Top harbor attraction must be protected from development

The Inner Harbor has many wonderful attractions, including the National Aquarium, the Maryland Science Center, water taxis, the Cheesecake Factory, Planet Hollywood, the Hard Rock Cafe, the World Trade Center, the new ESPN Zone, paddle boats, the Clipper City ship and much more.

The main attraction, however, and the most precious one, is the water in the harbor. We must do everything we can to preserve the waterways and everything they offer.

The more we clog the waterways, the more we disturb the natural beauty of the Inner Harbor. And the more we disturb the waterways, the less we will have to offer as a unique and beautiful place to visit.

Restaurants come and go, but the water, if we are prudent and careful, will remain as the No. 1 attraction to the area. It may not bring money and profit directly to the city or developers, but it is definitely what makes us special and different from so many other cities in the country. How fortunate we are to have the harbor to draw people to our city.

We certainly should welcome new ventures and new development to keep our city energized and vibrant. But we should be careful that, in doing so, we do not disrupt and disturb the beauty of our space.

The Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. should be welcomed to join the group of restaurants and attractions that reside at the Inner Harbor, but it certainly should not take up residence in the waterway that is our city's most precious gift.

Leslie Landsman

Columbia

Starr's investigation should bother conservatives

Where are our conservatives when their views may interfere with their personal likes and dislikes? Kenneth Starr's investigation of President Clinton should leave them in a quandary.

Personal freedoms and protection of law as accorded by lawyer-client privilege are only inconveniences to Mr. Starr while illegally taped conversations are given full measure of evidence, and parents are being forced to testify against their children. Talk about government intrusion in the lives of private citizens -- the investigation is about the actions, as no national policy is involved, of Bill Clinton the man, not Bill Clinton the president.

As "family values" are held as justification for cleaning up television, the investigation is becoming more like an episode that even Jerry Springer would not stoop to.

Jim Martin

Baltimore

Civil lawsuits are answer to irresponsible gun owners

Your editorial "Open government must remain so" (July 28) misses the vital point of "gun control." It is obvious in our open society the easy availability of handguns and the increase of police surveillance and equipment are making us become a closed, guarded police republic.

If the accused killer of two police officers at the Capitol, Russell E. Weston Jr., was a diagnosed schizophrenic individual, how did he get a dangerous handgun?

Who is ultimately responsible for the deaths caused by drug addicts, violent alcoholics, children, angry adolescents and potentially dangerous deranged individuals who rob or who are given a gun by a friend or relative?

Does the vulnerable tax-paying society take the responsibility for these deaths?

The rightful owners of weapons should take some responsibility for these tragedies? If they refuse to do it, a penalty is in order, by civil lawsuits, for all handguns not kept under child-proof locks.

Unfortunately, many gun owners do not police themselves.

Ruth Von Bramer

Randallstown

City bureaucracy is taking too long to preserve houses

I read with great empathy Francis Rahl's Opinion Commentary article "Saving Turnbull Mansion" (Aug. 5).

Mr. Rahl is not the only one looking for the city government to do things in a timely manner. My husband and I decided to buy a house in the Morrell Park area of Baltimore City.

The land is owned by my brother-in-law, who decided that he, too, wished to return to Baltimore City after living in Howard County, so the second lot on the property was going to be the site of his new home.

Is the city happy about this? I think not.

It has been eight months, and our paperwork is still being shuffled around this bureaucracy.

There is no accountability; things are done in their own good time. At this rate, Baltimore will be a ghost town and the suburbs will be even greater beneficiaries of homeowners' dollars.

Sherry A. Parker

Morrell Park

'Black privilege' article ignored slavery, much more

Judging from the crocodile tears of Michael Holden's article " 'White privilege' is dead" (Aug. 2), we need to spend a lot more on white education. If there is anything black people need more of, it is educated whites.

Robert Jensen, in his Perspective article "White privilege shapes the U.S." (July 19), wrote one of the most sensitive, soul-searching essays on the dilemma of whites born into our society who have little or no direct interaction with blacks but nevertheless have certain advantages at numerous instances of their lives that blacks do not share.

It was an inspiration to read a white man articulate this dilemma of white-skinned privilege so honestly.

Along comes Mr. Holden demeaning Mr. Jensen's insights and turning reality on its head.

Mr. Holden shows an abysmal ignorance of slavery; a hundred years of lynchings; poll taxes; grandfather clauses; Ku Klux Klan terror; bottom-salaried, dead-end jobs; "back of the bus"; segregated drinking fountains, restaurants, swimming pools, bars, schools, colleges and churches; double-standard salaries for black teachers and employment discrimi- nation in the private sector and in city, state and federal government.

All this is reprocessed in Mr. Holden's mind as "130 years of efforts by the white majority in the United States to level the playing field for blacks."

As one of a small minority of whites, I had the distinct joy of participating in an overwhelmingly black effort in the 1960s to end all this.

After years of picketing, sitting in, freedom rides, marches, arrests, voter-registration drives, lawsuits and after church burnings, bombings, hosings and beatings while the rest of the world looked on and the former Soviet Union was winning the hearts of Third World people, some of the worst vestiges of American racism began to tumble.

A. Robert Kaufman

Baltimore

Canines are the antidote to rough and rude television

In a letter to the editor "Save a dog from euthanasia and find a good pet at SPCA" (July 28), a young lady describes the joy her family is receiving from having adopted a dog from Baltimore's animal shelter.

There is much more. A child whose parents are working need not come home to an empty house if he has a dog. He is greeted with love and appreciation, protection and companionship.

Young people who learn to love their pets learn to develop compassion and kindness to offset much of the rough and rude behavior they see on television.

It has been proven that the companion canine is a soothing influence on elderly people. They are even credited with reducing high blood pressure.

Man's best friend has earned its title.

Sylvia B. Mandy

Baltimore

Keeping children straight the Susan Reimer way

I have been a Susan Reimer fan for a long time, but her column ("Keeping kids in line ...") really hit the mark.

I laughed out loud reading her description of how she deals with her adolescent children.

Diane Maupai

Towson

Pub Date: 8/12/98