Minutes or hours?
Louis R. Boeri's Dec. 15 letter defended both a wife-killer and the judge who sentenced him to 18 months work release.
Mr. Boeri's defense of these people was based on some statistical evidence that there is a lot of spousal abuse going on, both male and female.
The question is, what has that to do with this case?
The case should have been adjudicated based on the facts and the relevant law. From the news reports, it does not appear that this procedure was followed.
The man happened on his wife in bed with another man; if he had pulled out a pistol and shot them both dead, "on the rise" so-to-speak, few would have challenged the sentence. He would have been a man grievously wronged who dealt with it in a moment of intense provocation.
Instead, the killer let the lover go, sat and thought about it for three hours, got his gun and then shot his wife. To me that is premeditation.
He certainly had reason to be angry. But why didn't he simply throw his wife out and file for divorce?
I cannot understand the judicial approach to this case; a man who kills his wife is a murderer, unless he was defending his own life.
There should have been little mercy shown, unless the crime was committed in the heat of passion, usually considered a mitigating circumstance.
The question is, how long is the "moment" that the heat of passion can be considered meaningful under the law? Apparently, three hours.
Some moment! I'm not surprised that women are angry.
James V. McCoy
Phoenix
Ruination
In reference to the city Housing Authority's proposal for community service:
A few years ago, in the capacity of being editor of a newsletter, I interviewed the previous housing commissioner, Robert Hearn. I asked him: Why can't tenants be required to clean up after themselves?
I have seen tenants (or their visitors) grind burning cigarettes into hallway rugs.
I cringe when I see people toss fast-food wrappers onto the outside properties of public housing. Also such things as dirty tissues, and this when waste baskets are in easy reach.
The Housing Authority hires people to clean the environs of public housing. Tenants immediately clutter the landscape with trash again.
Likewise, inside a senior citizen's building people are hired to vacuum hallway floors. It is no sooner done than some tenants brush or sweep out onto the carpets in the halls.
People are hired to clean the laundry room once a week. After a few days it is so filthy one can barely endure to go into it.
At one senior citizen's building the rear looked like a blizzard had hit it. Plastic bags were hanging profusely on trees. Tenants had thrown trash out their rear windows. Maintenance men were paid to clean it up.
The Housing Authority's community service plan may not succeed. But a day of reckoning is coming. The Bible says that God is going to "bring to ruin those ruining the earth." (Revelation 11:18). May that day come soon.
Georgia P. Garrett
Baltimore
Homeless vote
As Ellen R. Sauerbrey prepares to challenge the results of the gubernatorial election, I'd like to propose a challenge to her.
Perhaps there is something to be learned from her discovery of approximately 500 voters in Baltimore who listed abandoned, incorrect, or nonexistent addresses in the voting records.
Could it be that, in her ambition for political power, Mrs. Sauerbrey has incidentally highlighted one of this country's best kept secrets -- that not everyone who votes is fortunate enough to have a fixed address?
The Mayor's Office of Homeless Services reports that there are 2,400 persons without a a permanent address on any given night in Baltimore city.
This means that there are roughly 25,000 homeless in Baltimore throughout the year. And this is considered to be a conservative estimate.
Just think how many votes this could bring Mrs. Sauerbrey if she could round all of them up to cast their ballots.
So she should keep up the investigation. In fact, she shouldn't stop with just those who have moved or voted incorrectly.
She should seek out all of those poor souls living in the cold, dark shadows of our city who didn't vote at all because they had forgotten that they still had the right to do so. Find all of those unfortunate folks who didn't realize that their thoughts counted, too.
Kelley Dean Morris
Baltimore
Lost values
This evening I had the pleasure or maybe displeasure of attending my first grader's "Winter Program" at Carroll Manor Elementary School.
During the kindergarten's alphabet recital of the meaning of the "holiday season" there were the letters "H" for Hanukkah, "D" for dreidel, a game played during Hanukkah, "K" for Kwanzaa and "V" for the values taught during Kwanzaa.
What was most disturbing was that "C" was not for Christ or Christmas, "J" was not for Jesus and "M" was not for manger.
As a matter of fact, there was no mention of any letter representing an aspect of the true meaning of this holiday season," which is the celebration of the birth of our lord and savior, Jesus Christ.
I find the values of the Baltimore County school system not only degrading but somewhat prejudicial to my beliefs.
If Carroll Manor Elementary School is in a predominantly white, Christian neighborhood, then why aren't we given our equal share?
This just seems like one more slap in the face. Even worse, it is another lost value.
Tim Huss
Hydes
Animal rights groups can be harmful, too
In his letter of Dec. 8, Dale Bartlett, a paid employee of the Humane Society of the U.S., seems to take great satisfaction in the fact that his misguided organization and others like it have had a hand in destroying hundreds of businesses and thousands of jobs in the fur industry.
That industry has been an easy first target for those whose personal ethics forbid the use of animal products and who want to impose their standards on the rest of us.
It was chosen as their first victim because many folks, without thinking of the jobs involved, think of fur as a rich person's luxury.
It is also easy to come up with promotions that build on the fuzzy wuzzy cute concept of animals that is one of the legacies of Walt Disney and others who have anthropomorphized animals.
With this cultural backdrop it has been easy for the animal rights people to peddle their emotionally charged lies and misrepresentations in an increasingly urban society whose main exposure to wildlife is on PBS documentaries.
Make no mistake about it, though, fur is just the first target in the long range plan to eliminate the use of animals for any purpose, including food and testing of life-saving drugs. Indeed, some of these people don't even approve of having a cat or dog for a pet.
Don't let antics like Mary Tyler Moore's recent offer to pay $1,000 to free a lobster lead you to dismiss the animal rights believers an harmless kooks.
They are well financed. They mean business. They don't care if imposing their will on us destroys jobs. At the lunatic fringe there are even a few who have been convinced by the emotional rhetoric of the mainstream animal rightists that murder and arson are justifiable to keep animals from being "murdered."
Sadly, these folks who are so careless of human rights are hurting the animals for which they profess such tender feelings.
If you don't believe it, spend some time in the fields of Baltimore and Howard counties with a pair of binoculars and see some of the pathetic diseased foxes that now reside there.
They are in that condition because there has not been adequate trapping pressure to keep their numbers in check and avoid the disease and starvation that inevitably results from over-population.
The animal rights people do not seem to care that prolonged painful disease and starvation are much more cruel and wasteful harvesters of fur than the trapper who quickly dispatches his catch as the first step in a process that provides jobs and a beautiful product.
I hope more people will come to realize that there are two sides to the fur issue and will open their minds to the facts.
When that happens, maybe thinking people will no longer be fooled by the feel-good emotional views of the elitists who insist that everyone should abide by their peculiar ethical beliefs.
I also hope that more people will decide to enjoy the luxury, comfort and beauty of fur.
Robert L. Dunker Jr.
Catonsville
The writer is public education director of the Maryland Fur Trappers Association.