Dahmer

Del. Elizabeth Smith has vowed that her grandson will never trade a Jeffery Dahmer card the way he might Cal Ripken's.Smith, a Davidsonville Republican, has sponsored legislation that would ban serial-killer trading cards in Maryland.The bill would make it illegal to buy, sell, trade or possess thecards."I don't think they should be in the hands of kids," said Smith, whose 7-year-old grandson has collected trading cards since hewas 3."I know how they use these cards. They become their heroes."

This might be difficult, but try to imagine someone sincerely making this weird proposal to you."I have an idea for what we can do tonight. Let's go find a stranger and murder him."Huh?"Yeah, then we'll chop up his body and cook some of it. Maybe eat his heart."Whaa?"Sure. And we can put the leftovers away in the freezer. How's about it?"Assuming that you thought this person wasn't being humorous, how would you assess his mental stability?If you didn't spring away screaming, you would probably sputter, "You're crazy," or words to that effect.

Government GymsEditor: The article about the federal government funding gyms at the taxpayers' expense really angered me.I am one of many self-employed nurses who by some misfortune owe taxes. How the government expects us ever to pay this money is a mystery, when there is penalty and interest for the duration of the bill.Unless you have a large sum of cash to pay on this bill, you are at the government's mercy. Making scheduled payments is fine if you are steadily working, but when you are not, the interest and penalty are still applied.

For most of us living elsewhere, the story of Milwaukee's troubles begins with the revelations about Jeffrey Dahmer. But that story did not occur in a vacuum. Milwaukee was a tinderbox long before this spark was provided.The city has a black core, like other metropolitan areas. Its inner area is almost entirely black. But, ironically, a socialist mayor in the progressive era expanded the city lines to take in a large tax-support base. This means that the voting population has a white majority that has made black self-government impossible.

As Loyola University professor Charles Marsh labored on his book about religious faith and the civil rights struggle in the Mississippi of 1964, he sometimes wondered whom he was kidding."

Joycelyn Elders as a heroI write to protest the hypocrisy of the Joycelyn Elders termination.As a Democrat, I am ashamed that our party is using Ms. Elders as a scapegoat. It is the party's own wavering on campaign promises that has weakened the stronghold we gave them two years ago, not the surgeon general's honest and courageous remarks.In the footsteps of another great surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, Ms. Elders had the grace and conviction to confront popular opinions because they were wrong.

Now and then, a tragedy reveals a systems breakdown. That is now clear in the wake of a deadly crime spree in Baltimore that included a murder and three kidnappings. Repeatedly during that spree of violence, elemental law enforcement and Motor Vehicle Administration procedures were circumvented. As a result, what started with the kidnapping of a Johns Hopkins physician escalated into the cold-bloodied bludgeon murder of 37-year-old Vitalis Pilius, a Hewlett-Packard engineer who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A MILWAUKEE man turns corpses into love slaves! A heavyweight champ is accused of doing wrong by a beauty queen! A black bra spells guilt or innocence for a senator's nephew!Normally the tabloids would have to visit the back lots of Hollywood or board UFOs to glean such scandalous material. But these days, thanks to a spate of sensational trials, the revered courtrooms of America are dispensing juicy, and sometimes gruesome, intimacies with their justice.Consider the evidence:* An expert in the Jeffrey Dahmer sanity trial, in which jurors are deciding whether the Milwaukee man was insane when he killed and dismembered 15 young men, has testified that Mr. Dahmer got "sexually excited" when he slashed the stomachs of his victims and saw "so many colors in the internal organs -- red, blue, yellow."

Mass KillingsEditor: I am outraged about the Milwaukee police department's handling of the Jeffrey Dahmer case. This man has admitted killing at least 17 men. One of these, a 14-year-old boy, could have been saved by three Milwaukee police officers.These officers are being given a free vacation with pay for their criminal negligence and ignorance. Suspension with pay is hardly a fair course in exchange for a teenager's life.The officers should be criminally prosecuted along with Jeffrey Dahmer; they are just as responsible.

A Feb. 10 article in The Sun on media court coverage may have left the impression that Courtroom Television Network, known as Court TV, covers mainly sensational cases. In fact, most of the trials that Court TV covers are routine cases in the judicial system. The article also may have created the incorrect impression that the recent Mike Tyson case was televised.The Sun regrets the errors.A MILWAUKEE man turns corpses into love slaves! A heavyweight champ is accused of doing wrong by a beauty queen!