Snow in Baltimore
I have the following to say in defense of my fellow Baltimoreans. Louis Boeri (letter, Feb. 13) attacks the mentality of the news media as well as the citizens, all of whom seem to panic with the mention of a snow storm.
First of all, the prediction of 10 inches of the "white plague" (as he calls it) is significant no matter where you live. It certainly is newsworthy to the media in a state considered Southern by many, where large amounts of snow are not that common.
It is exciting to some people and dreaded by others. It is the job of the media to keep us informed. If they make a big deal of it, so what? How many times a year do they have something to get excited about?
The onslaught of patrons at the supermarkets is a natural phenomenon. Why not get the things you might need while the weather is not so nasty?
I have spent portions of the last couple of winters in Vail, Colo., where everything continues as normal in the midst of the common, everyday, snow storms. Perhaps the people who go to places like Vail are not the ones who panic in the Baltimore snow storms.
I think Mr. Boeri needs to bear in mind that not everyone is as fearless or as mobile as he. I sincerely doubt that this makes them the "quintessence of dumb."
It makes them fearful of driving in the snow, and smart for wanting to be prepared in the event they get stuck home for a few days.
Mr. Boeri's criticism of the people of Baltimore is narrow and the "quintessence" of uncompassionate judgment. I say cut my fellow Baltimoreans some slack.
Marla Spevak-Hess
Baltimore
Lippman Backhoe
In his Feb. 16 piece Theo Lippman informs us about one of the tragic flaws that deprived the late Sen. J. William Fulbright of greatness.
It seems the senator was too separatist, too biased, too prejudiced; or to use Lippman's choice of phrase, Fulbright was "too Southern."
With this brand of candor, Lippman surpasses all his colleagues in the effort to sustain a tradition long precious to American journalists. Whereas many have shoveled with both hands to cover over the historical truths concealed beneath contemporary racial tensions in the South, Lippman now brings a backhoe to the task.
He scorns Senator Fulbright's contention that a senator is obligated to vote the conscience of his constituency.
Right enough, most of those Arkansas voters lacked the sophistication to recognize that "separate but equal" would never cease to provide only separate and unequal.
But do those of Lippman's sophistication ever pause to wonder how attitudes of a constituency like Senator Fulbright's might have been affected by history lessons putting the lie to the myth that the Civil War occurred because the Union wanted to abolish slavery?
Just suppose those Arkansas voters had been allowed to see while still school kids that Washington had actually gone to war ++ in 1861 to preserve a federal tariff system: one that served foremost to ensure that the North's textile makers would always be able to buy the South's cotton more cheaply than any competitor in Europe -- whether the cotton was grown with slave labor or not.
Suppose Senator Fulbright's constituents had thus known that slavery was not what all the fighting had been about. Would they have looked upon blacks as the intended beneficiaries of the mind-numbing price paid at war by their Confederate forebears?
Would they still perceive their covenant with those forebears as one directed against the well-being of blacks?
But to reflect on the origin of racial attitudes in Senator Fulbright's Arkansas is to invite empathy for the late senator. Better that we settle for what passes with Lippman as truism: those who are too Southern simply do not achieve greatness. Not Washington. Not Jefferson. Not Madison. Not anyone who is too Southern.
Dennis G. Saunders
Columbia
Car vs. Cab
Ginny Phillips' Feb. 7 letter, "Welfare Whiners," is generally well meant and taken, except for the "went home in a cab."
I believe it has been well documented that a cab, other than public transportation, is much more economical and realistic for a poor person to use than owning a car.
If you add up the cost of a six-year-old car -- which Ms. Philips has the fortune, or misfortune, to own, along with tags, gas and oil, maintenance and the biggie, insurance -- a cab is much cheaper.
As to public transportation, I would think it would have been very difficult to handle the "$143 in groceries" on a bus.
H. Randall Miller Jr.
Baltimore
Living Wage
Both Republicans and Democrats seem to agree that the minimum wage has not kept pace with the cost of living. Both parties ignore the fact that the government tax bite is a major cause of the problem.
After all, one can only live on the "net" -- after income and Social Security taxes.
Elimination of all federal and state taxes on those persons receiving the minimum wage -- $4.25 -- would provide an increase in take-home pay of about 20 percent -- to over $5 an hour -- with no negative impact on the small business owner.
