Plastic Money
Harold Wright (letter, Nov. 21) obviously never worked or managed on the merchant's side of a retail counter.
Cash is and continues to be ever more expensive and dangerous to accept, much more so than credit cards or any other type of electronic exchange.
Happy is:
The clerk who still has only credit card receipts -- she'll never be held up.
The assistant manager who makes the bank deposits and carries no gun because his deposit bag contains only checks and other non-cash instruments.
The shift manager who does not need to worry which of his clerks is light-fingered, since all his store's sales are non-cash exchanges.
The business owner whose expenses have fallen since fewer controls, watching and security are needed, and efficiency is increased due to computerized credit card transactions. Every honest retail merchant looks forward to the day when cash is as extinct as a rotary telephone. I wonder if Mr. Wright is still dialing numbers.
Richard A. Berman
Baltimore
Firing Elders
I am appalled by one of the latest decisions of President Clinton. I am referring to the firing of Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders.
What appalls me is that she was fired over comments she has made, throughout her working as surgeon general, that were "reflecting differences with administration policy," and the president's "own convictions."
Well, if the president decided to take action on someone every time they gave their opinion, and it was to the president's disliking, then we might as well bury the First Amendment and exhume the fascist flags.
The comments she made on masturbation were of no threat to the American public. Dr. Elders was obviously not beginning the fight for a change in government to anarchy.
She merely made suggestions, and good suggestions, if I may add. Students today are being faced with the horrors of AIDS, and they need to be educated in alternatives to the risk of having sex.
It's about time that someone stepped up to say that we need more education if we are going to overcome problems in the world, but unfortunately our speaker has been silenced.
It was also brought up that Dr. Elders had made some "negative characterization of the Roman Catholic Church."
Well, I hate to remind you, but there is supposed to be a separation of church and state, but by the latest arguments of prayer in school (and decades of religious implementation into our lives), it's obvious that the government doesn't have a firm stand on such separation.
So if the nation's government can ignore the separation, then why can't an individual in the government express their feelings of the church?
On the subject of masturbation, the Roman Catholic Church regards it as shameful, and then also has strict rules on sexual intercourse.
So now the government and the church, working together at last, are supposed to be some kind of experts on the human body.
Neither one of the two on their own, nor together, should interfere on how an individual's body works, but should be sympathetic and fair in educating all people, with people like Dr. Elders in the foreground.
Doug Mowbray
Baltimore
Culture of Death
So now we put Paul Hill to death. Abortion doctor kills unborn babies. Pro-lifer kills abortion doctor. State kills pro-lifer. Abortion is a culture of death. Where are the winners? None that I can see.
Unborn babies die. Abortion doctors living in dreaded fear, dying and families fractured. Mothers who aborted living with guilt and RTC doubt. (Yes, post-abortion syndrome lives). Pro-lifers in jail and now one sentenced to die.
I am pro-life and believe that abortion truly "stops a beating heart." However, I do not condone violence and believe the battle must go on peacefully.
Pro-lifers certainly have not exhausted all legal avenues, worked hard enough in our churches and communities and prayed enough for an end to the struggle.
Lastly, if the doctor and escort had not been in the grisly business of abortion, would not both be alive today with their families?
And could not Paul Hill be convinced that peaceful pro-life work is certainly in the movement's best interest and be a strong advocate for the cause?
Remember, the majority (in my opinion 99 percent) of pro-life work is non-violent.
Robert E. Corbett
Cockeysville
Pass the Bucs
The Dec. 19 Sun's front page highlights Peter Angelos' efforts to buy the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and bring them to Baltimore. He should be praised for his efforts to keep professional sports in Baltimore for public enjoyment. Yet, to me, his professional football effort is a slap in the face for the efforts and achievements of Jim Speros in fielding the Baltimore CFLs with their first-year accomplishments.
It is also refreshing to have a football team whose players enjoy the game and are not striking to increase their middle-class incomes.
Peter Angelos' $200 million, which he is willing to spend for a weak National Football League franchise, could be better spent by acquiring the Pimlico Race Course property from Joe DeFrancis for $100 million, with the second $100 million being spent to develop that property into a light manufacturing industrial park to provide meaningful jobs to the skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled people in that area of Baltimore.
