If Mr. Poindexter and his company want to continue to enjoy the status of good corporate citizen and viable corporate entity, they should act immediately to help implement both the letter and the spirit of the law that empowers electricity deregulation. As the leader of his company, I'm sure Mr. Poindexter has heard the expression, "Lead, follow or get out of the way."
ary Castanino
Baltimore
City should link Web site to others
I read with great interest the article about the computer Web sites being developed by the many neighborhood associations (Aug. 26, "Baltimore's neighborhoods use the Web to draw visitors to the city's communities").
The greatest strength of our city is the true sense of neighborhood that can be found throughout Baltimore.
These neighborhood organizations are performing a public relations task that you could not buy with any amount of money.
To not provide a link to these outstanding Web sites is to toss away a chance to show the true spirit of Baltimore and the people who make it a fine place to live.
As for the comments by the mayor's spokesman, Clinton R. Coleman, that the Web team has determined that it would be too difficult to establish and maintain links to every community association, may I suggest that Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke consider getting a Web team that understands the process involved in establishing and maintaining a link.
The actual HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) coding for a link is literally child's play.
Baltimore is in a position to move to the forefront of an information technology neighborhood. That neighborhood will encompass all those who have access to a computer and to the Internet.
Failing to take full advantage of those people willing and able to help to disseminate a positive picture of our city would be a grave mistake.
John H. Bolgiano Jr.
Baltimore
City must help stable neighborhoods
Your Aug. 25 editorial about ways to curb African-American exodus from our city spoke volumes.
You cited a comment from Housing Commissioner Daniel P. Henson III with which I agree wholeheartedly: "There is great housing stock" to be found in stable, older neighborhoods.
Can Mr. Henson's ideas be expanded to include other stable neighborhoods to curb the exodus? Also, help from the city should be available to these neighborhoods.
In the same way that prospective homeowners are recruited and assisted with housing loans and settlement grants, many older stable communities such as Bolton Hill, Coldspring New Town, Federal Hill and Charles Village occasionally need assistance from the city to maintain that valuable "good housing stock."
This ingredient is essential if Baltimore City is to curb the exodus of its valued citizens.
Harriet Griffin
Baltimore
UPS strike settlement called a 'huge victory'
The apologists for Big Business who appear from time to time in your pages and on television have recently been exercising their craft in an effort to minimize the Teamsters' victory over UPS. Heaven forbid that collective action, through a strike no less, accomplished anything for working Americans.
Make no mistake about it. This was a huge victory.
And for those who don't believe it, I suggest you ask the 10,000 new, full-time employees who were once part-time employees just what it means to them, their families and their futures.
Ernest R. Grecco
Baltimore
The writer is president of the Metropolitan Baltimore Council of AFL-CIO Unions.
Tests were tougher, pupils were selected
In his Aug. 20 column, Mike Bowler recounted a series of questions from a Kansas test for eighth graders from the turn of the century. The article indicated that this test ''might shame today's pupils.''
Bowler makes a passing reference to the relevance of some of the material but ignores the difference between school populations, especially in higher grades, at the turn of the century and today.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, only the wealthy could afford to send their children to more than three or four years of school. Child labor was still common. Only a select few made it to the eighth grade.
As late as the 1950s, only 50 percent of students graduated from high school and fewer than 50 percent of those students went to college.
Today, high school completion rates (graduation and GED) are above 90 percent. The brightest children in our public schools could compete favorably with the children of the turn of the century and other countries today. More students are taking college preparatory courses and Advanced Placement classes than ever.
More children are succeeding than ever before. We have not helped all children succeed and should not be satisfied until we do. But we should be given credit when it is due.
J. C. Parker
Salisbury
Court prevents good police work
How can law-abiding citizens win the war against drugs when we have judges like Andrew L. Sonner?
Young men and women join the police force and put their lives on the line every day with the naive thought that they can improve our judicial system. Wrong.
