Community policing is the strategy for Baltimore
The Sun has done a good job following the fallout of "zero tolerance" police practices in New York City. This may help officials who have been pushing "zero tolerance" in Baltimore understand that such slogans are not strategies.
Instead of drawing conclusions from a superficial look at the New York program, these officials would do well to take a closer look at their own city, where some communities are benefiting from the community policing programs initiated by Police Commissioner Thomas Frazier. In these communities, we are experiencing a major reduction in crime without the hostility between police and minorities that New York has experienced.
It may take longer to see the results in Baltimore because of the time it takes to bring citizens into these programs, but the Police Department's programs are working. In Bolton Hill, for instance, a diverse community where community policing is in full swing, crime is down dramatically. As someone who has initiated several crime prevention programs in Bolton Hill, I can attest that our incredibly low crime rate would be impossible without the partnership we have developed with the Baltimore Police Department.
Indeed, with the crime rate so low, our community volunteers have very little to do these days.
Doreen Rosenthal, Baltimore
The writer is president of the Mount Royal Improvement Association.
Taxing tobacco, punishing farmers
It is interesting to watch Gov. Parris N. Glendening use coercion and bribery to induce Maryland legislators to raise our tobacco tax under the noble guise of "saving the lives of our children." I agree that teen-agers should not smoke. However, while auto accidents, drug overdoses and alcohol intoxication have caused many teen deaths, I have yet to hear of a teen-ager's death from smoking a cigarette.
But the saddest part of this whole tobacco war is the plight of our farm community in Southern Maryland. For more than 350 years, hard-working families from all walks of life have made a living off the land from the legal crop of tobacco. The tobacco tax and the industry's settlement with the states only serve to destroy this agricultural economy and force tobacco production overseas.
This governor has become the most anti-farmer in the history of our great state. And, with our legislators salivating over pet projects to be funded by tobacco tax revenues, I'm not sure who is most addicted to tobacco: smokers or our legislators. W. Michael Phipps, Owings
Kevorkian editorial crosses a line, too
Your editorial "Kevorkian's conviction" (April 1) cites the absence of clear guidelines that would permit more mainstream members of the medical profession to assist their dying patients who want to end their lives as a failure of public policy. I beg to differ.
Your view presumes, without argument, that public policy ought to permit assisted suicide. There is no historical support for this proposition. Since Thomas Jefferson, public policy has formally recognized every person's inalienable right to life as the basis for an evolving scheme of civil libertarian freedom.
The goal of this organizing principle is to enhance personal autonomy by limiting the scope of government's authority. But your advocacy of clear guidelines for permitting assisted suicide is absolutist: You presume to extend the scope of the government's authority beyond the bounds of life itself.
You say Kevorkian crossed a line. So have you.
Gregory Lewis, Baltimore
Late-term abortions unnecessary, unsafe
The Sun's editorial "End late-term abortion debate" (April 6) contained blatant misinformation. No evidence supports the claim that the partial-birth abortion procedure is usually used "when the life of the woman is endangered." Ron Fitzsimmons, executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, debunked that myth years ago.
The bill the Maryland legislature is considering explicitly allows a partial-birth abortion "that is necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, illness, or injury." But the facts that abortion doctors themselves acknowledge suggest that partial-birth abortions are performed on healthy mothers carrying healthy babies and that this happens at least 3,000 to 5,000 times annually.
The Physicians Ad Hoc Coalition for Truth, a group of more than 500 physicians, including former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, has stated that "partial-birth abortion is never medically necessary to protect a mother's health or future fertility. On the contrary, this procedure can pose a significant threat to both her immediate health and future fertility."
It is shameful that The Sun would put women, their health and their future fertility at risk rather than support even the slightest restriction on abortion. Partial-birth abortion is an unnecessary procedure that the American Medical Association has called "bad medicine." The Maryland legislature should take the advice of the medical community and ban this barbaric, unnecessary procedure.
David Lam, Annapolis
The writer is executive director of Maryland Right to Life Inc.
Send landlords the tab for clearing away houses
Regarding "Senate OKs bill to clear city houses" (April 3): What a great idea to clean up rundown, vacant houses in Baltimore City. Let's hope wealthy owners of these properties are paying for the demolitions. This would return some of the money renters have paid to landlords living in the surrounding counties.
Charles Johnston, Pasadena
High time to stop gun merchants
Kudos to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for finally taking some action to stop the gun-selling death merchants from further destroying Baltimore ("ATF has gun-shop in it's sights," March 26). What took them so long? The gun freaks have been shooting each other at an alarming pace since the escalation of the "war on drugs" in the 1980s.
William Smith, Baltimore
PHH alive and well in Hunt Valley
The Sun's March 20 article "Options worth $61.1 million cashed in by Cendant CEO" stated that "Baltimore-founded PHH is essentially gone, with only its vehicle management operation left in Hunt Valley."
The other subsidiaries of PHH Corp. weren't located in Hunt Valley -- the mortgage company has always been in New Jersey, and the relocation company in Connecticut. Further, PHH Vehicle Management Services is very much alive and thriving in Hunt Valley. We employ virtually the same number of people (more than 1,000) as before the merger with HFS (now Cendant).
Our business, now in its 53rd year, remains strong, and we continue to be one of the foremost fleet management companies in the world. PHH is an internationally recognized company that continues to have a strong presence in Baltimore.
Mark E. Miller, Hunt Valley
The writer is president and CEO of PHH Vehicle Management Services.
Fans who need their sports fix
I think KAL's April 6 editorial cartoon was too silly to be taken seriously. Its comparison of the "greedy nobility" of the Middle Ages to today's big-league sports figures is invalid.
Any similarities between yesterday's nobility and today's professional athletes are irrelevant when compared to the difference: Taxes are compulsory and box tickets are voluntary.
A better, if less flattering, analogy would be between contemporary sports fans and addicts at the mercy of drug lords -- in the fan's case, for a sports-frenzy fix. The sports addict is under no external pressure to buy a fix from the "greedy nobility," but he voluntarily surrenders his money to feed his habit.
An even better parallel might have been drawn to those who the ancient Roman gladiators.
Are today's fans any less bloodthirsty than those of ancient days?
Steven Van Epps, Baltimore
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Pub Date: 4/10/99