Way to go

Isn't it amazing what an ex-president can accomplish when he doesn't have to go through Congress?

Louis J. Piasecki

Cockeysville

Cairo conference

I am writing regarding Melissa Melum's letter "Too many mouths" (The Forum, Sept. 2).

This latest exercise in bashing the Catholic Church demonstrated an astounding ability to oversimplify, equaled only the writer's tunnel vision.

First of all, given the oft-displayed major media antipathy toward Rome, it is hard to imagine where or when Ms. Melum might have heard a TV network news broadcast boasting about the power of the Roman Catholic Church being used to stall the United Nation's Cairo population conference.

If anything, network news would probably have adopted a condemnatory or, at best, wryly amused tone when presenting such a report. But, boasting? Hardly!

Second, unless the conference was misreported by your paper, it would seem that it definitely took place as scheduled, which would seem to indicate that the supposedly vaunted "power" referred to in Ms. Melum's letter did not "stall" the conference at all.

Most importantly, while the church's position is indeed strongly anti-abortion, it was nowhere near so one-dimensional in this instance as Ms. Melum apparently believes.

Vatican officials have consistently maintained that resource allocation, responsible development and adequate distribution systems are necessary to solve the twin problems of poverty and hunger in the world.

Evidently it is not quite so clear to the church and to the majority of the world's scientists -- who did not sign the Warning to Humanity -- that these problems will be solved by imposition of Draconian birth control strictures on the less developed nations.

Respect for life ought to mean respect for all life -- born and unborn, wealthy and poor, in developed and underdeveloped countries.

len E. Redding

Baltimore

Changing times

In changing times people need to adjust. One change needed today is to have voting on Saturdays. The time pressure on people demands it.

Another change is needed in the name of fairness and justice. In Britain candidates have equal time on TV to campaign. We too need to consider this in order to be fair to both the parties and the candidates.

Another matter is funding. It is the people who vote, not the big money. Have equal amounts for campaigns.

Delaware is a state that votes on Saturday. Maryland should consider the needs of the people in this matter, too. We are in changing times.

C. S. Ivanauskas

Bel Air

'Diversity,' or reverse discrimination?

An Aug. 10 memo from Undersecretary of Defense Edwin Dorn to the heads of defense agencies and commands addresses the need to diversify the work force.

To make this possible, Mr. Dorn suggests that Department of Defense officials who want to hire or promote non-disabled white men to a Grade 15 or higher civilian job must now get approval from the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. This apparently is in response to Defense Secretary William J. Perry's policy, which stated that women and people with disabilities are "not well represented" at management levels. The secretary asked Mr. Dorn to fix the situation.

Dorn's memo says that "progress in this area [diversity] comes one job at a time, so every vacancy provides us with an opportunity to improve the department's record. I need to be consulted whenever you are contemplating the possibility that any career position at GS-15 level or higher is likely to be filed by a candidate who will not enhance your organization's diversity."

A defense official was quoted as saying that there is no intention to discriminate against "any group" but simply to make officials who hire and promote aware of the situation.

Mr. Dorn has since backpedaled, saying that the instructions were not meant for the defense department as a whole, only for the 300 or so people who work for him. This makes it right?

What he's really saying is that the Department of Defense is no longer interested in "equal opportunity," but rather "equal outcome."

Who is to say that a woman or African-American or Hispanic or disabled person is more qualified for a position than a non-disabled white male? One would hope that qualifications would enter into the picture, not just numbers.

Some theorize that minorities (women, African-American, Hispanics, and others) have been discriminated against in the past. That may or may not be the case; it doesn't matter. The point now is that to discriminate against white males in the interest of promoting diversity is no more correct than it was to have theoretically discriminated against minorities in the first place.

If the problem is assuring equal opportunity for all, this is not the answer.

James A. Graf

Columbia

Gun debate

To those of whatever political or philosophical persuasion involved in the gun control issue, I propose the following challenges:

In the event your objective for past, present and future laws is to enhance public safety and reduce crime, the solution is as obvious as a body bag.

Enact and enforce minimum, mandatory sentences for any felony or violent crime committed with an "assault rifle," handgun or whatever firearm happens to be used.

Such indictments could not be plea-bargained and conviction would remove the possibility of parole or time off for good behavior. You do the crime, use a gun and get caught, you do the time.

Jail space will be available. Maryland has had virtually this same law since 1969, but it obviously has been almost completely ignored and neutralized by the dominant gun control prohibitionists.

If you persist in disarming the legitimate, law-abiding gun owners through incessant and disingenuous gun prohibition antics and crime, then you cannot claim that you are making the streets safe or reducing crime.

You have had over 30 years of trying these failed nostrums with nothing but body bags to show for all of your compassion and liberal theories of parole and rehabilitation.

The other half of the challenge is for those of you who elect to continue the travesty of current gun control legislation:

Are you not really only interested in disarming the American people in preparation for totalitarian government control and enslavement of our formerly free society?

There is no other choice -- enforce the law or admit to your agenda that suggests unacceptable socialist consequences.

Donald K. Tag

Havre de Grace

A year or two before moving to Baltimore from Manhattan last year I tried to encourage newspapers to get the public to clip newspaper accounts of fatal or non-fatal shootings and mail them to Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA.

It's reached the point where people are weary of the gory details of daily shootings and shrug them off, apparently giving up hope.

If anyone can help it is newspapers. Not merely printing the details but arousing the country to go after the NRA, which the politicians seem to be afraid to do.

To do so would cut off the millions of NRA dollars that keep them in office.

Many of them are even members of the NRA. Publicity about their membership might give them the courage to publicly declare their resignations.

I find it strange no one corrects these zealots who yell they have a constitutional right to own guns. That is pure bunk. When that amendment was passed back in 1789 and 1790 there was no question it was meant for the militia.

What kind of guns did they have? Yard long rifles that could not be hidden in holsters or pockets. The kind of arms used today were unknown then.

The "arms" mentioned were the arms of that day. Not handguns. The Second Amendment absolutely did not include any of the types of guns in use today.

S. Biederman

Baltimore