The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 18

THE BOSTON GLOBE SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 1990 "Tft CHY HNLS You CHMtflON Op mCONlfc TO boston Che Boston (fifobe Founded 1872 WILLIAM 0. TAYLOR, Chairman of the Board and Publisher JOHN P. GIUGGIO, Vice Chairman JOHN 8. DRISCOLU Editor RICHARD C. OCKERBLOOM.

President BENJAMIN B. TAYLOR, Executii Editor MARTIN F. NOLAN, Editor, Editorial Page THOMAS F. MULVOY Managing Editor I Daily ALFRED 8. LARKIN Managing Editor Administration HELEN W.

DONOVAN, Managing Editor Sunday KIRK SCHARFENBERG, Deputy Managing Editor H.D.S. GREENWAY, Associate Editor LORETTA McLAUGHLIN, Deputy Editor, Editorial Page DAVID ST ANGER, Executive VP General Manager ARTHUR KINGSBURY, VP A Treasurer JOHN F. REID VP Advertising FRANK E. GRUNDSTROM VP Human Resources STEPHEN E. TAYLOR, Business Manager GREGORY L.

THORNTON, VP Employee Relatione Publishers CHARLES H. TAYLOR, WILLIAM 0. TAYLOR, 19H-1955 WM. DAVIS TAYLOR, 1955-1977 Prttident Editor Editor JOHN I. TAYLOR, 1963-1975 L.L.

WINSHIP, 1955 1965 THOMAS W1NSH1P, 1965 19m I just don't bciwep AM) A mo IN THE F16HT AGAINST RMSto 3 J. til Capping Ruggles Station The redevelopment of the Southwest Corridor dela's visit to Boston. There really is not much con- requires a boost from state government. A bill to nection between the two, but there is a time link, allow the state to sign long-term leases for office space near Ruggles Station deserves quick pas Letters to the Editor Debating the significance of a prehistoric bowl Clarifying a protest Mandela's 27-year imprisonment parallels the long struggle to stop the expressway originally planned for the Southwest Corridor and develop the cleared land to benefit the communities that surround it. Ruggles Station, the site on the corridor where office development is to be concentrated, is the culmination of that process and justifies the millions of state and federal dollars invested there.

Access by public transit by the Orange Line, commuter rail or bus is excellent, and so is highway access. The site is just far enough away from downtown to command reasonable rates for office space. The parkland provides a pleasing respite from the noise and congestion of the city. The state would be squandering its money if it did not put the final touch on this investment in economic development. The 15-year-lease bill should be passed this year.

sage by the Legislature. The Massachusetts Water Resources Authority was supposed to relocate there, but legislative infighting caused it to remain in Charlestown. The same fate should not befall a more modest proposal to locate other state agencies on the site. The bill would allow the state to sign 15-year leases instead of the five-year contracts permitted under current law. I State officials foresee that the state would need only 40,000 square feet of space, room for about 200 people, far less than the MWRA would have taken.

These leases and commitments from private tenants will encourage investors to provide financing needed to build the office buildings. On Thursday, Gov. Dukakis urged the Legislature to pass the bill quickly in light of Nelson Man- With great interest I read the recent interpretation by Dr. R. Robert Robbins of a prehistoric bowl made by the Classic Mimbres culture which flourished in southwestern New Mexico between AD 1000-1150 (Globe, June 13).

Although I am quite convinced of the astronomical sophistication of the Mimbres, I find Robbins' statement that the bowl "provides us with the best supported historic record from the Western Hemisphere of the supernova that created the Crab Nebula" to be problematic on two grounds. First, Robbins fails to demonstrate that the bowl in question (which I have not examined) was manufactured after the date of the supernova rather than prior to its occurrence. Although the bowl conforms to the Classic Mimbres style, our current knowledge of ceramic stylistic evolution doesn't permit the exact dating of any particular bowl design. Second, Robbins neglects to relate the bowl adequately to the corpus of existing Mimbres bowls. If he had done so, he would have found that the rabbit is a common motif which only occasionally appears in contexts which might be astronomical.

In those few instances, the rabbit is always associated with the moon (often in crescent form). The most parsimonious interpretation, then, would seem to be that the iconography represents a rabbit and a full moon. Consequently, I regard Robbins' announcement that the bowl represents the first unambiguous evidence for the supernova of 1054 with a degree of skepticism. ROBERT PREUCEL Assistant curator, southwestern archaeology, Peabody Museum Cmnbridge Romania's storm troopers To clarify ACT-UP's protest against Cardinal Law and the Roman Catholic Church's position on AIDs, we refer to a Department of Health staff member quoted in the second of three articles on AIDS, "Burden for Puerto Ricans reaches crisis stage" (June 18): "I certainly hope the Department of Health could go on radio and TV to promote condoms, but I don't think it will happen anytime in the near future because of the power of the Catholic Church." BRUCE McKEON ACT-UP Boston Ignore the poor fools I have been amazed at the outpouring of rhetoric concerning the American flag. To the indifferent cynic it is only a meaningless piece of cloth.

