Letters to the Editor
We welcome your opinions and letters — with name and address. We will edit when necessary. Include your name, address and phone number for verification. Mail them to Bay Weekly, P.O. Box 358, Deale, MD 20751 • E-mail them to [email protected]. or submit your letters on line, click here
In the Legislature, Your Money or Your Life
Dear Bay Weekly:
Two major issues are engulfing our representatives in the current legislative session. One is about money, specifically how to get more of it from citizens’ pockets and placed into various government and horse-industry pockets. That issue is called slots. The second issue is about the preservation and betterment of human health and life. That issue is called stem-cell research.
The driving force for those in favor of slots is the myopic view that money for state programs — which should be obtained from taxes and fees — can be obtained painlessly from slots. If our elected officials and representatives believe that programs should be funded, then so be it. Enact appropriate general taxes to pay for such programs. There is no free lunch!
What I hope to become the dominant issue in the legislature this session, however, is not slots, but the preservation and betterment of human life and health through stem-cell research.
The stem-cell issue is not about the fact that some believe that a days-old embryo is or is not more important than a live, breathing, walking and talking sentient human being. Regardless of what our officials enact, stem-cell research is and will continue to be undertaken in our city, state and nation as well as many other places around the world. The pertinent issue is solely about whether the state of Maryland will give protection and monetary support to this sort of research.
I am concerned about my health and the quality of life — and yours. I support stem-cell research because it has promised to protect and enhance us.
So choose. Money or the enhancement of the quality of life for those of us in the position to benefit from it. Please cease debating the protection of the life of a zygote from a fertility clinic; it will be destroyed no matter what is decided. Those who can read and think, and their children, are infinitely more important.
—Dr. Sidney Rankin, Baltimore
Indeed It’s Time to Fish or Cut Chops
Dear Bay Weekly:
Bay Weekly’s editorial, “Decision Time for Gambling in Maryland: The Hog Is in the Tunnel” [Vol. XIII, No. 9: March 3] was an outstanding recap about a debate that’s as slippery as a greased pig and has lasted as long as a ham shared by two people: an eternity.
We’ve strayed far afield from the original intention of slots: to preserve horse racing in Maryland. It’s time for the ping-pong match between the two Mikes (Senate President Miller and House Speaker Busch) to cease. As you note, it’s decision time: time to fish or cut chops.
—Romi Plociennik, Pasadena
Bravo for Community Radio
Dear Bay Weekly:
Thank you so much for the article “Two Little Radio Stations that Could” [Vol. XIII, No. 10: March 10]. We at WRYR think community programming is very important. I do the Sunday morning jazz show on WRYR, 97.5FM, from 10am to noon.
—Gary M. Hacker, Annapolis
Department of Corrections
Radio station WRYR’s frequency is 97.5FM. It was misprinted In “Two Little Radio Stations that Could” [Vol. XIII, No. 10: March 10].
