Fells Point Vitality

I read with interest Patricia Mayes' July 30 letter from Fells Point in reference to the "Homicide" television series production company.

She talks about the sporadic inconvenience of having a crew in residence.

She takes, as a personal insult, her lack of inclusion in "Homicide" production parties, her lack of access to the Recreation Pier playground and the periodic "No Parking" signs when filming is in progress.

I don't contend that any of the things she mentions do not occur. As a resident and business person in Fells Point, I readily acknowledge that these things are annoying and frustrating.

What I can't understand is a mentality that refuses to accept the fact that however closely knit our little village may seem, we are, in fact, a major urban East Coast city.

By its nature, a city is an organic term.

What makes a great city neighborhood and gives it vitality?

Perhaps it is the constant juxtaposition of vastly differing opinions, goals, people and businesses. This surface tension is the price we choose to pay for city life.

Do we want to become a neighborhood like Otterbein, a neighborhood invisibly walled-off from the urban scene?

Cameron Kirstel

Baltimore

CFL Glory

I missed the glory days of Colts football in Baltimore, so I really cannot compare the new atmosphere at Memorial Stadium with that era.

I can, however, compare our CFL team's home games with the American Football League glory days in Buffalo. A new young team in an old War Memorial Stadium (the Rockpile) with passionate, involved football fans felt, in middle-aged memory, a lot like what is happening on 33rd Street this summer.

Congratulations to team owner Jim Speros and his organization. I am eagerly awaiting the type of success that both the old (and new) Bills and the Colts achieved.

Charles E. Wiles 3rd

Baltimore

Painful Change

If the people of Baltimore -- especially the parents -- do not grasp the chance of a lifetime for outstanding schools offered by one of the best, if not the best, superintendent of schools in the country, Walter G. Amprey, they deserve what they get.

Change is painful -- and risky, but the educational establishment has had its chance.

Now let's help this innovative, open-minded, dedicated man do the job. The sole criterion should be what is best for the students.

Joyce C. Morris

Edgewater

Not Widgets

Professor Susan Leviton at the University of Maryland Law School gives a succinct rationalization for state takeover of Baltimore City public schools when she states ". . . would you ever have a factory when 50 percent of the widgets are broken and you keep making them? When an industry doesn't make a successful product, it closes down." ("Steering bold course, Grasmick wins fans, foes," The Sun, July 31).

I have heard this same argument from others and on the surface it seems sound. However, with closer scrutiny a number of basic fallacies appear in this analogy.

Widgets are created as passive objects. They cannot partake in their own creation. Children, however, are not "things" to be produced through the efforts of factory workers.

Education takes place in the home, in religious organizations, in the community as a whole, as well as in the schoolroom. Education is labor intensive, and learning is achieved only when the student spends hours of dedicated effort mastering content: say about half the time spent watching television.

Surely Dr. Nancy Grasmick and Professor Leviton understand that unless a child has a nurturing, healthy family no amount of assigning blame will help. First, each child must have a stable, loving and supportive home where education is valued and help is available.

A good beginning would be to ensure that all children have access to equal resources.

K. Gary Ambridge

Bel Air

Speeder Crackdown Is for Revenue, Not Safety

So the Maryland State Police are on another Quixotic campaign to "crack down on speeders." Regardless of their claims, safety or to control statewide average speed, the true reason for speed enforcement is revenue.

The ultimate effect of increased speed enforcement will not be lowered speeds, but increased state revenue and dangerous practices by drivers such as tailgating large trucks to hide from radar and obscure sight lines of the police (required for VASCAR and laser), weaving through traffic in the right-hand lanes, increased travel at high speed on two-lane state and county highways, sudden braking and swerving into heavier traffic to avoid detection, and even higher speeds as the violator attempts to outrun the state trooper to the next exit.

If the state was truly interested in increasing highway safety, it would concentrate on unsafe behavior such as weaving through traffic, tailgating, passing on the shoulders, cutting over multiple lanes at the last second to take an exit, and driving at speeds unsafe for given road conditions.

The odds are far greater that a driver will get ticketed for traveling 80 miles per hour in light traffic on a highway than for traveling 40 on the ice-packed roads of the past winter. There were days on U.S. 50 and the Capital Beltway during the past winter that I had to drive gingerly at 30 to 35, and I was passed by Jeeps, Hondas and four-wheel-drive pickups on the shoulder of the highway.

Speed enforcement is arbitrary at best and capricious at worst. In the past months I've been trying to break myself of the nasty habit of passing on the left. Instead I'll stick to the right-hand lanes.

You see, I have a very red and very fast-looking car that would be singled out in a pack of cars.

