AIDS Services
In reference to a Dec. 23 Sun article, several of the points made need to be clarified and expanded upon.
People with AIDS in the State of Maryland are heavily concentrated in Baltimore City, with Baltimore residents representing over 50 percent of the state's AIDS cases.
The Baltimore City Health Department has consistently been a leader in taking approaches to assure that persons affected by this disease have unhampered access to quality health care.
The Health Department provides many HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment services and has a long record of sound, responsible and efficient administration of funds to other organizations and health providers in the AIDS field.
The Health Department currently administers a multitude of complex grants for HIV/AIDS programs in the city . . .
In administering more than 100 separate contracts for care in the community, the department has repeatedly shown its capacity to manage such projects. The highest priority of the direct service funds is to get health care to the people who need it most.
The department is also a leader in providing HIV/AIDS prevention services aimed at curtailing the spread of the disease.
Baltimore is the largest city in the United States whose city government is operating a needle-exchange project.
We operate several youth outreach projects to discourage young people from risky behavior that can lead to their acquisition of this deadly virus, and we have encouraged the participation of community organizations in preventing the spread of HIV. We currently provide funds to several community-based organizations for such projects.
Recent allegations that the Health Department was unable to administer one of the grants for which we are responsible, Ryan White Title III, refer to only one grant among the myriad we are charged with administering.
In its recent letter to the department regarding the change in the administration of these funds, the Health Resources and Services Administration acknowledged "the strong service delivery component that currently exists in Baltimore" and emphasized our expertise in AIDS service delivery . . .
The Health Department's record was recently recognized by the federal government when it awarded the city its Ryan White Title I funds, stating that the Baltimore Health Department has one of the best records in the country of managing Title I funds. We intend to uphold and continue to improve upon this record.
Peter Beilenson, M.D.
Baltimore
The writer is the commissioner of the Baltimore City Health Department.
Mencken
In reference to the Dec. 26 article "It's all Mencken's Fault" by Susan Baer:
Given that most members of Congress have read little more by H. L. Mencken than quotes from a speaker's anthology, it is some credit to Rep. Newt Gingrich that he's read enough to dislike him.
But it should surprise no one that a politician like Gingrich, who takes seriously both his calling and himself, would find the writings of Mencken uncomfortable, even irritating.
Mencken was not a "mean person . . . who wrote with a deep cynicism and despised people." On the contrary, he was a good-natured realist who understood that politics, at root, is nothing but power and prestige.
What he despised were the arrogance and the cant of politicians, who veiled their ambitions with pietism and canards. He was driven to skewering such frauds.
Mencken's perspective, while it suited many in the 1920s, became annoying in the 1930s when faith was reawakened in the benevolence and efficiency of government.
While Gingrich may argue that the recent election was an endorsement of Republican views, a better analysis is that the American people have simply outgrown their sophomoric faith in political solutions, regardless of party.
They are coming around to H. L. Mencken.
R. W. Wilcke
Monkton
Bright Idea
Those new rock-concert style lights adorning the World Trade Center do indeed serve a useful purpose to Marylanders.
It will be a reminder to all that our state government just can't seem to get the message that taxpayers are tried of picking up the tab for such wasteful, unproductive expenditures.
Jim Tomney
Baltimore
Big Spenders
. . . Rep. Newt Gingrich's ideas and the "Contract with (or is it on?) America" currently being foisted upon the public as TTC solutions to our problems appear to suffer from the same heritage (or is it the Heritage Foundation?).
Here, for example, we are led to believe that substituting orphanages for parents would reduce the welfare budget even though Aid to Families with Dependent Children costs about $350 a month whereas institutionalizing a child costs about 10 times that amount.
Talk about free-spending liberals. Those conservatives must be 10 times as bad.
But, of course, they are simply guilty of putting forth ideas that seem politically correct (that is, that will get votes) without thinking through the consequences.
In another instance of sheer disregard for the consequences, both the Congress and the president are offering a tax break, whereas what they should be discussing is some way to take the current debt burden off our children's backs.
As the GOP attempts to cure all the nation's ills in the next 100 days, it is beholden on those who care for the future of our country to hold its feet to the fire of responsible actions. So far, at least, Republicans have exhibited no evidence of such discipline.
Talking of a balanced budget while at the same time proposing a cut in the capital gains tax and an increase in defense spending is only repeating history, not making it.
John D. Venables
Towson
Doves, No Vultures
I cannot help but take exception to the curious symbolism used by Louis Rene Beres in his Dec. 30 article, "Israel's Albatross Becomes a Vulture."
A symbol is a word that stands for something else, and that something else differs according to who interprets the symbol. For instance, I might see the vulture from the other side.
I was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and there in the 1930s lived Arabs, Jews, French, Americans, Russians, Armenians, British and many more, harmoniously.
From my point of view, Palestine, the Holy Land, was gobbled up without permission from the residents by those whose loved ones had suffered desperate horror and annihilation in Germany under Hitler.
The fact that today both the Israelis and the Palestinians, through their chosen leaders Rabin and Arafat, are willing to work for peace, even though the militants on both sides would have it otherwise, is the only hopeful event in the Middle East in 40 years.
So let us not analogize with the symbolism of Kafka. Rather let us talk about the symbolism of the three great religions of the Book where God is one and is a God of love.
If symbolism is to be used, let us draw doves, not vultures.
Muriel Heineman
Baltimore
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Louis Beres writes a parable with commentary on the Opinion * Commentary page Dec. 30 about Israel and Palestinian tensions which has a sense of doom.
His commentary suggests that this desperation stemming from the current failure in finding peace could drive Israel to destroy itself through its use of its "most terrible" weapons that will be used to destroy its enemies.
Hopefully, Mr. Beres does not reflect the mood of the Israeli people or its government.
Although it may be possible to misread something written as a parable, Mr. Beres also appears to be suggesting that the United States is helping drive Israel in such a hopeless direction.
By urging negotiations, it is placing Israel in a vulnerable position vis-a-vis its enemies. Mr. Beres takes a familiar pro-Israel position which is: If you are not totally for us, you are against us. This view says clearly that impartiality is unacceptable from friends.
True friendship is not always telling people what they want to hear.
For the aspirations of both the Israelis and Palestinians, the United States needs to be forthright with the Israeli government by saying it can have peace or it can have the land it has occupied since 1967. But it cannot have both.
Herm Schmidt
Bradshaw