*TC
Owings Mills wrong place for Wal-Mart
I live near Featherbed Lane and Reisterstown Road in Owings Mills, where Wal-Mart proposes to build a 150,000-square-foot store. I am one of the many community members fighting Wal-Mart.
In the course of the battle, Wal-Mart representatives have pointed out that the potential area is "correctly zoned" for this type of development, as if that were the only criterion to apply when determining whether a location for its massive store is the right one. However, Pleasant Hills is not a correct location.
Certainly everyone must form his or her own position about whether Wal-Mart would be a healthy addition to the area. In my view, by all objective standards the proposed location is not in the best interest of the community for a huge commercial establishment.
Wal-Mart may be a fine store, but it has its place, and that is not in the middle of a residential community, and not on a stretch of road that is already quite over-crowded and accident-prone.
The people of Owings Mills/Reisterstown must carefully consider whether they want the neighborhood to preserve its relatively quiet, safe, small town appeal, or whether they want it to %J become a mega-retailing center where people swarm to shop for discount items.
Please understand, we are not against progress. We are very much against the total change in character that a store the size of Wal-Mart would inevitably bring to our community.
Rather than alienating hundreds of current and potential customers, Wal-Mart should locate where it will fit in and even be welcomed by members of the community.
To shop at Wal-Mart, people will gladly drive to Westminster or to the Route 40 location under construction (which will only be about 15 minutes away from Owings Mills).
With these nearby locations, Wal-Mart already has a customer base for its stores. Based on the existing and planned locations, Wal-Mart truly does not need to build a store in Owings Mills.
icki A. Greene
Owings Mills
Keep speech free
In reference to Rea Knisbacher's letter May 26 about hate speech: I can't help but think that the only appropriate way to counteract any speech, hate or otherwise, is with other speech.
I don't see that there is any legitimate claim that Howard University is being one-sided in its "academic responsibility, judgment and standards of scholarship," when an invitation was extended to a creditable Jewish historian (David Brion Davis) to speak at this university.
It seems to me that he abrogated his responsibility in not doing so.
I believe that our freedom of speech is perhaps the most precious of the liberties granted us.
To curtail this freedom in any way is far more dangerous than to allow anyone to speak, especially when the opportunity for rebuttal has been given.
If we lived in a totalitarian country where this was not the case, it would be a different story. This is what we must guard against.
Doris Rausch
Columbia
Good news
Is the only real news bad news? Here's some good news, which The Evening Sun hasn't seen fit to report.
Thanks to the civic affairs committee of the Building Congress & Exchange, a former trash dump area of the Highlandtown Middle School has been converted into an attractive, clean and safe place for students to congregate between classes.
I am a masonry instructor at Mergenthaler Vo-Tech High School (Mervo to long-time Baltimoreans). During the week of May 23-27, several of my students joined with civic affairs committee volunteers from Baltimore's top architectural and contracting firms to renovate the middle school's courtyard.
This effort is an example of how businesses and schools can work together to benefit students and our regional community . . .
Thought for the day: Maybe good news would inspire more good deeds, and that would be good news for all of us.
homas Sordillo
Baltimore
Too big a job
A little toy red wagon is to a tractor-trailer what running a small West Baltimore dental office is to being city comptroller.
It is true, some comptrollers in city management were not accounting majors with large fiscal responsibilities or even a financial background. Still, does Baltimore want, now, an official who "can pick up the day-to-day skills on the job"?
There is much to be said for independence, but this position, I trust, has more requirements than being an outspoken maverick. In fact, those were some of the traits of our present comptroller, now on leave of absence.
That dental office has 100 to 200 patients a week, maybe. Baltimore has that many residents in a square block.
The councilman in question is a fine young man. Don't let him jump from the frying pan into the fire.
Robert Abdullah
Baltimore
Gettysburg monument
On Sunday, Nov. 13, a new Maryland monument will be dedicated on the Gettysburg battlefield honoring those brave men from our state, both Union and Confederate, who fought and died there for what they believed.
This is well and good. But I have learned from a park ranger, however, on a recent trip to the Pennsylvania battlefield that our state monument is to be placed near General Meade's headquarters behind the cyclorama which houses the famous painting by Paul Philippoteaux.
Those familiar with the battle, and Maryland's role in it, know that the soldiers from our state fought nowhere near the vicinity of this proposed site.
A more logical placement in context of our state's role in the battle would be Culp's Hill, the so-called barb of the Union's fishhook-shaped line.
On this hill three Federal and one Confederate infantry regiments from Maryland faced each other in mortal combat.
Never was there a more fitting symbol of that war, which pitted brother against brother and so profoundly divided this nation, than a Maryland monument placed on the actual site where brave men fought and died, Marylander against Marylander.
John P. Bahl
Baltimore
Cycling is better
While cycling to work along a tree-lined middle-class suburb, I watched as two cars approached a traffic light before turning onto the Beltway. The red car casually advanced, too casually for the blue vehicle that responded with an angry blast of its horn.
With deliberate speed, the blue car whipped around the red one, cut him off and came to a stop just 20 feet ahead at the traffic light.
Not letting that provocation go unanswered, the maligned driver of the red car jammed his vehicle within inches of the other.
Bounding out of his car in search of verbal redress was a well-dressed, stockbroker type with a natty suit and tie. Being out of ear-shot didn't make the drama any less explicit. Words flew and the driver retreated.
As the red car backed away and proceeded past the now-green light, an old man emerged from the blue car, club in hand. Not as in golf club, but as in three-foot, menacing attack object. He had retrieved it from the back of his car as though he had anticipated just such a moment.
This rather mature man -- who in another setting might be rocking his adoring grandchild in his lap -- wielded the weapon searching for the object of his scorn. By then, the street was deserted but for a lone man holding onto his anger.
What is happening to us? Why is it becoming common to take one's frustrations out on strangers? Why is there no room for anger any more?
Perhaps courts should consider as mandatory sentencing for those exhibiting aggressive behavior six months of riding their bicycle.
In my capacity as an organizer and director of cycling activities, I come in contact with literally thousands of bicycle enthusiasts each year. Whether cycling attracts special people or brings out the best qualities of all people is open for discussion. But the results are clear.
Cyclists generally have an appreciation for the road, for the environment and for others.
The pace allows for an integration of the person with the surroundings; allows for frustrations with an acceptable release; allows for folks to communicate while being transported to another place.
It also allows for us to observe the actions of others who seem unable to approach or respond to life in a constructive manner. Make way for the cyclists.
Pat Bernstein
Baltimore