Middle East talks should be a model for dealing with Iraq
Thee editorial "Multilateral response to Iraq's provocation" (Nov. 11) exemplifies the adage that it's a lot easier to see what others should do than what we should do ourselves.
The Sun regularly promotes negotiation and constructive interaction between Israelis and Palestinians, people who have bombed each others' school buses and villages, and who, needless to say, have strong reasons for fear, distrust, and not giving each other the time of day. The Sun has rightly recognized the futility of either side trying to intimidate or force its will on the other. The Sun has praised them for sitting down to discuss their mutual needs and to work out their problems diplomatically.
Unfortunately, The Sun cannot see that such a process is the only way to make war between Iraq and its neighbors more and more unlikely.
The Sun persists in assuming, in our case, that sanctions (that kill children as surely as bombing school buses or villages) can win security and then be ended. "Sanctions should end when original terms are met and weapons of mass destruction are destroyed. . . . They should not be kept on until [Iraq's] dictator is gone. . ."
This is unrealistic. It is impossible to search every square foot of Iraq's thousands of square miles to verify that all weapons of mass destruction are destroyed.
The only choices that are realistic are to starve Iraqis with sanctions until Saddam Hussein dies of old age or to deal with him the same way we expect Israelis and Palestinians to deal with each other and so gradually incline him to more responsible thinking and interaction with his neighbors.
Bob Krasnansky
Ellicott City
Send prayers, contributions for Hurricane Mitch victims
You have seen reports of the destruction in Central America by Hurricane Mitch.
I am part of a sister parish relationship with the Lutheran Church in Nicaragua and have received detailed reports from my friends. They tell stories such of children who were tied in tree tops to survive the flooding -- they were tied so they would not fall when they slept or lost consciousness.
Please pray for these victims of nature and their own government, which was slow to declare a national emergency. Send contributions through your churches. Please help in some way.
Bob Swensen
Glen Arm
More Wright architecture needed to spare mediocrity
Two articles in the Nov. 8 Arts & Society Section created an interesting contrast of styles.
On the one hand, we read about Frank Lloyd Wright, the greatest American architect (though not without his personal flaws).
On the other hand were the grotesque and vain show houses of the idle rich that sit like stains upon the landscape of the Maryland shore.
If only we had more geniuses of Wright's courage to stem the tide of such overbearing mediocrity.
Had Wright indeed lived another 40 years, who knows what wondrous and organic dwellings might have blossomed where sprawl and cookie-cutter sameness continues?
Michael Martin
Timonium
Eastern medicine's benefits for the Western world
Daniel Greenberg's comments on the Opinion Commentary page ("Wrong prescription for alternative medicine," Nov. 12) about the National Institutes of Health study of alternative medicine have some validity, but opinions are changing more quickly than he thought.
I attended the First International Congress on Tibetan Medicine in Washington earlier this month. Wayne B. Jonas of the National Institutes of Health said during a presentation that he wants us to benefit from Tibetan medicine, which predates Western medicine.
The Italian medical school I attended taught me to listen to my patients, to observe them carefully, to provide soothing medical care and to adhere to my science rigorously. The school, founded in the 13th century, is much more like the Tibetan school than American schools.
At the congress, I spoke with a mainstream scientist from Harvard who visited the Tibetan Medical and Astrological Institute to learn about Tibetan meditation. American "orthodox medicine" is already learning from Tibetan and European doctors.
Lawrence Vidaver, M.D.
Glen Burnie
The writer is clinical instructor of medicine at the University of Maryland Medical School.
Maryland could never elect someone like Jesse Ventura
I was thrilled to hear of Jesse "The Body" Ventura's election as governor in Minnesota.
It is refreshing to see someone with honesty and character be elected to political office in this country. Unfortunately, someone like Mr. Ventura could never win a governor's race here. Maryland is too much of a status quo state.
Apparently, a lot of people in this state enjoy high taxes, high insurance rates, overflowing government regulations and an economic base that is fleeing to neighboring states.
Patrick W. Feuerhardt
Baltimore
Democrat hee-haw happy over GOP field for 2000
As a lifelong Democrat, when I hear the phrase "George W. Bush for president in 2000," it is music to my donkey ears. The Republicans seem to have found their very own Michael Dukakis for the next election.
Mr. Dukakis was a popular liberal governor from a very Democratic state, Massachusetts, who was something of an intellectual and pretty attractive to core Democrats.
Mr. Bush is a popular, conservative governor from a very Republican state, Texas, who made his mark as a capitalist, which is very attractive to core Republicans. Just like Mr. Dukakis, Mr. Bush will attract very few voters from the middle of the pile. Therefore, he will lose decisively to Vice President Al Gore, who like former President George Bush (who beat Mr. Dukakis) is the heir-apparent to a two-term president.
When I hear the names of the other Republican presidential hopefuls, it starts to sound like a symphony to Democratic ears.
Sen. John Ashcroft, the overly serious, ambition-driven scowler from Missouri who, like so many of his party colleagues, wants to bring back the "glory days" of Ronald Reagan.
Gary "Mr. Family Values" Bauer, a nice fellow who wants to turn America into an afternoon church social.
Ohio Rep. John Kasich, a self-proclaimed budget expert whose hairdo seems to be in a terminal state of helmet-head.
Round out the field with names like Dan Quayle, Arlen Specter and Newt Gingrich, and you have a gang of presidential hopefuls who will be loaded with campaign money, ablaze with the "new Republican" message and -- guaranteed losers.
Unlike his father, George W. Bush is simply not presidential material. He wears a suit and a starched shirt pretty well, can fake a folksy manner or reel off a sentence or two in Spanish, but Mr. Bush has neither the values, the intellectual strength nor the leadership ability to do Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Republicans better find a thoroughbred before post time 2000.
Walter T. Kuebler
Baltimore
Society wants compromise on religious beliefs
I found considerable irony on your Nov. 10 Opinion Commentary page. The article "Religious right fails to deliver -- again" criticized conservative evangelicals who "generally see the world in black and white terms and are unable to compromise with anything they view sinful."
Next to this piece was the article "Mammy figure no laughing matter," which described how offensive it was that a grocery store employee chose "Mammy" as her Halloween costume.
Why is it that our society thinks it is acceptable not to compromise politically correct truths (portraying "Mammy" is offensive) but is ready to criticize religious groups that are not willing to compromise scripturally based truths?
Charlotte Considine
Glen Arm
Pub Date: 11/17/98