My car is built to safely go more than twice the "legal" speed, its tires, suspension and brakes are designed for high performance; but it would be picked out of a pack that included Honda Accords, a Chrysler minivan and a Hyundai all traveling at the same speed.

It would be safe to state that the other vehicles would be driving at or above the car's capabilities.

This is why I use a radar detector (but only in states where they are legal).

But of course my detector is useless against laser and VASCAR. Laser has limited applications, it's a fair weather device that has to be stationary and there are detectors and, even better, jammers for laser. The latter is perfectly legal in all 50 states.

VASCAR on the other hand does not suffer from the technical shortcomings of radar and laser. Instead it relies on error-free operation by the trooper.

The trooper must start this fancy stopwatch at the exact moment a vehicle crosses a designated point and then stop it at the exact moment the vehicle crosses a second point on a pre-measured course.

At least one of these points cannot be directly in front of the officer. Any person who has studied human motor skills can predict the outcome of an experiment where a subject, like a state trooper, must repeatedly time an object between two points.

The outcome will be that the subject's responses will form a nice bell-shaped curve and as the speed of the object increases the standard deviation of the curve will increase (the curve will begin to flatten out and spread wider). This means the margin of error of the state trooper using VASCAR will increase as the speed of the vehicle through the trap increases.

I'll use as an example the drivers cited in your July 28 news article and the South River VASCAR Course, which is a .155 mile course in Anne Arundel County used by the Maryland State Police.

If the Chrysler clocked between the two bridges was on the South River Course, at 70.1 miles per hour he would have completed the course in 7.96 seconds. If the trooper had been slow starting the clock and/or too quick stopping the clock by 0.5 second, the Chrysler's actual speed would have been 65.9.

The man from Rochester, N.Y., was clocked at 74.7 (7.47 seconds on the South River Course) but thought he was going 65. He was only 1.11 seconds off possibly being right and 2.6 seconds from the legal speed limit.

Let's assume the Rochester man was actually going 74.7. Another patrolman or the same trooper at another time may have clocked him just 0.5 second quicker, meaning he would be charged with going 80.1.

VASCAR relies too much on the eye-hand coordination and reflexes of the operator, which will vary between operators; the physical and mental state of the operator (fatigue, attention span and anxiety); and uninterrupted sight lines.

The man from Rochester just had the misfortune of having a state trooper who may have been tired, inattentive, angry and/or had average motor skills.

Police don't like to admit it that they are just as average as the rest of the population.

Average reflexes, average intelligence, average driving abilities, average in honesty. So we are letting average people use accurate timing devices to produce flawed results which determine the level of revenue the state will receive.

The state needs to concentrate on the highway problems which do pose a threat to safety, and we all know what they are because we have to dodge them daily and wish that a state trooper was around.

But they aren't because they are manning speed traps which don't catch the weavers, tailgaters, left-lane hogs and shoulder passers.

Clark Woods

Davidsonville

Telecommuting, Light Rail and Clean Air

The Greater Baltimore Committee, Gov. William Donald Schaefer and you may feel that Maryland has been unfairly singled out in the Washington metropolitan area in terms of the Clean Air Act.

Even if the Environmental Protection Agency is persuaded to recognize the consolidated Baltimore-Washington metro area as a single ozone pollution area, Baltimore's business community will still need to comply with the Clean Air Act of 1990.

For the record, the Baltimore area is classified as a severe ozone and moderate carbon monoxide non-attainment area, followed closely by Washington, which is classified as a serious ozone and moderate carbon monoxide non-attainment area.

Washington must monitor its non-attainment status and implement emissions and transportation control strategies to prevent re-classification into higher non-attainment categories.

While Baltimore and a number of surrounding counties must comply with the Clean Air Act by 1996, it is most likely that Washington will have to comply in almost the exact same manner in order to prevent re-classification by the end of the decade.

In essence, the difference between severe and serious is minimal relative to compliance and control strategies that will be implemented in both markets.

Baltimore businesses should devote their time and efforts to strategies that will assure they have explored and adopted the various options available to them in order to comply with the Clean Air Act.

In my opinion, the two most cost-effective options that will not only guarantee compliance but will make Baltimore a much more competitive market are telecommuting and light rail.

Baltimore is a hotbed of telecommunication marvels. Networks in place could allow employees to work at home and commute on the information superhighway, instead of the beltway.

Information is available to area businesses on implementing a cost-effective telecommuting program for their employees.

The benefits of a well-planned telecommuting program go far beyond compliance with the Clean Air Act.

Businesses could reduce their real estate and building costs, expand their business hours, retain experienced employees, extend the geographical market for talented employees and reduce relocation expenses, among other benefits.

According to an article published in the July 24 edition of The Sun, the light rail system is responsible for removing an average of 5,000 cars a day from the area's roads.

If the state would continue to expand the light rail system, employers could encourage their employees to use the system.

