Foster's 3 Strikes
The president's nomination of Tennessee-based Dr. Henry Foster Jr., to become surgeon general is the latest example of a White House that could be home to Jimmy Breslin's "The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight."
The nominee is a clone of Dr. Joycelyn Elders, hopefully with better mouth control.
Coming as it does when the conservative majority in Congress is flexing its muscles, the last thing President Clinton needs is a battle over a relatively minor nomination.
Dr. Foster comes into the nomination process with three strikes on him: He is a proponent of condom-based sex education, a very liberal program that got his predecessor into trouble; he admitted on the day he was nominated that he has performed abortions; and he serves on the board of Tennessee Planned Parenthood, a liberal abortion rights organization.
Many conservatives would disqualify him on any of the three counts alone, and even Hillary Clinton's endorsement will not help the nomination.
Chuck Frainie
Woodlawn
'Terrorist' U.S.
The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the culmination of a war policy of terrorist attacks on cities that the Allies accepted without much reflection in both theaters of World War II.
The view that any of these frightful acts were necessary for victory and for shortening the war in Europe or in Asia has been repeatedly refuted.
That the Smithsonian should present an exhibition of the Enola Gay, in which these policies are acknowledged to be at least debatable, would have been a most appropriate use of our national museum.
The distressing letters from veterans who suffered under the hands of Japanese armies provide the force for supporting the bombing, and every American in tribute to these brave men is drawn to agree, but surely that impulse should not silence a discussion of the horrors of nuclear weapons, nor obviate any consideration of alternative ways -- other than incinerating, without warning, hundreds of thousands of women, children and old men -- to achieve our legitimate military aims and still stay within the humane traditions of our nation.
Our country was swept along -- mostly by the heinous example of our enemies -- to accept the barbarism of terrorist bombing.
We are paying the price for that error today, when contemporary terrorists excuse their cowardly behavior by pointing to our prior actions.
It is time that our national museums contributed to a reflection on the vulnerability of even us, a brave and civilized people, to lose sight of our better aims in war.
Although this thought does tend to cast a shadow on our celebration of the victory we deserved and achieved, it might encourage future leaders to consider how to behave in a crisis so as to preserve -- even in war -- our heritage of concern for the innocent and defenseless.
Paul R. McHugh
Baltimore
Art for Art's Sake
I was annoyed and dismayed when I read that the Maryland Institute has decided to sell the Lucas collection.
Not only would this seriously affect the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Gallery, this short-sighted action will further scare collectors from bequeathing anything to them in the future.
It was not too long ago that Johns Hopkins University did exactly the same thing to the Audubon prints formerly in the Peabody library.
Do Baltimoreans really want our current collections dispersed, and to have all future collections in local private hands bequeathed to Harvard or Yale?
The Maryland Institute is making the argument that it needs the money to increase its endowment, thus fulfilling the spirit of the bequest because the endowment will be used to further educate their students.
This argument does have merit. After seeing too many student shows at the Maryland Institute, it's obvious to me that the students never benefited by actually looking at the pictures.
9- Perhaps the money will do them more good.
Schneider
Baltimore
Critical Judgment
It has become obvious that I must voice my protest against the ignorance and tasteless condescension of your music critic, Stephen Wigler.
Mr. Wigler panned an event that electrified and enthralled a large audience of which I was privileged to be a member, the Jan. 12 recital of Huang Bin at Friedberg Hall in the Peabody Conservatory.
I sat at this recital with a very diverse audience, from maintenance workers to bank presidents, from Russian immigrants to dignitaries, including the Italian Consul and numerous Peabody faculty, all of whom were deeply moved by the performance of Huang Bin and Shirley Hsiao-ni Pan.
I thoroughly enjoyed myself, as did every last one of the persons in my immediate vicinity. Mr. Wigler apparently did not. His review ran contrary to the opinions of the entire audience.
There were some problems of acoustics and equipment at this recital, but these in no way affected the genius and artistry of the performers.
If Mr. Wigler cannot recognize a diamond on a bed of quartz, how could he ever pick out a diamond in a sea of cubic zirconium, as is required of a classical music reviewer?
His comments, including "not much else about what kind of musician she is," "in an unflattering light," "content to produce a smooth and beautiful tone" and "whether or not she develops into an interesting one," showed a total lack of taste and sensitivity, and were, by all standards, boorish and simply wrong.
. . . In fact, Miss Huang's performance was breathtaking and beautiful.
Mr. Wigler's comments not only insulted me personally, he insulted the entire audience, the judges of the Paganini Competition in Genoa, the performers and instructors of the Peabody Institute, and even Beethoven, whose "slightest" compositions are still works of true genius.
George Gottleib
Elkridge
Washington State
Since the last election there has been much written about the division between suburban Washington and the rest of Maryland. Particularly notable is the Jan. 13 Opinion * Commentary article by Kevin Phillips.
I have a suggestion. The District of Columbia wants to become a state.
