Remote Cop
Allow me to provide an example that illustrates the reason Baltimore City police officers should be required to reside in the city.
Several years ago, my car was stolen from in front of my house.
The police received a call from an alert resident who spotted some young boys trying to drive, and the car was located several blocks away before I even knew it was missing.
The officers came to my house and took me to the car. The locks, ignition, and dash boaard had been demolished.
While one officer was getting the car started so I could drive it home, I asked him what type of theft deterrent the police recommended to keep this from happening again.
He responded, "Move to the county."
Margaret L. Steiner
Baltimore
Unbelievable
After reading a May 28 letter from Thomas Maloney, I felt compelled to write.
Mr. Maloney, in his attempt to justify more handgun ownership, points to the Kleck-Gertz study that somehow claims that firearms are used to prevent 2.1 million crimes a year. How ridiculous!
If this were true, it would mean that 5,753 crimes were prevented yesterday by firearms, and 40,385 crimes were prevented last week.
With all this crime prevention going on, I thought I would check newspapers a little more closely to find out the details of some of these gun-wielding heroes stopping criminals in their tracks.
But alas, nothing in the papers and nothing on the news. Could it be that Kleck-Gertz has leaped to a truly unbelievable conclusion? Of course.
And for someone to cite this lunacy in an attempt to increase the insanity is truly sad.
David Miller
Baltimore
Audiences
In his May 20 letter complaining of Stephen Wigler's review of the BSO concert featuring music of Grofe, Herbert, etc., Paul J. De Luca commits several fallacies. He writes that he "would find it likely that the audience" -- which he infers to be a monolith -- "enjoyed this program more than . . . the Corigliano or Cyr symphonies . . ."
The mistake, of course, is his assumption that the audience for mine and Mr. Corigliano's music is the same audience that attended David Lockington's concert. The BSO season is designed to appeal to a broad variety of audiences, as an earlier letter by David Zinman took pains to make clear.
Mr. De Luca does not say whether he heard the Cyr or Corigliano symphonies he believes the audience would not enjoy.
But he is quite wrong on this point as well. The audience for my piece was both enthusiastic and vociferous, calling me back for two curtain calls Thursday night and three Friday night -- quite a respectable showing for a composer of contemporary music!
The Saturday evening performance of Corigliano's first symphony that I attended was similarly well received: several people where I was sitting gave it a standing ovation.
I find it amusing that Mr. Wigler's less-than-enthusiastic reviews of these two symphonies seem to have escaped Mr. De Luca's notice.
Gordon C. Cyr
Baltimore
Deadly Stretch of Harford Road
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because he wasn't on Harford Road.
Anyone who travels on Harford Road between Putty Hill Road and Joppa Road is well aware of what I'm about to write.
Harford Road has no traffic signals on this mile-and-a-half stretch. The road is four lanes wide with high-speed traffic. The posted speed is 30 miles-per-hour, but it seems no one knows this. The people leaving the beltway continue to maintain highway speeds.
At certain times of the day you can watch the endless river of steel flow by with no chance of being able to cross the roadway.
It is dangerous, to say the least, to cross in a vehicle. To attempt to cross on foot is nothing short of deadly.
Last year I saw the result of an elderly man's attempt at crossing. He was killed. Years ago my best friend tried the same thing. He was struck three times before he died.
Just last week I watched with horror as an elderly woman made it to the center of the roadway. She could not advance, and the brief gap behind her was now closed.
The busy mass of humanity had no time for her, no one slowed. I ran to assist her and help her navigate the treacherous southbound lane.
She made it OK, but not before three people blew their horns and one lovely young lady waved a one-fingered hello.
I called the state police and was told they don't patrol this section of roadway. The county police responded they don't have the manpower to continually watch one section of road.
What we need is a traffic signal somewhere in this area. Vehicles and pedestrians alike will then be able to cross this deadly road. The people from the east side of the road will be able to shop the west side stores, now off limits.
A traffic light is a simple solution. Why will no one act? Why has this been this way for so long?
