Residency flap shows Clarence Blount isn't Senate's conscience
I do not know Sen. Clarence W. Blount. His legislative record may be superlative. However, if he is the "conscience of the Maryland Senate" it should be the "guilty conscience."
How can he maintain with a straight face while giving that Copley Road address as his residence?
Isn't a residence a place where a married man and his wife reside together? He doesn't need a phone at the Copley Road location? Why does he need one at his Pikesville "home"?
Mr. Blount was quoted in The Sun as saying, "The issue is where does my opponent [state Del. Frank Boston] get the money" to finance the investigation about him.
No, the real issue is Mr. Blount's trying to circumvent the residency requirements regarding running for office. Should Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke be allowed to live in Annapolis if he rented a room in Baltimore? Would it be all right for Gov. Parris N. Glendening to have a house in Virginia as long as he had a crash pad in Maryland?
I don't know Mr. Boston either, but just as The Sun should be commended for bringing to light the misdeeds of Larry Young, so should Mr. Boston regarding Senator Blount.
Instead of being vilified by various members of the Maryland Senate for pursuing this matter, Mr. Boston should be praised for his persistence in bringing this matter to light.
Ethics is ethics is ethics -- and maybe this is why the public is so jaded to the ethical behavior of our elected officials.
Samuel A. Arnoff
Baltimore
Britain shouldn't overreact to N. Ireland violence
Having recently returned from a tour of the six counties in the north of Ireland, I feel compelled to express my views in light of the recent events there.
I condemn those responsible for the Omagh bombing.
Although the current peace agreements have been rocked with the recent bombing, and there is and should be justified anger against the splinter group that carried out this bombing, to use this anger to curtail what few civil liberties the Irish people have is to propagate the seeds of future injustice.
More repressive measures will not help build the peace process.
The draconian legislation that Prime Minister Tony Blair wants to pass is overreaction to an act of violence by what Mr. Blair referred to as a "small, wholly unsupported, wholly unrepresentative group of extremists."
The proposed law would allow someone to be convicted on the word of a senior member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. The RUC is one of the most discredited police forces in Western Europe.
The British troops should be recalled, the RUC disbanded and a police force representative of the community established. Unless conflict resolution is implemented with dialogue, the Good Friday agreement is worthless.
To quote from Martin Luther King Jr., "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." I encourage people to write their representatives and share their thoughts and concerns so that peace with justice and equality in Ireland can be achieved.
C. Scott McCullion
Ocean City
Would rather be in debt to Visa than to the IRS
I read Bill Atkinson's report ("IRS credit-card plan called 'insane,' " Aug. 30) with some confusion. He reported that critics of the newly announced IRS plan to offer citizens the opportunity to pay their taxes using credit cards may have "hidden problems."
Perhaps I am missing something, but I believe the critics are a bit short-sighted. They are concerned about consumers being driven further into debt. I guess they feel that if you owe the Internal Revenue Service money, it isn't really being in debt. What is it then?
A citizen with a bill due to the IRS is simply opting to pay with a more convenient or advantageous form of payment or by simply transferring the debt from one creditor to another. I would rather have Visa or Mastercard after me than the IRS.
The credit card companies cannot seize my wages or my bank account. The IRS can and will. Keep in mind that a desperate taxpayer has always had the option of making a cash advance from his credit card to pay these same taxes.
I support the movement of the government into the 20th century now that we are almost into the 21st. I urge Visa and Mastercard to join the rest of the world as well. They continue to believe that consumers do not know about the "secret" discount fees they charge all merchants, and their reluctance to accommodate government transactions with some more meaningful pricing structure.
The "convenience fee" is silly. Audiotex is already charging a fee of $30 for some transactions more than $1,000, not because it feels it is good business but because its anachronistic contract with the credit card companies demand it.
IRS desperately wants to offer the credit card option, and unfortunately, Audiotex is the only game in town right now.
Paul J. Forte
Glen Burnie
He wagged his finger at us and lied through his teeth
It's time for me to confess: Yes, I voted twice for a president who, it is now revealed, was a fool, a liar and a scoundrel.
He was a fool to get involved with Monica Lewinsky in the first place; he placed his reputation, his career, his family and, yes, his country in the hands of a star-struck young woman who just had to tell someone -- on tape.
He lies, he wagged his finger at us, told us to listen carefully, and then lied through his teeth. Well, it was legally accurate because, you see, he had this special definition.
He was a scoundrel in spades when he asked his wife, his Cabinet and his friends to publicly repeat his lie. And, as commander-in-chief, he took advantage of a subordinate, exactly the crime that got prison time for several U.S. Army Ordnance Center and School non-commissioned officers.
But his worst crime, in my opinion, is that he put his country and his family through seven months (it will ultimately be much, much longer) of public trashing and humiliation, when the simple truth would have very likely put it to rest quickly -- at least officially.
This is arrogance and pride of historic proportions.
Jack Cremeans
Glenwood
Writers' vacations are hard on reader
How lucky we are to have such interesting writers for The Sun as Jacques Kelly, Rob Kasper, Michael Olesker and Susan Reimer, to name a few.
The only problem is that when these writers go on their well-deserved vacations, I miss their articles.
Maybe they will have to start writing one column extra for vacation week.
Marge Griffith
Pasadena
'Saving Pvt. Ryan' column stirs unneeded controversy
Gregory Kane criticized black people for complaining about the absence of black soldiers in the Omaha Beach landing segment of the Steven Spielberg movie "Saving Private Ryan" ("Spielberg film focuses on humanity not on race," Aug. 15). I'm sure there have been complaints, although I haven't heard one.
I'm sure there have been complaints because it is in the nature of people to find fault -- and not just black people, as Mr. Kane would have you believe.
But there certainly has not been a great uproar over this issue and it did not, in my opinion, warrant a column.
Rather, I view the column as an attempt to create a racial controversy where none existed.
William B. Garrett
Woodlawn
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Pub Date: 9/06/98