Why not make a real state by including the counties of Arlington, Fairfax, Montgomery and Prince George's? That ought to make everyone happy.
Robert C. Tompkins
Towson
Giraffe Gun?
I have a real dilemma, and your classified section was unable to help.
I heard House Speaker Newt Gingrich's comments regarding the differences between men and women in the military.
I need to know where to purchase a radar screen that I can sit in front of for hours.
My husband is actively looking for a giraffe gun. Any assistance you could provide would be greatly appreciated.
Judi Dickman-Narrow
Pikesville
Congress at Sleep
An attempt to follow the chronology of Social Security's disability programs might afflict most any otherwise able-bodied American with attention deficit disorder.
Your series of articles on SSI was certainly enlightening. In particular, the 1972 passage of legislation greatly expanding the potential number of aid recipients should be of interest to voters.
Apparently, their congressional representatives didn't have the time to read the laws they were enacting, even in those relatively relaxed times.
Now, 30-some years later, with many more aides and computers to assist in drafting ever more complex language, our current legislators can hardly be expected to have an inkling of the contents of the bills they are asked to consider.
A very probable cause of our representatives' time constraints may be their perpetual campaigning requirements.
We're probably long past the time of urgently needing comprehensive election reforms. Trouble is, nobody but ole Ross Perot seems interested in any.
W. Appel
Parkton
Public Television Is a Good Use of Public Dollars, Cable or Not
I want my MPT!
I'll admit that until I read Michael Burns' Feb. 1 commentary, "The Not-So-Uniqueness of Public Television," I hadn't given much thought to the public television funding controversy.
Yet a theme ran through his commentary that made me rush to my personal computer for a reply.
Guess what? Some people don't get cable.
I happen to live in a part of Baltimore County that isn't wired for cable. You read it right. No cable.
The piece referred to cable at least five times in the editorial, as though switching from Maryland Public Television programming to cable channels is much like, well, pushing a button.
But it isn't that easy to get cable in the first place. I've tried. When I called the cable company contracted to wire Baltimore County, I knew I was in trouble when the operator didn't recognize my street.
For some reason, I was under the naive impression that the entire county would have access to cable. I quickly learned that there were no plans for cable to come anywhere near me for the next year.
As the cable lines stop one tantalizing mile from my house, I decided to persevere.
"Why can't the Discovery Channel, ESPN, CNN, and American Movie Classics come to my home, too?" I asked the Baltimore County liaison with the cable company.
Too few people in my area; not worth it to the cable company, I was told. Well, if CNN can be "piped" into Bosnian households, why not some parts of Baltimore County? Forget it, I was advised.
So, disappointed but undaunted, I decided to investigate satellites. After all, you can get the same channels as provided by cable plus hundreds more.
But the satellite gig depends on the lay of the land and whether trees get in the way. Which they did, in my case.
Also, I wasn't willing to sink several thousand dollars into something that I probably couldn't take with me. "But your monthly payments will be much less than what you pay for cable now," a salesman told me. "But my area isn't wired for cable." "Oh."
So please don't assume everyone has the same options. MPT is the only alternative choice I have at the moment to network television (disregarding the new 18-inch satellites, which look pretty good).
And it's a good choice -- most likely the purest television we currently have as far as honest entertainment and education go.
I don't know what the future holds for public television. All I know is, everyone in my family learns through watching MPT.
Debi Reass
Cockeysville
In these days of austere governmental fiscal policies, one often hears how certain pursuits should be left to the "private sector."
While true in some cases, this panacea cannot, within its own devices, provide all the social necessities of a civil government.
A good example can be found in recent remarks in these pages (Opinion * Commentary) by Michael K. Burns that the federal government should curtail its share of the funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting because the once unique service provided by PBS stations in this country can be supplanted by private sector equivalents.
Mr. Burns cites several examples of successful programs which have already made or may in the future make the transition to private carriers. He further suggests that "niche" programming may be distributed on cable and that the commercial-free aspect of public broadcasting is already being eroded by longer and more animated underwriting messages.
However, these arguments hardly carry water when one considers perhaps the most important function of our public broadcasting system: to provide readily available, beneficial and commercial-free programming for our children.
One of the most important issues is accessibility. Although cable TV service is widespread, it is not by any means universal. Many families such as ours have made a conscious decision to receive cable into our homes.
However, for many families cable television services are simply cost-prohibitive.
Thus the children in these homes will be denied the many educational programs now found on public television and would curtail one of our country's simplest and most effective broad-based early childhood education mechanisms.
These programs are for many kids their main pre-school education experience and thus yield direct benefits to the whole country.
Besides the quality of the programming, another major reason that parents allow their kids to watch PBS shows is the lack of commercials.
Despite the assertions of Mr. Burns, MPT is the only place where children may watch entertaining and informative shows without being inundated with slick advertising for action toys or sugar-coated cereals.
It seems that in all the debate we have lost sight of the size of the small federal outlay for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides for both public television and National Public Radio.
