The proposed "touch and see" 9/11 memorial for the Inner Harbor will allow the morbid to scratch their itch and invite the hyper-patriotic to wallow in self-righteous victimization ("9/11 memorial design unveiled," May 19). In hyperbole more commensurate with the event's inflated iconography than with respect for the dead, Douglas Bothner, the memorial's architect, reminds us how all "our souls" were "transformed" that day.

Do we really need this spectacle? Don't we risk trivializing the event by an overly evocative memorial?

A stone stele with the names of Maryland victims would suffice.

John G. Bailey, Edgemere