To the vast majority of Americans it is a familiar and beautiful symbol of the freedom we proclaim and cherish. Why can't we simply ignore those poor souls who feel it is necessary to burn the flag in order to emphasize their own personal freedom? H. M. PLUMER Roslindale identified as anyone wearing glasses or beards replicated the SAs attacks against Gypsies, Jews, Keds and liberals. At a time when the peoples of Eastern Europe can finally reflect openly on the similarities between fascism and Stalinism, Romanians have had a reminder that communist regimes in Poland, Last Germany, Czechoslovakia and China estab lished "workers' militias" that were employed at Issue of abortion grounded in flawed social system opportune moments to help the party seize or retain power.

Iliescu resorted to his own storm troopers be- Who are the fascists in Romania? President Ion Iliescu, the leader of the National Salvation Front that took power after Nicolae Ceausescu's overthrow-, seemed to be aping that toppled tyrant when he thanked mobs of miners for restoring order in Bucharest earlier this month. In the jargon of a lapsed communist who cannot abandon old habits, Iliescu told the miners that the peaceful demonstrators and bystanders they had bludgeoned and killed were "bourgeois fascist forces." Leaders of the major opposition parties were much more precise in their use of historic analogy. They compared the miners' goon squads to the Nazi thugs known as the SA (Stimnabteilung). This analogy was apt in several ways. Iliescu's miners, like Hitler's storm troopers, were practicing political terrorism.

They were guided to the offices of opposition parties and to the homes of opposition party leaders. Their assaults against Gypsies, students and intellectuals I agree with Ellen Goodman's condemnation of the loaded rhetoric suiTounding the abortion issue. As she is wont to do, she zeroes in on what constitutes the common ground between the so-called "opposing "No thinking, feeling person enjoys "putting her legs up in stir cause both-the-army and police were reluctant to reprise the repressive roles they had been forced to play under Ceausescu. The democracies have an obligation to make Ceausescu's successor pay a price for his fascistic assault on democratic hopes. The indignation expressed by the Bush administration would be more persuasive if the White House had been less solicitous of the totalitarian in Beijing.

rups to have human life suctioned out of her." tus at the expense of their inner needs and self-esteem. A PR industry that sees to it that the public thinks and behaves the way Corporate America wants it to. A warped emphasis on competition at the expense of cooperation. An inadeqate educational system that discriminates against those on the bottom rung of society's ladder and helps maintain the Pentagon. If we all agree that abortion is undesirable and that none of our sisters should feel compelled to choose it, let's get together and eliminate its root causes.

ELLEN RICE DEGENKOLB Wayland With this in mind, let those of us trulv concerned about women and the unborn, focus on the real A capitalistic system gone Kinder to pedestrians amok, which has created the richest, most violence-prone society in the history of mankind. A generation of consumers in terested in acquisition and social sta-' The challenge of driving in Massachusetts Incinerator ships are not the answer I was horrified to learn that Boston is considering a practice that others have decided to ban. Why have the countries bordering the North Sea voted against waste-incinerator ships? There is no accountability at sea. Who would enforce environmental and occupational health regulations on the ship? The North Sea has been marked by the dumping of toxic ash and sludge and air pollution. Flexible Environmental Systems Inc.

says it will have stack scrubbers on their ship, but who will check them, and where will they dump the scrubber dust? Sea transport of wastes carries with it the risk of spills in port, at sea and on platforms. No operation has had an accident-free record, and this company will not either, especially off the unpredictable New England coast. This proposal undermines efforts to come up with a long-term solution to the toxic-waste and solid-waste problem. Incineration at sea allows us only a temporary escape from our responsibilities. L.

A. STROHM Medford way. Finally he settled on "Museum Wharf," which turned out to be correct. Improved signs need to be installed before the work is complete. The South Station underpass joins the short list of other passageways that make it easier to navigate the city.

These include the passage under Winter Street and the Essex StreetDowntown Crossing connection. When North Station is reconstructed in about five years, the MBTA plans a passage under Causeway Street to allow safe access from Boston Garden to the Orange Line. Boston is best appreciated on foot. Pedestrian-friendly passageways make the city a more inviting place to live and work. Pedestrians got another break when the Flynn administration installed an iron fence in the median strip on Congress Street between City Hall and the Faneuil Hall marketplace.

