff that images their districts. If Mr. Fletcher wants to be fair in his evaluation of congressional hiring, relative to minorities, he should consider white people in Messrs. Mfume's and Wynn's districts as minorities and determine the extent to which these gentlemen seek to include more white people on their staffs.

I do not know what the percentage of white people is in their districts, but I know it exceeds the percentage of African Americans in Mrs. Bentley's District. . . .

Isaiah C. Fletcher Sr.

Baltimore

Cylburn

In reference to a letter from Christian L. Cain, Jr., May 25, if the buffer zone you see is filled with all types of garbage, be aware that this mess is not on the grounds of Cylburn Arboretum. We do not allow this and the park is kept clean.

Cylburn Arboretum is a historical landmark in the City of Baltimore.

No one to my knowledge has criticized Coldspring and called it a failure. The people who support Cylburn do not care what is built at Coldspring, we wish it luck; we just want the 75-foot buffer zone which was promised many years ago.

Also, in reply to his letter, of course we supporters of the Cylburn Arboretum are non-residents. This landmark is not a residence but an arboretum, to which all people are welcome.

A frequent visitor, a cab driver, calls Cylburn the best-kept jewel in the city. Art classes from the Maryland Institute of Art visit our grounds and stay for hours, painting the beautiful gardens, trees, bushes and whatever scenes they enjoy.

Thousands of school children visit our grounds and the Mansion, which houses a wonderful bird museum and nature museum. My grandchildren come here often and love every minute.

All we want is the continuation of our 75-foot buffer zone, nothing else.

Carolyn B. Mazer

Baltimore

Distorting the Truth About Guns

I was not surprised to see that Scott Shane was back to work with his article "Curbs on guns are growing, but so are sales" (May 15). In my opinion, this article is another example of The Sun's attempt to report anti-gun ownership news as you want the world to see it and not as it is happening.

Reporting of this nature does little to serve the public interest because the news is being distorted to further the anti-gun ownership political agenda.

Mr. Shane writes, "By requiring that every gun buyer's criminal record be checked, the Brady law already has prevented thousands of felons from buying guns in stores, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) says."

This statement is an absolute distortion of the truth and news. It is extremely offensive for you to claim that every gun buyer, and consequently every gun owner, has a criminal record.

The Brady law does not require "that every gun buyer's criminal record be checked." The Brady law compels gun dealers to make a "reasonable effort to ascertain" whether a potential gun buyer is prohibited as a felon, drug addict or mental incompetent from buying a gun. This is significantly different.

The next distortion concerns the ATF claims of success. I believe Mr. Shane was referring to the Handgun Control Inc.-organized press conference with the Treasury Department that claimed 15,000 "possible felons" were prevented from purchasing a handgun in the first month of Brady. The truth is that the overwhelming majority were wrongfully delayed from buying a handgun because of similar names, warrants for too many traffic tickets and the like.

While the ATF noted that an actual attempted purchase by a felon would be an open-and-shut criminal case, there was not a single arrest made by ATF agents. Why? The ATF claims they do not have enough agents to arrest a single one of those "possible felons."

Mr. Shane further distorts the news by quoting Cheryl Brolin, HCI spokeswoman, who said, "Any boost in sales has resulted from an industry campaign of misinformation, a claim that 'the gun grabbers are coming' to ban all handgun sales." He downplays HCI's attempt to keep law-abiding citizens from owning guns.

HCI has developed a deceptive and devious conspiracy to deprive Americans of their constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

First step is to license all gun owners for a nominal fee. Second step is to raise license fees so high that they prevent many people from owning guns.

Step three is to make it a crime not to pay license fees and then raise taxes on ammunition, reloading components and public gun ranges to prevent most, if not all, from owning a gun.

It should come as no surprise to anybody why Americans are buying guns. The important research of Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck makes it painstakingly clear.

When his research began, Mr. Kleck, a liberal Democrat, member of the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International, was opposed to gun ownership.

He changed his mind upon finding that handguns are used by good citizens to prevent crimes over 2.1 million times per year. Now he keeps handguns, along with a growing portion of the American population, in his own home for his family protection.

The government can no longer protect its law-abiding citizens. After considering this information, I believe The Sun is deliberately trying to influence the political issue of gun ownership by distorting the news.

Thomas E. Maloney

Bel Air

Education and Integration

The inclusion of commentaries in The Sun of May 15 by M. William Salganik and George F. Will was useful in defining the important issue regarding race and education.

Mr. Will effectively, I think, lays out the reasoning and approach of our courts and where it has brought education and race, as it applies to education, today.

We, as a nation, accept our courts' notion of de facto segregation as anti-social and something which the government must remove.

Using both de facto as well as de jure definitions of segregation removes the need to apply protections provided under our Constitution for those accused of illegal acts.

In effect, our whole society, its institutions and its citizens may be judged guilty because the results are not what they "should be."

Aside from the effect of turning the concept of "race-free" government policy on its head, the aim of greater racial balance in education cannot work.

It cannot work because the courts have not gone far enough. To achieve greater racial balance, the courts must impose additional societal edicts regarding housing and employment.

Unless we alter housing and employment patterns, and community schools remain the primary approach to where children go to school, schools will reflect the demonstrated tendency of people to segregate by race.

