The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 22

22 THE BOSTON GLOBE FRIDAY, MARCH 10, 1995 Szep's view ft 1- WILLIAM 0. TAYLOR, Chairman of the Board and Publisher BENJAMIN B. TAYLOR, President MATTHEW V. STORIN, Editor H.D.S. GREENWAY, Editor, Editorial Page HELEN W.

DONOVAN, Executive Editor GREGORY L. MOORE, Managing Editor STEPHEN E. TAYLOR, Executive Vice President WILLIAM B. HUFF, Executive Vice President Founded 1873 CHARLES H. TAYLOR, Publisher 1873-1922 WILLIAM 0.

TAYLOR, Publisher 1922-1955 WM. DAVIS TAYLOR, Publisher 1955-1977 JOHN I. TAYLOR, President 1963-1975 LAURENCE L. WINSHIP, Editor 1955-1965 THOMAS WINSHIP, Editor 1965-1984 Davis-Mullen's affirmative action nority hiring preferences for police and firefighters and student assignment plans have been shaped by federal court orders and consent decrees and will not fall before city policies. Boston's discretion rests largely with its role in ensuring that 15 percent of subcontracts for construction goods and services are set aside for minority-owned firms and that 5 percent are awarded to ventures owned by women.

The city is not even halfway toward meeting that goal, a fact that should be of greater concern to the councilors than federal policies over which they have no control. Bostonians need a thorough understanding of the city's affirmative action programs and how they relate to existing federal laws. That responsibility should rest largely with Mayor Menino, who is conducting a review of the city's policies. What Davis-Mullen failed to see is that opportunities for fact-finding and analysis are more important than opportunities for demagoguery. City Councilor Peggy Davis-Mullen has with-" drawn her provocative and pointless ballot ques-' tion regarding Boston's affirmative action policies, a good end to a bad idea.

We would welcome public hearings on the subject if they promoted rational debate, but the potential is great for polarizing the city along racial lines. It was not an acknowledgment of the ambiguities of race-based goals and quotas that caused Davis-Mullen to retreat, but the awareness that most of her colleagues led by Richard Iannella, John Nucci and Thomas Keane were sure the question would lead nowhere but down. Ballot questions are the frailest of methods to make law or establish sound public policy, especially on complex topics that provoke such emotional response. Davis-Mullen's was particularly suspect Her nonbinding referendum would have asked city voters whether race, gender, ethnicity or national origin should be considered in the city's employment, education or contracting services. But mi The Dole court finds Mark Hatfield guilty of an un-American act voting his conscience.

Letters to the Editor We need study, not stories, on custody cases The charter school tuition hill Charter schools will offer promising new choices for schoolchildren across the state. But that advocate. During this session the Legislature will have the opportunity to give us a clear and unbiased view into what happens to families when they pass though our courts. House Bill No. 2061 would require the state to compile statistics on custody awards and related judgments and publish the data annually.

This would free us from the horror stories and enable us to form opinions based on facts rather than emotions. Without a factual view of the situation, reform will be dictated by the best storyteller. This might not best serve children or the community. If this state is serious about helping its children, it must begin to take steps to rein in the court that is destroying its families. House Bill 2061 is the first step.

JAN SPINAZZOLA Worcester I agree with Mike Barnicle's column "You can't ask the judge," about the man who was awarded custody of his son while leaving his daughter in the care of his ex-wife (Metro, Feb. 28). It is a good idea not to follow custody fights; they are difficult to make sense of. He is also correct that it is sad to see parents using their children as weapons against ex-spouses. I don't think most parents would readily do such a thing.

The blame for most of the warring should be placed with the lawyers and psychologists who benefit from it I have an idea. It would be helpful to have real information on what is happening in the probate and family courts so we can get a truer picture of what goes on and how it affects the families. This way we wouldn't have to depend on this or that horror story in order to validate this or that philosophy by this or asm, but their resistance only enhances the danger that these schools will serve the highly motivated exceptions rather than a cross-section of students with varied backgrounds and abilities. In Boston, charter schools will get $7,013 per student, far more than the average $5,851 the city spends on ordinary students. Moreover, there is no mechanism for covering the cost of students who enter charter schools from private or parochial schools.

The state should pay a larger proportion of the per-student costs. The $6 million cost of Boston's charter schools exacerbates an already dire financial picture. Next year's preliminary budget does not cover the cost of new curriculum or school-to-work initiatives. It does not provide funds needed to get several high schools out of accreditation trouble. Charter schools will be a fact of life in Massachusetts come September.