Previously, city officials with offices overlooking the marketplace could watch hundreds of people dodge traffic daily as they zigzagged across the street on the way to Faneuil Hall. From the time of the White administration. signs had no meaning. I would like to know what they teach in drivers' education classes in this state. It is possible that people don't even know the law? One would think that if drivers obeyed the law, then driving would be safer.

In the Boston area, obeying the law is hard to do. At many intersections, signs and signals are ambiguous for example, on Memorial Drive, at the intersection of Western Avenue and River Street. A simple turn arrow would rectify the situation. PAUL KATZ Waltham Massachusetts drivers, whose style of driving was the subject of an article by Ronald Rosenberg (June 10), present a serious issue that deserves more front-page reporting and a public-education campaign. You don't have to be from the Midwest to notice how bad Boston drivers are.

I recently moved to the Boston area from New York and am appalled by the disregard of both the law and common sense exhibited by drivers here. There seems to be no understanding of the concept of right-of-way. People pull out in front of other cars as if yield Every Sunday thousands of people enjoy the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge, which are relatively free of automobile traffic between Three for Western Avenue and Fresh Pond Parkway. People can stroll along tne road paths without the rush of cars along Memorial Drive. It is one of the nicer amenities of urban living and might well be imitated in other places.

Minor problem: cars diverted from Memorial Drive use Storrow Drive as an alternative, which works well enough. But drivers on Fresh Pond Parkway headed in either direction are balked by traffic lights that keep going through red-green-red cycles even though there is no cross traffic to protect. In some cases the diverted traffic is heavy enough so that outbound cars have to wait through two cycles of the light before being able to clear the intersection at Memorial Drive, an inconvenience that may sour drivers on the value of the traffic-free plan. Better to put the lights on yellow blink during daylight Sunday hours and restore the normal cycle when the barriers are removed at the end of the afternoon. A small but much-appreciated amenity was added to South Station this month.

For the first time, a passage under Atlantic Avenue connects the Red Line station with the railroad terminal. The link is part of the $27 million renovation of the Red Line station. Pedestrians can use it to cross Atlantic Avenue or Summer Street without confronting the cutthroat motorists who frequent the intersection. ease their way into the rail terminal, the Beacon Companies have installed an escalator. This group, which manages the office space in South Station, realizes that improved access benefits all businesses located there.

A pedestrian trying to get to the Federal Reserve Building wondered whether the "Summer Street" or "Financial District" signs pointed the A study is the last thing Latino community needs developers and the city have been toying with the 1 i 1 -IT When I was informed that the mayor would be appointing a special commission to bring attention to the plight of Hispanics in the city's public schools, my first thought was that this would be a great opportunity to draw national attention to the studies and recommendations that groups like the Massachusetts Advocacy Center and the Latino Parents Association have set forth during the past year. However, the June 15 article states that the panel will "study" some of the "chronic problems afflicting Hispanc students, including a high dropout rate, widespread cultural insensitivity and educational policy known as tracking." mea oi Duuaing an overpass tarther up Congress Street at the intersection with State Street. This has been repeatedly put off because of the cost and complexity. The wrought iron fence is a far less elaborate alternative. The fence is broken in several places to allow for crosswalks, and a pedestrian-controlled light has been installed at the foot of the Government Center steps to channel most foot traffic across Congress Street there.

Granite planters filled with flowers provide a touch of color. The fence is a joint venture of the Transportation Department, the Office of Capital Planning, the Public Works Department and the Bos My second thought is that the Latino community does not need yet another study. These have been done! What we need is for the mayor and the panel to formally endorse the Hispanic Dropout Prevention Program and Mass. Advocacy's recommendations and fund them. BEATRIZ ZAP ATE Director of education, HOPE Roxbury To be published, letters must be signed and include address and telephone number for verification.

Letters should be 200 words orfeuxr, all are subject to condensation. Address: Letters to the Editor, The Boston Globe, Boston 02107-2378. Affiliated Publications, Inc. 136 Morrissey Boulevard Boston, MA. 02125 Parent company of the Globe Newspaper Company 617-929-2000 WILLIAM 0.

TAYLOR Chairman of the Board JOHN P. GIUGGIO President ARTHUR KINGSBURY Executive Viet President WILLIAM B. HUFF Chief Financial Officer CATHERINE E.C. HENN Vice President TIMOTHY LELAND Vice President ton Redevelopment Authority. Their efforts have- produced a major improvement in pedestrian safety at a cost of only $450,000..