The loss in tax revenue would probably be recovered in increased small business volume (and taxes) as well as reduced welfare (due to a reduced penalty for working one's way off welfare).
An added benefit would be the reduction in Internal Revenue Service workload and, hopefully, staff, due to a simple, wholly automated administration of the rule change.
C7 It's simple, it would work and everybody would win.
Byron Henry
Highland
At Loyola
This letter is in response to David Folkenflik's article "New President New Problems" (Jan. 15). As a student at Loyola College, I felt the article to be very misrepresentative of the student body.
Loyola College students, of which only one was quoted in the article, are making great strides in dealing with the tough issues that face them.
Last year 2,300 students performed a total of 68,772 hours of community service in places like Beans and Bread, Our Daily Bread, Viva House, the Spanish Apostolate, Appalachia and Tijuana, Mexico.
Every week Loyola students eat dinner with and tutor kids from downtown Baltimore, work at Habitat for Humanity sites throughout the city and feed the homeless men and women of Baltimore on City Hall's steps.
Even after graduation Loyola students continue to be conscious of the world's needs by committing to post-college service with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and the Peace Corps.
In all these experiences, students are learning more about diversity and the world around them than any campus could offer.
Academically, Loyola's students are achieving extraordinary goals. The average SAT scores of the incoming classes are rising consistently, and in an environment in which most comparable colleges are struggling, Loyola has more students applying than ever before.
Also, it is important to cite the college's recent recognition as a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.
It would be inaccurate to say that Loyola students are without reproach and the college perfect in every way.
But Folkenflik's one-sided and unattributed portrayal is superficial. While the author may view issues regarding diversity and neighbor relations as problematic, I see them as areas of opportunity and growth.
Finally, I am confident that with the birth of Father Harold
Ridley's presidency, Loyola is more
than capable of seizing its opportunities and accomplishing its mission of producing "men and women for others."
Mark Furletti
Baltimore
Very Dumb
While Congress wrestles with the cultural elitism/Public Boradcasting Service debate, the future is here in Baltimore.
A quick scan of The Sun's Feb. 1 "Today" section provides a healthy dose of cultural irony: America held hostage by the media shower of the Simpson trial; the highly premature demise of the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation; the Maryland Institute's move to sell its 19th century Lucas collection; Bill Moyers jumping the PBS ship to go to commercial TV; and the final blow -- "Dumb and Dumber" climbed to be the week's third top-grossing movie ($103.9 million to date), while "Little Women" fell to eighth place (with only $40.3 million).
The real issue behind the Lucas collection sale was missed by your reporters.
The Maryland Institute College of Art would not have risked offending the major players (future donors) in Baltimore's cultural circles if it did not have its sights set on protecting its very future with the sale to supplement its dangerously low $9 million endowment at a time when funding for the arts is more precarious than ever.
McDonogh School that week received a $6 million bequest from a real estate executive to bring the school's endowment up to $30 million. How many of the institute's artist graduates will ever go on to make anything approaching the salaries of people in the business sector like the McDonogh benefactor?
While the loss of the Lucas collection would be a blow to the city's museum-going public, one has to weigh it against the future prospect of losing the Maryland Institute College of Art itself.
Money from the private sector to fund the arts is just not there. The Alvin Ailey foundation shut down because of a $129,000 deficit and slim prospects of broader financial support. That sum is roughly equivalent to the annual salary of one lawyer among the hundreds who populate downtown's glass-towered office buildings.
Critics charge that government support of the arts and broadcasting (already among the lowest government funding levels in the western world) is preoccupied with elitist initiatives.
The loss of the Ailey summer camp for disadvantaged children at Morgan State University is incalculable for the lives that will never be enriched and brilliant potential that will go untapped. Please, anyone, tell me how that is elitist.
As we tumble toward the end of the millennium, I fear short-sighted budget wrangling will continue to erode the quality of life in this country.
Time will tell what happens when one feeds an entire population (which is finding it more difficult to distinguish between a commercial television program and an infomercial) a constant diet of O. J. Let us hope that "Dumb and Dumber" does not turn out to be foreshadowing of the American identity.
Robin A. Kroft
Baltimore