Stay neutral

Whoops, there he goes again! Our esteemed Gov. William Donald Schaefer, who last fall supported the Republican candidate for president, is compounding that misstep by backing American Joe Miedusiewski as the Democratic gubernatorial candidate.

As titular head of the state Democratic Party, Mr. Schaefer should stay neutral until after the primary.

Or does he again intend to display his Republican bias and openly support Rep. Helen Bentley if she wins the GOP nomination?

Grenville B. Whitman

Baltimore

Mail carrier woes

In response to all the complaining postal customers: Give it a rest. You're only giving your side of the story. In a letter (July 25), Marjorie Liss stated that she received misdeliveries.

First, letter carriers are human, we are not perfect. (Have you never made a mistake?)

I wonder: Is her name on her box? The mail carrier doesn't have ESP. He or she must try the mail at that address to see if it is good there.

As for crumpled up mail, I'd like to see you put mail in those small apartment boxes or stupid door slots, in a hurry, without bending it in some way.

As for wet mail, we haven't yet figured out how to control the weather, so when it rains, mail gets wet. That's a fact of life. Mail also gets cold and hot, but no customer complains about that.

In a recent article, it was stated that Baltimore is seventh worst in the nation for on-time, first-class delivery.

For your information, at the local stations all first class mail goes out every day. If we get it, you get it. Talk to the main post office if you think your mail is late, not your mail carrier.

Finally, during the ice of the winter, much mail was not delivered because of hazardous conditions. "We got our paper everyday" was and still is the cry. It was evidently easier to complain than to clear the walk.

The next ice storm we get, why don't we all throw the mail up on customers' lawns from our nice, warm cars?

Jeff Adamson

Parkville

The writer is a letter carrier.

Spoiled nature

Is there anywhere left in Maryland where one can enjoy a wild spot unspoiled by beer cans and candy wrappers?

The latest place to be invaded by untutored, ill-raised and insensitive ravagers is a beauty spot known as Hemlock Gorge, near Prettyboy Dam.

Even though Baltimore City, which has jurisdiction over the area, has placed signs at strategic locations urging hikers to clean up after themselves and leave the area as they found it, the amount of litter is often too much for those of us who care about the place to carry out with us.

There is no reason for the city to have to spend additional hard-earned money to supply garbage cans and the workers to keep them sanitary.

It should be easy enough for anyone who wishes to picnic or snack while enjoying the cool recesses and spectacular scenery to carry their waste out with them.

One has to wonder what kinds of minds are possessed by those who want to turn loveliness into ugliness and a natural environment into a dump for glass, plastic and tin.

Carl and Jerri Thistel

Baltimore

Curfew

It never should have come to the point where a curfew was necessary to keep children off the streets late at night.

Being a parent, I cannot understand how any responsible parent could let children to stay outside till all hours of the night when they know the streets are full of drugs, violence and bad things waiting to happen.

When I was a child, I was envious of friends who could stay out all night, but I realized that I was fortunate to have parents who cared because what is very obvious to me now is that a lot of my friends' parents basically did not care about their own children's welfare.

I would never let my son stay out all night because I would be too worried about his safety. Having a city curfew is a good idea, but it would be better if more parents took the time to care about their children and give them the guidance they need.

Murphy Edward Smith

Baltimore

London Fog label to tell a new story

"Business is business. What isn't made out of the country nowadays?"

"This is the business world. I'll just have to put my trust in myself and see what I can make."

So two area workers of London Fog were quoted in a recent article announcing the pending closing of the company's three remaining Maryland factories and the loss of another 700 jobs.

Why? Evidently because another "American" company has seen fit to run away in pursuit of the Great American Greed, to find cheaper labor costs ignoring the effects on the employees and the community.

The greedy buck is the world-class savior and the guiding light of today's corporate world. All this to hide its own faults.

Even with a union contract, the American workers were being paid a pitiful $6.14 an hour and another employee a world-class $7 an hour. How do the chief executive officer and board of directors expect an individual to achieve a basic standard of living at such low wages?

The employer demanded more concessions, including lower wages and attacks on basic seniority rights.

But there again, do you really think corporate America really cares? What concessions was management willing and ready to make? Have you ever heard a CEO or the board of directors take any blame for the company's failures?

We have seen the worth of the worker in London Fog coats. We don't know what management has done to contribute to the greater good. Management in all too many cases finds scapegoats and then makes others pay and suffer for management's own wrongdoings.

Back in the 1960s, when I would need a raincoat or a windbreaker jacket, I would only have to look for the London Fog label to know it was made right here in Baltimore and the employees were organized in a union.

Then several years ago, no longer did the London Fog label offer any such guarantee. Then I would have to look further to see where the coat was made as I looked for the union label.

Now I guess I don't have to look for the London Fog label at all. It will be foreign, it will be non-union and so it won't be bought by this Baltimore citizen.

My sentiment is not protectionist, nor is it anti-foreign. The workers around the world are, for the most part, probably not much different from you and me.

Big business does not run to Mexico to support the poor workers or their struggling communities in Mexico. The Chinese workers and their families do not honestly benefit because of American companies coming to China for cheap labor.

Corporate leaders of London Fog should be ashamed of themselves. I do not buy into such corporate decisions and my buying power will not, either.

But how many Baltimoreans and how many Marylanders who don't give a damn will just go out and buy a raincoat, or anything, without regard to their neighbors' plight?

Will these same people loudly protest the eventual loss of their livelihoods tomorrow, when it becomes too late, and wonder why people didn't do something?

We need to stand with the workers, of all nations, to fight the corporate greed and corruption throughout the world.

We all should get serious and begin to scrutinize our purchases. Maybe we should stay away from run-aways' products.

Then maybe corporate America would find how "profitable" American labor is when the corporate world balances American labor with American purchase-power.

Doug Schmenner

Baltimore