Our government rarely spends money efficiently. However, the expense for public broadcasting -- about $280 million per year -- seems like a bargain when compared to the $258 billion annual defense budget or to a $900 million Stealth bomber.
Like it or not, TV has become a central information-transfer mechanism in all of our lives.
The quality of that information often being suspect, the few places where one can escape the deluge of sex, violence and advertisements are of great value.
For those without cable service, public television provides a crucially important final refuge for the education and welfare of .. all our children.
Jeffrey J. Hayes
Catonsville
Does Life Begin After Conception?
Reading Kristen I. Vanneman's response to Cal Thomas' article (letter, Jan. 24) reminds us of why we long for a daily newspaper in this city that could provide another viewpoint.
How many times will The Sun print letters that continue to express the same points on the question of abortion?
Two of these views, the first on the question of what point in a pregnancy it is acceptable to abort a baby and the other dealing with jurisdiction over one's body, continue to be made unconvincingly over and over.
The first point rehashed by Ms. Vanneman is the attempt to validate abortion by dehumanizing the human fetus.
Her contention that "the vast majority of abortions performed deal with fetuses no larger than a peanut" is her effort to qualify human existence based on development.
At which vegetable does the writer suggest that abortions are not justified? When the fetus is the size of a pickle, or a cucumber or, perhaps, a squash?
For that matter, a newborn is only the size of a loaf of bread and exhibits no uniquely human qualities such as speech or abstract thought, but does that make an infant any less human than an adult?
Analogical remarks such as peanut-sized or mass of tissues are continued efforts by choice proponents to depersonalize the precious life growing inside a woman's womb.
Why doesn't The Sun print the other view on this question of where life begins? That is, that none of us really know.
Experts on both sides of this question could argue endlessly defending their convictions. So one must take the only sure position; everyone agrees that life begins somewhere after conception and before the birth, and since no one is sure when, then if protection begins from conception on, you can never be wrong.
The second point we would like to challenge Ms. Vanneman on is her use, with regards to abortion, of John Stuart Mill's quote that "control of one's own body is an absolute good."
Now if she were talking about eating habits, a face lift or a tattoo, we would have to agree. But with pregnancy we are talking about a life within a life.
Even with "fetuses no larger than a peanut," this life has its own blood type, brain waves and a beating heart.
The mother, from the moment of conception, provides only the same elements as she would to a newborn: nourishment, warmth and protection.
But these arguments over abortion go beyond the question of whether or not a woman has the civil right to end her pregnancy.
It is one of the indicating factors on the overall moral condition of a society. When the mind-set of a majority of citizens can justify to itself, and legalize, the voluntary termination of a human life in the womb, then there is no limit to the behavior it is willing to rationalize.
The Greeks left the results of unwanted births in the wild to die, and we consider that cruel and inhuman.
Future generations will look back on the United States as we now look
upon past barbarians and ask, "How could they have let that happen?"
David and Nancy Binette
Reisterstown
Kristen Vanneman's letter is yet another unsuccessful attempt by pro-abortionists to rationalize the first commandment of feminism: abortion on demand and without apology. The sad truth is that arguments in support of this 22-year-old "right" continue to be false and misleading and often based on glorified half-truths.
She states that "the vast majority of abortions are performed on a fetus no larger than a peanut" and "only in rare cases are there little bodies and body parts."
First, when did relative size become the sole determinant of a person's humanity? Is a 1-year-old less human than a full-grown adult?
Granted, the majority of abortions are performed in the first three months of pregnancy.
However, the undeniable explosion of this tiny human during that period is astounding: At three weeks after conception, before most women even know they are pregnant, a heart is beating.
At six weeks, brain waves may be read, and the nervous system is essentially complete.
Within 12 weeks, all body systems are functioning. No body parts? Whom is she kidding?
Another myth espoused by the pro-abortionists is the "nameless, numberless women" who were supposedly killed during the pre-Roe era.
The reason they are nameless and numberless is because most did not exist. There are always people who will go to drastic measures to rid themselves of problems, whether through suicide, murder or other acts of violence against their own body or society.
To glorify self-mutilation as an act of obtaining reproductive freedom is irresponsible and just plain stupid.
At first glance, her battle cry of "control over one's own body is an absolute good" may seem agreeable.
I would ask Ms. Vanneman if this includes using drugs or other acts of self-destruction that have been deemed illegal by most Americans and the government?
Personal freedoms have boundaries. For example, freedom of speech may appear as an absolute right. But, it is limited when that speech slanders or endangers others, infringing on their rights.
I would suggest that a woman exercising her current "right" to abortion is actually infringing on the right to life of this genetically distinct, unborn human being.
The right to life is the overriding right, for without it a person can have no other.
Finally, I would suggest that Ms. Vanneman and her cohorts worry less about the government taking away their reproductive freedom.
Men and women have always had this liberty through the interaction of two basic principles -- self-control and responsibility.
If people would use both before an innocent human life is created, the pain and suffering for all involved in this "choice" would be diminished.
Michael R. Smith
Forest Hill