Baltimore needs businesses that will provide "living wage" incomes and not the seasonal minimum wage jobs that local residents obtain in connection with professional sports teams.
I would prefer to see the Angelos Industrial Park rather than the Angelos Buccaneers in Baltimore.
Philip D. Retchless
Baltimore
Dead Bay?
Boasting of dramatic results last year, the State Highway Administration will now use even more magnesium chloride to cope with ice and snow conditions on Maryland roads (news article, Dec. 18).
My concern, perhaps shared by others who catch fewer fish each year due to pollutant run-offs, is the major supplier of magnesium chloride.
It's the Dead Sea.
I can't recall ever hearing a favorable fishing report from that body of water.
H. Robert Heid
Baltimore
Lippman is No H. L. Mencken
I was stunned to read the Dec. 19 editorial page column by Theo Lippman Jr. and spent the next 24 hours trying to decide to whom in our government I should write.
As a 20-year-old Baltimorean, I fought in the Ardennes at the time of the Battle of the Bulge and know that there was no truth to that which was being reported.
Upon reading (Opinion * Commentary, Dec. 21) that it was a "joke" or satire, I had mixed emotions. I was relieved that the taxes that I pay were not being used for such garbage; but I was more concerned by the fact that I had so little confidence in "Washington" that I actually believed the story.
How many young people read this without the background to know the facts and never saw the second article? It should never have been written by Mr. Lippman or printed by The Sun.
W. James Price
Ocean Ridge, Fla.
--------
I am greatly saddened by Theo Lippman Jr.'s commentary and clarification. I have always thought of The Sun as an excellent second-tier paper, accurate and often breaking important national stories. Apparently I am wrong.
Mr. Lippman's satire of a nonexistent exhibition on the Battle of Bulge clearly aspires to follow in the style of H. L. Mencken or Orson Welles, but to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen -- I have read H. L. Mencken and you, Mr. Lippman, are no H. L. Mencken.
I didn't find Mr. Lippman's original commentary funny nor do I find the retraction sincere.
To imply that the Smithsonian Institution would mount an exhibition that depicts Nazis as the good guys and Americans as evil is ludicrous.
I find Mr. Lippman's "humor" to be on the sophomoric level of those who put plastic wrap on toilet seats at camp, and on a destructive level of those that yell "fire" in a crowded theater.
This article was as ill-considered and offensive as a politician's sexist one-liner or a television reporter's ethnic joke.
I am truly incredulous that The Baltimore Sun allows its staff to continue to take crack shots at the Smithsonian even when writing a retraction.
When Mr. Lippman justifies his actions by saying, "I am glad there are some Americans who resent what some young historians at the Smithsonian and on numerous campuses are doing to our history and heritage, and are willing to try to do something about," it is an indication that it may be time for us to worry about the status of the media.
The framers of the Constitution gave special rights to Americans to insure their right of free speech, but when that free speech is false information that inspires people to take destructive action, then perhaps we need to revisit the blanket of protection.
Pundits like Mr. Lippman complain about Smithsonian exhibits such as America as the West or the Enola Gay, yet I wonder if they ever bother to visit the exhibit in question or read the script to confirm that what they are complaining about is present or true.
I don't believe that there is a politically correct conspiracy at the Smithsonian. If Theo Lippman and The Sun want to complain about the exhibits at the Smithsonian, let them base it on fact not fiction.
Peter Liebhold
Columbia
--------
Like many readers, I misinterpreted the column written by Theo Lippman Jr. I was so concerned about the content of the column, I contacted the Smithsonian Institution to protest the exhibit.
That is how I learned that Mr. Lippman's column was meant to be satirical. The Smithsonian does not currently have an exhibit such as Mr. Lippman describes, nor does it plan to at any time in the future. Regrettably, I believe this column has generated a great deal of confusion and has caused undue alarm to our veterans, who have served so honorably when their country called.
Barbara A. Mikulski
Washington
The writer is a U.S. senator from Maryland.