Gratuitous Swipe

In your May 28 editorial about the 11th District state senatorial primary ("Nasty Game of One-upmanship"), you take a gratuitous swipe at Sen. Janice Piccinini out of an apparent determination to present a balanced piece.

Your writer must not have been aware of the meeting that Ms. Piccinini arranged on May 17 to reassure the community that the situation at Rosewood Hospital Center is now under control.

After two serious incidents in 1992 (arson and assault), Ms. Piccinini helped the community call attention to deteriorating safety conditions at Rosewood.

As a result of the efforts of Ms. Piccinini and others, significant improvements have since been made. Her meeting in May was called to report on this progress; and as one observer in the audience, I would say that she was trying to calm fears rather than fanning them.

You might want to check with some of the numerous state administrative personnel in attendance. In the interest of balance, you might also want to share with your readers these officials' impressions of the purpose and tone of the meeting.

itchell Kolkin

Baltimore

Grateful

I could not leave unchallenged the letter to the editor on May 30 by Thomas G. Garrison regarding the Pulaski incinerator and its owner, Willard Hackerman.

Waste-to-energy is a very prudent and economical part of any solid waste management plan, and both the Pulaski and BRESCO facilities have served the city's and region's waste disposal needs well.

While both landfills and recycling efforts are also an important part of an integrated waste management plan, neither is an acceptable sole alternative.

Landfills carry the risk of ground water contamination and are expensive and difficult to site.

Recycling, while proclaimed to be a savior for our waste disposal needs, is extremely costly at some $200 per ton, nearly three times that of the waste-to-energy alternative.

This city should be ever indebted to Mr. Hackerman for showing his entrepreneurial instincts by taking the risk to construct the Pulaski facility to help alleviate a societal problem -- solid waste. For that, he deserves an appropriate return on his investment.

Further, Mr. Hackerman has displayed his leadership skills and business acumen by guiding the area-based Whiting-Turner +V Contracting Company into one of the nation's most successful construction firms, bringing hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars to our economy.

Lastly, Mr. Hackerman has been a uniquely prominent benefactor to the city with millions of dollars of philanthropy, ranging from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Walters Art Gallery to Johns Hopkins University and the National Aquarium in Baltimore, to cite just a very few.

The city of Baltimore should indeed be grateful to Mr. Hackerman and enthusiastically seek his services and counsel. Few men have done more for Baltimore.

Richard E. Hug

Baltimore

OA

The writer is board chairman of Environmental Elements Corp.

Arrogant Attitude

The June 6 editorial, "Stuart Berger's Magnet Muddle," shows that once again your editors have donned their rose-colored glasses for another tinted view of the Baltimore County school superintendent.

And once again they appear to be suffering from a severe case of blurred vision about what really happened at the meeting Dr. Berger had at Parkville Middle School regarding a magnet school for that area.

I was there that afternoon, and I can assure you that Dr. Berger was far from "apologetic" when he told the audience of parents and teachers that he had "pre-decided" to put a magnet #F program at Parkville with or without their blessing. He was, as usual, dogmatic and dictatorial in his approach.

However, the larger issue has little to do with Dr. Berger's arrogant and haughty attitude but quite a lot to do with his flagrant violation of his own policy for initiating magnet programs.

As a teacher who tried to initiate an all-girls' magnet middle school a year ago in this county, I have been told repeatedly by Dr. Berger's hand-picked magnet coordinator, Anita Stockton, that any idea for a proposed magnet school must come from the principal, staff and the community.

As a faculty member I can assure you that no such idea came from the Parkville faculty, staff, parents or community.

The issue in this case is not a public relations problem, as your editors keep suggesting. It is another example of Dr. Berger trying to do what he wants to do without any input from those he was chosen to serve.

orothy Dowling

Ruxton

Women and Priests

The news has been full of the papal statement on women and the priesthood. The Sun had a cartoon depicting a bishop trashing a woman with his hat transformed into a crocodile. Nothing was left but shoes, handbag and bits and pieces.

This was, I suppose, an attempt to show what the Roman Catholic hierarchy thinks it has done with women.

The depiction of the hierarchy as a crocodile is interesting, as we know that the only reason crocodiles attack humans is out of fear.

So we've now gone from aspirin to arsenic in two short months.

First, "Girls, you can now 'legally' be altar servers," followed quickly by, "But don't get any ideas, because you can never, never be a priest."

Somehow this particular arsenic has a Ratzinger flavor to it. Perhaps the good Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote it himself and the hat in the cartoon should have had his name on it. He is the watchdog (crocodile) of orthodoxy, after all.

As far as the subject being put to rest forever, don't even think about it. Time has carried us far past that point.

The journey for women is in process as is everything else. Nothing stops history from moving forward. It never moves backward, even though it sometimes appears to.

The overview is always upward and onward.

Ellen P. Young

Lutherville

Racism and Denny's

Michael Olesker's column (June 2) seemed to me a sincere and empathic response to the entire Denny's situation. I, too, am continually amazed by the insensitivity, or just plain lack of knowledge, evidenced by many when these racial issues surface.

Unfortunately, however, I find his response a little hard to swallow, too.

For some reason, he spent a lot of time talking about how rowdy black restaurant patrons can be, at least, that's what white restaurant owner friends tell him (and he seems to have accepted their perspectives).

He then goes on to stress how appropriate removal of such patrons would be, whether they happened to be of the black or white variety. With this latter conclusion, I concur.

My concern, however, is with his emphasis on this alleged "rowdy" black behavior. How does that issue merit any attention in a discussion of the Denny's case? My understanding of the lawsuit is that there was disparate treatment by Denny's personnel toward its black customers. Period.

Yet, unless I misunderstood, he has somehow managed to turn a potentially insightful discussion to a consideration of the (sometimes rowdy?) behavior of black restaurant patrons.

I thought the whole controversy was a matter of Denny's behavior. He did mention that Denny's could not possibly be without fault -- because of the overwhelming number of "coincidental" acts of mistreatment which characterized the suit. Yet he kept returning to this theme of rowdy black patrons.

Are blacks presumed to be "rowdy" customers? If the answer to that question is "yes," I won't even waste ink on defending the restaurant decorum of African Americans.

I can only hope it's obvious that such presumptions are apparently rooted in some strange bias. (I can't help wondering whether his restaurant owner friends judge their white patrons by the same rowdiness standards.)

I think it's entirely possible that Mr. Olesker's stereotypical images were offered up unconsciously.

Yet I think stereotypes are an inevitable result when one focuses on whether a victim of racism (or sexism, or other isms) "deserves" the treatment endured, rather than looking to the perpetrator of the wrong.

It is painful enough to have to cope with the realities of racism. rTC We only exacerbate victims' troubles by rationalizing, consciously or unconsciously, that they sometimes deserve it.

I offer this suggestion for warding off the kinds of responses which his column admitted are hard to swallow: Let's strive to keep these issues clear, and not muddy them unnecessarily.

The real issue in the Denny's case is Denny's acts, not the behavior of those who were mistreated.

Cheryl L. Slay

Pikesville