Businesses which now subsidize parking garage fees for employees could divert those subsidies to light rail vouchers.

Rather than having our communities develop and grow around the automobile, communities could divert some of those resources and money around a light rail system similar to those in London or Paris.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of visiting either of those cities would agree that traveling within those cities on their metro systems is efficient and simple.

Businesses would find telecommuting and light rail much easier to manage and much less expensive than car pools, van pools, variable length work days, overtime and alternate work sites.

I would like to see more serious discussions about the Clean Air Act. Perhaps we can find a political solution or help Baltimore area businesses comply in such a way as to maintain and increase their competitiveness in their respective markets in a cost-efficient manner.

David W. Keelan

Timonium

The writer is a manager of a telecommunications company.

Baseball Fans Shouldn't Take It Any Longer

With the upcoming strike by the baseball players, it would seem quite proper for the fans to go on strike. We support the players and the owners with our hard-earned money. We have ceilings on our wages, so why shouldn't the players have ceilings on their wages?

The strike shows the fans just how greedy the players actually are. There is no sane reason for the players to strike. It's already a sin that they earn more playing a little boys' game than the U.S. president earns running this county.

Unfortunately, we have a society in this country that acts like a horse being led by a carrot.

If we could abstain from going to as many games as the players go on strike for, maybe they would wake up and realize just who pays their salaries.

Just like sheep being led to slaughter, the fans will continue to enjoy being taken for granted. I feel sorry for the fans not having enough common sense to see what the players are doing to them.

Phillip Rutledge

Catonsville

The thought of a potential strike by the Major League Baseball Players Association angers me.

The players are a bunch of pampered, overgrown -- and (like all of today's athletes) outrageously over paid -- children merely playing a silly game. Now they want more compensation? Poor darlings!

It is time for the basic reminder that the game is not for and by the players. It is for and by the fans.

It is time to knock all the players off of their high horses and restore the proper respect for the fans.

Without the fans' dollars, there would be no silly game and there would be no need for players.

Jaye Dansicker

Sparks

There are those who say that whenever Major League baseball players end their strike the fans, as they have following the seven previous work stoppages, will return in record numbers.

Based on the game's recent history, those who make such an argument will probably be proven right. But one day, and soon, the players will march from the field of play and return to empty stadiums.

Maybe it won't happen after this strike, or the one that follows, but happen it will.

It will happen because even in the most loving of relationships there comes a time when he/she who consistently puts the most into that union grows weary of having that faith constantly betrayed.

For those of us old enough to remember the infamous strike of 1981 or any of the other work stoppages before and since, the feelings of betrayal still persist.

To see seasons cut short and records left unbroken by those who benefit most from the game but who least appreciate its importance to the national psyche is to invite rejection.

If baseball serves only to remind us of life's many difficulties, rather than to provide us with momentary escape from them, what is its purpose? The answer is none.

Therefore, should this work stoppage prove to be the end of the

Major Leagues as we've known them, let us not mourn the passing of our national pastime.

For in the final analysis, it was not we who walked out on the pastime, it was the pastime which walked out on us.

Eric Dale Smith

Baltimore

If there's a baseball strike, it's not the fault of the players or the owners. The fans have only themselves to blame. When are the fans going to say enough is enough, and mean it?

Instead, they fill the stadium time after time, pay two parking fees and two admission prices for day-night games, pay exorbitant prices for concessions, pay increase after increase in ticket prices, pay over-paid players for autographs and meekly do whatever the owners and players deem best for themselves.

Meanwhile, the vendors, office help, ground crew, etc., who depend on jobs at the stadium to feed and clothe their families, are just out of luck.

Fans now have the upper hand and a perfect opportunity to use it, if only they will, and they don't have to join anything.

Just stay away.

Patricia Shea

Baltimore

Over the last several weeks, talk of a baseball strike has covered the newspapers. It is sad and utterly pathetic that greed is steadily destroying this American pastime.

In a recent interview, the players representative said that all the players wanted was what every other person in the country has.

That is the ability to earn, without the restriction of caps. How incredibly out of touch are these people?

With the exception of the entertainment industry, every job comes with limits on earnings.

Steelworkers, factory workers and even doctors know what their income potential is before they take a job. Income levels increase over time, but these changes come in small increments. Annual increases for baseball players amount to between 50 to 100 percent.

In the final assessment, we, the fans, pay. If the players' demands are filled, ticket prices will increase. If the owners stand tough, there won't be any more evenings at the ball park. What a sad commentary on America's pastime.

If the players strike, let them go. When they return, we should not welcome them. No, we should be angry and even hurt. Maybe a day at a desk or in a kitchen would teach them a lesson in humility

R. Laurence Sapia

Ocean City