Katyn

President Boris Yeltsin of Russia has gained control of something more potent than Soviet artillery: the Soviet archives. His careful release of previously shrouded secrets can shed light on dark corners, end mysteries and replace suspicion with truth. Not to mention win friends abroad and damage enemies at home.The release of documents on the Katyn massacre of 1940 and the shooting down of a South Korean airliner in 1983 are cases in point. The first nails down historical certainty that the dictator Josef V. Stalin and the Politburo ordered the execution of some 20,000 captured Poles in 1940.

Soaring 46 feet into the sky over the Inner Harbor, it would be Baltimore's loftiest sculpture.Baltimoreans of Polish ancestry have commissioned the ambitious abstract bronze by a Polish sculptor to honor 15,000 Polish army officers and intellectuals imprisoned and killed by the Soviet secret police in 1940. The sculptor, Andrzej Pitynski, is donating his time and labor, but the Baltimore group is attempting to raise $300,000 to cover other costs of the project.More than 4,000 of the officers were found massacred -- many of them after torture -- in Poland's Katyn forest.

The city expects to start construction this fall on one of the final sections of the seven-mile Inner Harbor promenade. The $6.6 million project will replace a temporary wooden walkway with brick to match the rest of the promenade. It will connect to the path at President and Lancaster streets and stretch about a quarter-mile, from East Falls Avenue to Katyn Memorial Circle. The work, which to minimize disruptions will be done from barges, is expected to take a year to complete.

Even in slow and deliberate Baltimore, things arrive and depart rapidly in the Inner Harbor East. I'd read that several new apartment towers were ready for residents. My niece Liz talks about its jazzy sportswear, shoe and handbag stores. And maybe one day this summer I'll make it to the movie theater complex now that the MTA has routed a new bus line along Fleet Street. Change always unsettles my sense of urban geography. On a short walk this week through the Inner Harbor East (think: Fleet, Lancaster, Caroline and the Jones Falls - the waterway, not the expressway)

Under Glendening, city's jobless rate has been reduced I was dismayed by The Sun's editorial suggesting that Baltimore is worse-off economically and that Gov. Parris N. Glendening must take the blame ("Maryland's millstone," Nov. 22). Yes, Baltimore has a high unemployment rate (7.3 percent in September) compared with the statewide average (3.4 percent). However, the editorial failed to note that the city's unemployment rate has fallen in recent years. As recently as September 1997, the city had an unemployment rate of 12.4 percent.

Dumping ex-offenders back to the streets is recipe for disaster The Sun's editorial "Early prison releases put savings ahead of safety" (Dec. 3) points to the obvious need for effective discharge planning as inmates transition from prison into the community. Releasing them to the street, with no place to live, no job prospects and no drug treatment is a recipe for renewed criminal behavior, as current recidivism rates illustrate. The barriers ex-offenders face in making a successful transition from prison to the community are enormous.

ARTS McDaniel College Chinese landscapes, rodeo bull riding and Superman comic books are among the inspirations for the wide range of art on display in the fourth biennial McDaniel College Faculty Art Show, through Dec. 5 in the Esther Prangley Rice Gallery in Peterson Hall on the McDaniel campus, 2 College Hill in Westminster. Featured artists include Susan Ruddick Bloom, Walter P. Calahan, Emily Grey, Ken Hankins, Trudi Ludwig Johnson, Michael Losch, Katya Dovghan Mychajlyshyn, Steven Pearson, Susan Clare Scott, Richard Stanley and Linda Van Hart.

`Collision of egos' wasn't reason Dixon, aide parted ways I take exception to The Sun's editorial "Mr. McCarthy exits City Hall" (Aug. 21). First, The Sun makes the assumption that Anthony McCarthy, former chief of staff for City Council President Sheila Dixon, left because of "a collision of egos." I suggest the editorial writer read Sun reporter M. Dion Thompson's article on Mr. McCarthy's leaving City Hall. Mr. McCarthy clearly stated that he was leaving for personal and financial reasons ("Top aid to council president calls it quits after nine months," Aug. 22)

Dr. Joseph Taler, a retired Glen Burnie family physician who survived the Holocaust in Poland by not wearing his Star of David armband, taking a Christian surname, and hiding in a village, died Sunday of heart failure at his Annapolis home. He was 89. The only child of an attorney and a pharmacist, Dr. Taler was born and raised in Rozwadow, Poland, where he attended high school. Dr. Taler's father, Abraham Taler, who had been a prominent member of the Polish infantry during the 1919-1920 Polish-Bolshevik conflict, had been recalled to active duty in 1939, was later arrested by the Soviets and was on a train bound for Russia when he escaped during a stop.

More than 18,000 people filled their senses with a little bit of Poland in East Baltimore this weekend.For some, like 78-year-old Anna E. Krywonis of Lombard Street, it is an annual pilgrimage. She has attended every Polish Festival in Patterson Park since coming to Baltimore from Poland with her family in 1976.For others, like Kristie Gulick of Baltimore County, the festival is a new pleasure. She and friend Kris Reynolds found out about the festival while surfing the Internet.The festival was a blend of old and new, with nearly everyone claiming to have at least a little Polish ancestry.