Let's assume that we accept the futility of improving the racial balance and that, as a nation, we will not do those things mentioned above.

The solution is a radical policy departure which is underpinned by the simple proposition that children can learn in their own communities.

Blacks don't need whites beside them in order to learn. The practical effect will be that schools no longer can use the excuse that children are not learning because the balance is not right.

Blacks will no longer be demeaned by the proposition implied in existing policies that whites and others must be present for them to compete educationally.

And Mr. Salganik will not have to write another article a few years from now showing that we are falling farther and farther behind and more must be done; while offering nothing that can change the way people choose to live.

Instead, he might write about the steps we are taking to teach children and the progress being made.

Herm Schmidt

Bradshaw

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Mr. Salganik delves into the statistical side of education. This has been part and parcel of analysis of education over the years.

And, of course, statistics can be selected at will to prove one's point.

I was amused at the people Mr. Salganik selected to quote. One, Prof. Alvin Thornton, states that "moving students around is losing steam with both black advocates and white advocates."

How unusual. Common sense indicates that the only real integration will come when residential patterns change and not some law is passed forcing busing.

In his article Mr. Salganik poses the current education fad -- "Attention to educational opportunity rather than pupil assignment has produced a new generation of race-related issues." Unfortunately, he neglects the key as usual.

The first issue is "catch-up." We immediately tie any gain in this area with funding. We've gradually gotten away from money, but it still is a convenient excuse for explaining lack of learning.

The second is "access." This apparently is related to minority access to gifted programs and the problem of suspension.

One doesn't need to have a degree in education to understand that this is a problem which can only be solved by parental guidance.

"Minority-centered programs" is the third category. Obviously, facts are facts, and what we teach is important. But it is not the names and faces of people which count in the world. It is ideas and thoughts that are critical.

If we must have programs slanted in this manner, then we should not test on these fluff subjects but rely mainly on math testing to assess learning.

The fourth issue, "linguistic minorities," is only marginally a problem in Maryland.

The only reason learning works in public schools in Columbia and doesn't in Baltimore is that Columbia has integrated housing patterns and provides parental discipline and support.

We are jousting at windmills if we continue to support fads to explain the failure of educating our youth.

R. D. Bush

Columbia

Will a Promising Industry Go Up in Smoke?

After years of citizen activism, Baltimore City reluctantly agreed to initiate a recycling program, albeit one unworthy of an industrial city such as Baltimore.

Now the mayor and City Council are considering repealing the incinerator moratorium passed by the council and reluctantly signed by Mayor Kurt Schmoke in 1992.

The choice that the city faces is straightforward: whether to construct a costly, environmentally hazardous incinerator that poses a health risk to Baltimore's citizens and allows a valuable local industrial resource to literally go up in smoke, or to construct an economic infrastructure, an industrial mosaic that will establish a sustainable market for regional recyclables, reduce the city's solid waste management budget, generate new tax revenues and create a variety of new skilled and unskilled jobs.

Certainly, the simplest decision would be to build a 2,500 ton-per-day incinerator at the Pulaski site, making Baltimore the "mid-Atlantic dump and burn" capital.

The city would receive a $10 million "signing bonus," plus $1 for each ton of waste incinerated, totaling $1.75 million annually.

The simplest decision is, however, destructive for the city's economic, environmental and public safety . . .

By combining one-tenth the funds targeted for an incinerator with private investments, Baltimore could construct an industrial economy for the 21st century without funnelling precious

municipal dollars to bond holders or international corporations.

The pollution released into the city, region, and Chesapeake Bay could be disastrous.

A 2,250-ton-per-day incinerator equipped with the best available dTC control technology releases carbon dioxide equivalent to 180,000 cars driving through the neighborhood each day, and nitrous oxide equivalent to another 135,000 cars daily.

In addition, the incinerator would release lead, dioxin (suspected to reduce sperm in men), and mercury (the current leading threat to the bay), coupled with those pollutants being released from the BRESCO, Fairfax and Montgomery County incinerators.

At its current 26 percent recycling rate, the city already supports more than 700 materials processing and remanufacturing jobs in areas from waste composting to construction and demolition waste recovery.

More than half of these businesses are eager to expand. They need city policies that support this effort.

Were Baltimore's recycling rates to double to 60 percent, the city's flow of recovered materials could double the employment in recycling.

A regional approach would attract more materials and more businesses, sustaining more than 4,000 jobs in recycling.

In contrast, a new incinerator at the Pulaski site would likely create less than 100 jobs.

Other urban centers across the country are stimulating recycling rates and attracting recycling-related enterprises.

Recycling is reducing solid waste costs in every city where it is seriously and comprehensively undertaken.

The Baltimore Development Corp. has initiated plans to include a scrap-base manufacturing park in the city's federal empowerment zone application.

If successful, $100 million in federal payments and credits will be available to manufacturers locating in the zone.

Already, no fewer than six companies have expressed interest in and the capability of locating in Baltimore to guarantee the markets for all recyclables recovered from the city.

These companies have pledged to reinvest their profits in the city's community development corporations, further stimulating local economic development and community empowerment.

There is no "emergency."

There is ample, reasonably priced landfill capacity to accommodate the city for the next two decades.

The Baltimore area should regionalize its solid waste programs for recycling and manufacturing, not incineration.

Neil Seldman

Washington

The writer is president of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.