Hopefully with the help of The Sun, people will be able to do what is now unthinkable: simply cross the street.
James E. Lorber
Baltimore
Murphy Brown Is Not an Inner City Teen-Ager
Marian Wright Edelman, founding president of the Children's Defense Fund, (one of Hillary Clinton's favorite organizations), is wrong when she postulates, "If it is wrong for a 13-year-old inner-city girl to have babies without benefit of marriage, it's wrong for rich celebrities too." ("Marian & Murphy," editorial, May 31.)
She and Dan Quayle, whose unfortunate remarks about Murphy Brown "bearing a child alone and calling it just another 'lifestyle choice' " made him a laughing stock back in 1992, make interesting and unlikely bedfellows.
In this country, our Constitution deliberately separates matters of church and state because our founding fathers correctly deduced that morality is a private affair.
We live in a polymorphic society where no one state religion prevails, dictating a single, unwavering set of values to which everyone must adhere.
If a responsible adult woman (or man, for that matter) chooses to become a parent without benefit of spouse, "It ain't nobody's bizness but her own," to quote Billie Holiday.
For once in his life though, Dan Quayle was right, when he said, in the same 1992 speech, that "bearing babies irresponsibly is, simply, wrong."
Moral outrage aside, the only reason it's "wrong" for unwed teens to have babies is because they are not prepared, emotionally or financially, to support and nurture an infant while they are still dependent children themselves.
In that sense, it is profoundly wrong for children to have children. Both children (mother and baby) suffer.
The babies are gravely at risk and frequently require expensive intervention. Young teens are much more likely to produce premature or low birth weight babies requiring lengthy hospitalization in high-tech neo-natal intensive care units.
All the problems associated with these conditions -- including chronic respiratory disease, cerebral palsy and serious learning disabilities -- are compounded by the very young mother's own severely limited resources. She usually has little education, no money, no transportation, no parenting skills, no stable partner.
If the babies escape the birth experience unscathed, they are still at risk for a host of crippling conditions seen all too often in every inner city pediatric ward, including accidental injury, physical abuse, neglect and the peculiarly descriptive diagnosis which says it all: "failure to thrive."
Small children who miraculously avoid serious health problems in infancy may still be scarred by unstable living situations, revolving-door foster care and inadequate child care which relies heavily on TV and disinterested or overworked relatives in place of a stimulating pre-school environment.
By the time they reach school age, they are already far behind and losing more ground every day. Their chance to grab the brass ring of the American Dream was already tarnished at the moment of conception.
The child-mother is equally deprived. Her childhood is destroyed, the foundation for a productive adult life shattered.
Her schooling is interrupted, if not terminated forever, and her chances for meaningful employment as an adult are drastically reduced. She and her child (and the next and the next) usually become another statistic.
Contrast this with a thirty-something professional woman who has devoted her entire adult life to her career, paid taxes, made a contribution to society -- who now hears the biological clock ticking and chooses, with great care and intention, to bear a child. This is irresponsible?
What is really irresponsible is public figures who jump on a bandwagon for personal or political gain without any regard for the facts.
The fact is, we have a Constitution (thank God) to protect us from moralizing, holier-than-thou do-gooders.
The fact is, we have a serious problem in this country with unwed teen-age mothers who are straining our ability to provide for everyone else because of the disproportionate burden they are placing on our system of social welfare and medical assistance.
The fact is, we need politicians who will focus on the real issues of need rather than use dirty tricks and sound bites to smear convenient targets.
Just last week, two scenarios in the same delivery suite illustrated the clear dichotomy between the two issues.
A 13-year-old girl gave birth to premature twins. She was hospitalized for over a month prior to delivery, and the babies will require intensive care for months to come.
A week before that, a lesbian couple gave birth to a healthy baby girl through the miracle of in vitro fertilization. The mother and baby were discharged after 24 hours.
The tax-payers have every right to ask questions when they pay the freight. It's pretty obvious which situation fits that description.
J. Ruth Goldstein
Baltimore