City and state officials will have to work together to ensure that the program is not a burdensome, half-baked scheme but a system that lives up to its promise. they should encourage innovation, not decimate local school districts. The funding mechanism must be fair to all students. In Boston, four charter schools plan to open in September, with an additional charter to be awarded next week. They include "City on a Hill" for ninth and 10th graders at Northeastern University, YouthBuild Boston, an academic-vocational high school program in Roxbury, the Neighborhood House Charter School in Dorchester for children from kindergarten through sixth grade, and the Boston Renaissance Charter School in Park Square for students up to fifth grade.

Interested parents should call the state's parent information line at 800-297-0002. Charter sponsors are actively marketing their schools, but the Boston School Department's parent information centers offer little help, and many parents don't know how to apply. Funding pressures may account for the School Department's lack of enthusi Story about Thatcher and BC had it wrong In a spirit of fairness both to Boston College and Lady Margaret Thatcher, I am writing to clarify certain misimpressions created by your story regarding Mrs. Thatcher (Page 1, March 7). Beginning with the headline and running through the text the story asserted, "Boston College drops plan for top refers to its "decision to rescind the Ignatius Medal" and its "decision to withdraw" the honor.

It later asserts that the president "had been lobbied intensely by influential alumni." The facts are that Boston College dropped no plans, rescinded nothing, withdrew nothing. Since the college did not make a decision in any of these ways, the literal handful of alumni who expressed a view on the subject exercised no influence whatsoever on the matter. The university was notified on Monday afternoon of Mrs. Thatch-1 efa inability to attend the dinner on May 5. No reasons were given.

The college decided to go forward with the dinner as scheduled, but without the intended honoree. DOUGLAS J. WHITING Director of Public Affairs Boston College User-friendly editorial Wow! Thanks for the editorial "Screen savers" (Feb. 26) encouraging the tax-deductible donation of older computer equipment to nonprofit organizations. We were inundated by prospective donors and received many inquiries.

We're grateful for both, because of our success in matching needed equipment with worthy recipients. Now, how about moving those ads off your otherwise terrific "Plugged In" page? PAM BYBELL, executive director Boston Computer Society, Watiham Tokyo on fire Prozac side effect shouldn't be ignored Dr. Martin Gross takes the Globe to task for stating in a headline that a man who had been shot by police was taking Prozac (letter, March 1). While I agree with the doctor that Prozac can be a tremendously helpful drug, I question his assertion that use of Prozac poses no risk to behavior. Information in the package insert prepared by the Eli Lilly Co.

(Oct 27 1993) indicates that activation of maniahypomania occurred in about 1 percent of patients treated with Prozac, yet this phenomenon has been largely overlooked in the public debate about the drug. For example, the article "The Many Faces of Prozac" (April 14, 1994) stated that "side effects -including headaches, nervousness, insomnia, anxiety and reduced sex drive are generally benign." Hypomania and mania are potentially dangerous conditions that disrupt employment education and personal relationships. was different: "Sheer, unadulterated murder." But few Americans would have accepted that assessment in 1945. The public mood had been coarsened by the bombing of civilians in Guernica, London, Hamburg, Cologne and, just three weeks before, Dresden. Americans were saddened by the deaths of 6,800 Marines on Iwo Jima.

They would countenance the obliteration of every Japanese city if it could prevent a slaughter of US troops on the beaches of Japan. And that is what Gen. Curtis LeMay, B-29 commander in the Pacific, proceeded to do. His planes struck Nagoya two days later, then Osaka, Kobe, and back to Tokyo twice more. By the end of the war, the B-29s would level 178 square miles of urban areas and kill 330,000 people.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were spared fire-bombing only to await the atomic bomb that would at last shock the Japanese into surrender. But the fire raids on Tokyo demonstrated that even before the atomic age, total war had become so destructive and so lethal to civilian targets that it must never be repeated. The 330 B-29s came in low, hurling napalm into a fiery etched on the city by pathfinder bombers, t' Tokyo lay below them, defenseless; the air crews in the last waves were sickened by the stench of burning flesh. Before the night of March 9-10, was over, at least 70,000 lives possibly as I many as 140,000 would be consumed. 1 'H On the ground, hundreds sought refuge in a river, only to die as water evaporated around One survivor walked among the ashes to find the bodies of women and babies charred together and husband and wives holding each other r-r.

as they died. The Globe published a map showing the equiv- acreage in the Boston area: The destruction would have extended from the middle of Cam-r bridge, down through Brookline, over to the fringe of South Boston, then up again to the western edge of Chelsea. The Globe editorial page praised raid with a dreadful pun: "Even if you never liked their idea of calling themselves Hon. Japs, v'you can enjoy news that Tokyo is hon. fire." A British historian's conclusion 44 years later BOB DAHM ILLUSTRATION Mania can manifest in psychotic episodes that must be treated with hospitalization hardly a benign side effect I agree that we should work to reduce the stigma attached to the use of all psychotropic medications, but not at the cost of ignoring significant side effects.

