Intolerance

D. W. Griffith's overpowering 31/2 -hour epic, "Intolerance," gets the perfect showcase Saturday, 95 years after its premiere — a screening with live, original music during an event exploring, yes, intolerance. The Maryland Institute College of Art has commissioned a new score by Anne Watts and Boister, who will perform it at 7 p.m. in the Brown Center's Falvey Hall. It's the closing attraction in a film series linked to MICA's exhibition about intolerance, "The Narcissism of Minor Differences.

Letter writer Michael Baseman criticizes another reader who says that liberal media is intolerant ("We can't change Ben Carson's view," April 20). He goes on to suggest that a logical response to Dr. Carson's statements would be useless and implies that he would refuse to forgive someone who has publicly and humbly apologized. Finally, he suggests it would be a waste of time to state his opinion to someone who does not agree with him. Is this not itself the definition of intolerance?

Letter writer Michael Baseman criticizes another reader who says that liberal media is intolerant ("We can't change Ben Carson's view," April 20). He goes on to suggest that a logical response to Dr. Carson's statements would be useless and implies that he would refuse to forgive someone who has publicly and humbly apologized. Finally, he suggests it would be a waste of time to state his opinion to someone who does not agree with him. Is this not itself the definition of intolerance?

A year prior to our daughter's graduation from Tulane University, Ellen DeGeneres spoke during the ceremony, followed by Anderson Cooper, who delivered the commencement address. It was a pleasure to be a member of the audience of this widely respected journalist. We would have been appalled and angry if either of these speakers had been excluded or pressured to relinquish their role based on their outspoken personal beliefs, sexual orientation or alternative lifestyle ("Hopkins looking for replacement for Carson," April 12)

WASHINGTON -- Conservatives used to joke grimly about liberal thought police. Now, if President Clinton gets his way, the nightmare will edge closer to reality.Mr. Clinton wants to expand the federal "hate crimes" statute, which automatically heightens the punishment of thugs who select victims partly on the basis of race, religion, sex or national origin. The president wants to expand the roster of presumptive victims to include the handicapped and non-heterosexuals.The theory is that government has a duty to look out for the least among us and that the people singled out have drawn short straws in life's lottery.

The photograph of the Washington-based artist Mary Coble, clad only in a pair of plain white underwear, is, quite literally, blood-draining. Etched into her back and legs and arms with a dry tattoo needle are "Martha", "Patrick", "Jorge" and 435 other names — each one indicating someone with a nontraditional sexual orientation who was murdered as the result of a hate crime. The names cover nearly every inch of Coble's flesh, from her neck to her feet. The artist pressed a rectangle of white paper over each tattoo, and the reverse images, traced in the iron-rich brown of Coble blood, cover a nearby wall.

CHICAGO - As a practicing Muslim, it is excruciating to witness intolerance in the Muslim world. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Shiites and Kurds. In Afghanistan, the Taliban destroyed Buddhist statutes that stood for centuries. In Saudi Arabia, students are taught Wahhabism, an intolerant religious doctrine. Based on their observations of these events, many Americans may wonder if Islam sanctions intolerance. The truth is that authentic Islamic philosophy recognizes pluralism as a religious value.

WHITWELL, Tenn. -- "Please add this paper clip to your collection. It is in memory of my bigoted grandfather who ..." "These paper clips are in memory of an entire Polish village that was herded into the village church and exterminated. Thank you for making sure no one ever forgets." These are only two examples of the pain expressed in many of the more than 8,000 letters that have been received at Whitwell Middle School in the past three years in response to the school's project to commemorate the Holocaust.

A STRATEGIC shift the Republican Party made nearly 30 years ago has helped to slowly poison its image before the American people, and it might be the Achilles' heel that brings it down in 2000.In 1972, the core of President Richard Nixon's re-election campaign was not break-ins and wire-tapping but rather the "Southern strategy," or, as the Nixon team called it, "positive polarization." It was about winning over the South by pitting a singled-out minority, such as blacks, against a fearful majority, such as angry Southern whites.

WASHINGTON -- The resolution seemed innocuous enough.A bipartisan group of members of Congress, hoping to show goodwill to Arab-Americans and the nearly 5 million Muslims in the United States, sponsored a resolution condemning "anti-Muslim intolerance and discrimination."It called on Americans to acknowledge that "organizations that foster such intolerance create an atmosphere of hatred." Law enforcement agencies, it said, should avoid the sort of "rush to judgment" that followed the 1995 terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City, when Arab-Americans were initially singled out for suspicion.

