Harbor Rickshaws?
Never mind laying streetcar tracks around the Inner Harbor. Trolleys move slowly and complicate traffic.
Why not, instead, rickshaws?
They're cheap, light, easy to pull (I've done it), take up very little space, and could whirl tourists from the Fish Market to Rash Field with stops anywhere.
Joggers could get their exercise, tourists would enjoy the exotic touch and the unskilled unemployed could earn a living.
Or, if not rickshaws, how about pedi-cabs? Bicycling is perfectly respectable, isn't it?
Mary H. Cadwalader
Joppa
Dismal Indicators
Why are political pundits of the media so reluctant to state the obvious -- that the American voting public (to judge by the recent elections) is abysmally ignorant?
Could it be because they are afraid that their customers, who also vote, will stop buying their wares?
Time was when H. L. Mencken -- without fearing the loss of a single reader -- could write boldly that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. It seems that politicians also do not lose elections making similar assumptions.
The Sun uses the mild rebuke of "temper tantrum," and the cries of pain are endless.
I expect more vituperative comments from readers -- some of whom will take the cowardly route of anonymous missives sent through the mail to my home (I've had these before).
But the voter ignorance I describe extends not only to facts and issues, but some of their own best interests (except for the rich) as well. I offer the following into evidence:
In a pre-election poll, a majority of those who disapproved of President Clinton's job performance were unable to name correctly a single one of his legislative accomplishments.
A recent letter to the editor reminded readers that what the GOP has successfully put over on the public as "the greatest tax increase in history" was in reality only a partial restoration of the progressive features of the income tax that people with six-figure incomes (and above) have managed to avoid during the Republican years.
A published post-election poll showed that a majority of those who voted for Republican congressmen did not know what the "Contract with America" proposed, nor knew that 300 Republican representatives or candidates supported it.
All of these are dismal indicators of the low state of public education -- not only in mathematics and the sciences, but also, it would seem, in elementary civics.
A friend of mine once said that certain presidential elections proved to him "that democracy doesn't work." Well, in order for democracy to work, an informed electorate is needed. That surely is not the case here.
Gordon C. Cyr
Baltimore
Long Odds
Michael Kernan's Nov. 23 letter chastises us non-voters for playing the 7 million-to-one lottery while refusing to participate in the pathetic bi-annual charade of Election Day in America.
I have to wonder: What miracles does Mr. Kernan expect from the recent election?
What are the odds that we'll get a balanced budget and quickly pay off our $4 trillion plus debt so our kids don't bear the burden of our frenzied greed?
What are the odds that we'll get meaningful campaign reforms and term limits so that one doesn't have to be an incumbent white male millionaire lawyer to be elected?
What are the odds that we of the private-sector working class will have affordable, effective non-government health care options before the middle of the next century?
What are the odds that we'll make meaningful cuts in our obscene $300 billion "defense" budget? Will we continue to spend nearly $100 billion each year to protect Europe?
What are the odds that this newly-elected government will abandon the 5 percent "structural" unemployment floor, thus guaranteeing the demise of the flourishing underclass and the crime, poverty and hopelessness that so pervade our society today?
I'll vote when the odds are reasonable that we of the American working class (and our heirs) can expect fair and moral representation at all levels of government.
In the election of 1994, that qualification makes the lotto's 7 million-to-one odds very appealing.
Kirk S. Nevin
White Hall
Not Dead Yet
I feel that I was unjustly, if not illegally, denied my right to vote in our recent election.
On Nov. 8, I arrived at my designated voting place, which is the Fallstaff Elementary School in Baltimore City.
When I approached to identify myself as a qualified voter, I was told that I could not vote as I was deceased. Obviously, I was not and provided the clerks with every morsel of identification I carried. This was to no avail.
I had voted unhindered in the last presidential election, with no challenge at all regarding my mortality.
It appears that I had failed to report my change of address (within the same ward) and in the interim was delivered a summons to jury duty.
According to the officials at the voting place, there is no forwarding process given to such a summons. In someone's infinite wisdom, I was therefore summarily presumed dead.
It is strange that the Motor Vehicle Administration, my insurance company, the federal and state income tax divisions, the real estate assessor and others all assume that I exist, but the election officials pronounce me deceased and deny me the right to vote.
Someone down at the headquarters of the city election board needs to restrain the finger of a clerk who so carelessly and thoughtlessly aims at the computer button marked "deceased."
Seth M. Eisenberg
Baltimore
Treason Talk
What country does Sen. Jesse Helms think he is living in?
Throughout the world, democratically elected leaders have reason to fear that they will be violently overthrown should they do something to displease their militaries. Up till now, this has not been politics as usual in the U.S.
This cannot be the change the Republicans mean to bring to our political system.
If Senator Helms has any knowledge of people in the military who would have the president harmed, he should come forth with their identities so that they can be investigated by the Secret Service and FBI.
Otherwise, what can other countries assume if the chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations unapologetically makes treasonous remarks -- even in jest -- about his own president?
As for politics as usual in our country, the Senate seniority system seems not much affected by the call for change that voters ostensibly voiced in the recent election.
Cathy Hall
Parkton
The Children
The battle cry against efforts to abolish welfare for able bodied mothers has become the rhetorical questions: What about the children?
The defense for the existing welfare program is that it provides support for children who would otherwise be without it.
While many of those opposed to abolishing welfare agree that able bodied persons should take responsibility for their own behavior, they counter that punishing adult behavior visits the sins of the parents on the children.
Somewhere and sometime, those who advocate radical reform will have to confront this compelling argument with a reasoned response about the likely outcome for children if welfare for healthy mothers were abolished.
On a rational basis, it is easy to make the case; on an emotional basis it will take more toughness than we have demonstrated to date.
It is not enough to say let the states reform welfare, because the same issues would remain.
Nor is it enough to offer the Orwellian prospect of children being taken from irresponsible parents and raised by the state.
Rather, policies must create incentives and disincentives that make it clear to young men and women that their personal actions can have clearly demonstrated costs. Out-of-wedlock children are not the responsibility of the state but the father and mother.
Conversely, policies should make it clear that personal actions can have clearly demonstrated benefits. Free from the responsibility of raising children while teen-agers, young men and women have the opportunity which comes with freedom and education.
The overriding determinant in the debate about welfare will be the toughness of politicians in the face of cries for compassion. While the compassion is misplaced, it is compelling.
Substituting what is best for the children for the feel-good albeit disastrous policies we now have is not an easy thing to do.
Herm Schmidt
Bradshaw