Physicians should warn their patients of the risks of maniahypomania and provide education on the warning signs for these conditions. SARAH MAUSNER Auburndale Don't blame free market for health care woes More wimps from the mush Globe Newspaper Company EDITORIAL THOMAS F. MULVOY Managing EiNews Operations ALFRED S. LARKIN Managing EdAdministration LINCOLN MILLSTEIN, Managing EdNew Media THOMAS E. ASHBROOK, Deputy Managing Editor LYNN STALEY, Deputy Managing EdGraphics RENEE LOTH, Deputy EdJEditorial Page BUSINESS TIMOTHY LELAND, VPAssistant to the Publisher CATHERINE E.C.

HENN, VPCorporate Legal Affairs MARY JANE PATRONE, Marketing GODFREY W. KAUFFMANN JR, VPCirculation FRANK E. GRUNDSTROM JR, VPHuman Resources GREGORY L. THORNTON, VP, Employee Relation MICHAEL A. IDE, VPProduction ROBERT T.

MURPHY, YPI Information Services RICHARD J. DANIELS Pt Strategic Planning WILLIAM F. CONNOLLY, Treasurer PAUL NORMAN, Controller MARY E. MARTY, Asst. Treasurer In his condemnation of managed care, Bob Kuttner tries to blame the failure of government intervention in medicine on the free market (op ed, Feb.

27). Government virtually created managed care in the form of HMOs and encourages them through a tax code that forces Americans to get their health insurance through their employer. Don't blame the market for what the government has done to our system; give the individual patient the power to choose, manage and finance his own health care. Tax-free medical savings accounts and full tax deductibility of the cost of health insurance for individuals wiD put the patient in charge, not the employer or the state. An individual ought to be able to own a health insurance policy for himself.

Phase government out of health care and let the patient be a consumer. It may deprive Kuttner, Sen. Kennedy and others of the opportunity to socialize medicine, but the rest of America will finally have genuine access to medicine. The free market didn't create HMOs; government did. If Kuttner thinks managed care limits patient choice, he ought to demand medical savings accounts and tax deductibility.

In other words, capitalism. SCOTT HOLLERAN, executive director Americans for Free Choice in Medicine Newport Beach, Calif. Please include your name, address and daytime telephone number. Letters should be 200 ivords or less; all are subject to condensation. Letters sent by US mail should be signed.

Mad address: Letters to the Editor, The Boston Globe, Boston ALA 02107-2378. The Internet address: lettertSglobe.com in the race, and some have died, but they represent a fraction of the eager, healthy field 1,200 this year. No sport is without risks. When the lams pet food company, which supported the race for eight years, pulls out because "one dog's death is one too many," the company spokesman repeats the cant of animal rights extremists, most of hom have never seen a husky or set foot in Alaska. Timberland Co.

and Chrysler have also pulled out but say the moves were based on changing products rather than a response to Iditarod letters. No doubt executives reacted to both the mail and the market Alaskan companies and citizens have rallied to save the race, but corporate support in the lower 48 should never have flagged. The Humane Society, known for being the most reasonable of the animal rights organizations, has hurt its credibility by joining the fringe in a campaign against the Iditarod. A society with 2 million members has a lot of clout and should be more responsible about whom it hits. Animal rights organizations are barking up the wrong trail attacking the Iditarod sled dog race, and national sponsors turning tail on the annual Alaskan event because of the pressures have set an alarming precedent by letting bullies rule.

Most of the 58 mushers in the race "from Anchorage to Nome, which began Sunday, are devoted to their dogs. Acting otherwise not only hinders a person's chances of winning but en-' dangers the musher, whose safety depends on a team being in peak condition. Anyone abusing a dog is automatically disqualified from the Iditarod. All animals must have -medical exams before the event. The dop are weighed before and after the race, given electro- cardiograms and examined by a team of veterinarians at 27 checkpoints along the trail.

Dop and their owners tram all year for the event and the animals are bred for the cold and the long run. There are a few human brutes in the sport, as there are in any endeavor, and a dog beater will "occasionally make headlines. Some dogs get hurt.