Liberal media have again shown that they can be just as self-righteous and intolerant as their ardent conservative adversaries. How else to account for the recent furor over views expressed by a world-renowned pediatric surgeon, neurologist and medical scholar? Baltimore's Dr. Benjamin Carson, an eminent Johns Hopkins Hospital figure long admired by people of all political stripes, including many liberals, is now being derided as a turncoat or doddering fool. His invitation to speak at a Hopkins commencement might be withdrawn.

I found Dan Rodricks ' column on Dr. Ben Carson jaded and biased ("Ben Carson's biblically based conservatism," March 31). Mr. Rodricks accused Dr. Carson of making homophobic remarks, but it was just his opinion that the remarks were homophobic in nature. Mr. Rodricks should write a column every week denouncing those who oppose gay marriage for their anti-gay bigotry. I believe that homosexuals should have the same rights as any other citizen. However, if they need to legalize their actions they should do so and call it something other than marriage.

For Maureen Burke, “gluten-free” is not just the latest diet trend -- it's a way of life. Since being diagnosed with celiac disease in the late 1980s, Burke has wrestled with her intolerance of gluten. And now, as chef and owner of One Dish Cuisine, in Ellicott City, she shares the fruits of her labor over the past two decades with others who suffer from food allergies and intolerances: a restaurant that serves food they can eat. Burke, now 49, was diagnosed with celiac disease and lactose intolerance when she was 25. Back then, celiac disease was relatively unheard of and there weren't many options.

As a daily commuter who rides the Maryland Transit Administration's #11 bus northbound in the morning and southbound in the evening, I have to wonder: Could there be a more unreliable organization than the MTA? I have certainly never encountered one. The MTA must put forth a more significant effort to try to keep bus, train and light rail running on schedule than current results reflect. Two months ago, when I waited at a stop for two full hours while as many as four scheduled buses were no-shows, I called customer service - which offered absolutely no help.

With the recent revelations regarding insider trading by members of Congress, citizens expect an explanation and disclosure of lawmakers' financial records ("Keeping Congress clean," Nov. 28). I cannot find words to describe how despicable I find lawmakers' actions. If lawmakers would eliminate the fraud, misappropriation of funds and corruption that goes along with all the money they are spending and wasting, that would be a step in the right direction. Richard LaCourse, Forest Hill

A report this week on Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program by the International Atomic Energy Agency leaves little doubt that country's ruling clerics remain determined to acquire the means to produce a bomb. That poses a dilemma for the Obama administration, which so far has tried to deter Iran's nuclear ambitions through diplomatic negotiations and targeted economic sanctions. But if the IAEA report is to be believed, that approach clearly isn't working. The IAEA investigators cited what they called compelling evidence that Iran has continued to pursue a range of advanced technologies that are needed to construct a nuclear weapon but that make little sense in the context of a civilian nuclear power program.

On our page opposite today Andrew Arnett, the son of CNN correspondent Peter Arnett, refutes a scurrilous slander leveled against his father by Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming.The tactics young Arnett so eloquently describes are reminiscent of the McCarthy era, when thousands of innocent people's lives were ruined for no other reason than that their views differed from those of the self-appointed guardians of orthodoxy. By stubbornly insisting he will never retract what are now known to have been baseless accusations, Simpson has embraced a legacy of intolerance from those years that shames the office he holds.

The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth By Benjamin M. Friedman Friedman, a former chair of Harvard's economics department, argues that economic growth is vital to social and political progress. Witness Hitler's Germany. Without growth, people look for answers in intolerance and fear. And that, Friedman warns, is where the U.S. is headed if the economic stagnation of the past three decades doesn't soon reverse. It's not enough for gross domestic product to rise, he says. Growth also has to be more evenly distributed.

The bizarre plot federal law enforcement officials described Tuesday in which elements of the Iranian government are accused of trying to blow up Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S. with explosives planted in a Washington restaurant sounds like something out of a spy novel. FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III acknowledged as much at the news conference announcing the arrest of one of the alleged conspirators. Yet if true, the charges represent an unprecedented and intolerable provocation by a regime long known for exporting terrorism, and they demand the strongest possible response - short of direct military action - from the U.S. and the international community.

I seemed to have thrown a Starbucks barista for a loop a couple of weeks ago, when I asked for a slice of pound cake and a glass of skim milk. She asked her co-coffeemaker, "Can we do that?" The other replied, "I guess so. " "How much do we charge for the milk?" I paid around $4.50 for the two items, then moved to the seating area next to Starbucks, where Target offers an assortment of sandwiches and soft drinks. Whoa. That's where I saw bottles of milk for a buck. So now I know: Grab your cake from Starbucks, then walk six feet if you want cheap milk.