A brutal city

The City of Brotherly "Love" long ago became the city of brotherly hate ("Man dies after an attack in subway," March 27). The rampant disregard for human life is no longer shocking; it's just a part of the daily routine.

From SEPTA bus drivers constantly running red lights, to car drivers doing the same and screaming "*@! your mother" at pedestrians who dare to try to cross the street, to brutal attacks like the one that led to Sean Patrick Conroy's death yesterday, there's simply no humanity left in our streets.

God help you if you run into trouble, because no Philadelphian will even consider your welfare, much less your actual life.

Karen C. Nolan
Philadelphia

Name that cemetery

When presidents leave office, it is customary to name something after them: Dwight Eisenhower got a farm, Harry S. Truman a library, and John F. Kennedy a performing arts center. Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush each had an airport named for him.

Now that a national veterans cemetery has been approved for Bucks County after 15 years of effort ("Deal reached for vets' cemetery in Bucks County," March 26), let's name it after our current president. After all, he's done more than anyone else to fill it!

I. Milton Karabell
Philadelphia

Pa. win for Obama

The Pennsylvania primary could be decisive in protecting the Democratic Party's chances to win the White House in 2008. Or it could kick off a final round of a primary campaign that will leave the party too wounded and bitter to defeat John McCain.

Hillary Clinton's best tactic is to galvanize her base of white working-class and older voters partly by using wedge issues like reminders of the statements of Barack Obama's minister. She recently foreshadowed this approach by again raising the issue of Obama's minister.

Giving Obama a Pennsylvania win would be the best and perhaps only chance to save us from seeing these two great candidates destroy each other.

Jerry Lindauer
Melrose Park

Whose White House?

The ad that Barack Obama is running in Philadelphia infuriates me. If I hear "My White House" one more time, I'm going to scream. Someone should tell him that he doesn't own the White House - and possibly will never live in it. It belongs to me and all other Americans.

Claire Donohue
Philadelphia
cpdono@aol.com

Abuse of taxpayers

It's typical of The Inquirer and Democrats (excuse the redundancy), in answer to an abuse of taxpayers by the legislature, to call for additional abuses ("General Assembly's slush fund: Hoarding a stash of cash," March 21). Such would be the case if State Rep. Josh Shapiro's bill for a new health-care entitlement were to be enacted, paid for with the Assembly's horde of cash. This stash would probably not last for the first year of this giveaway, leaving subsequent years to be funded by ever larger tax increases.

Instead of creating new entitlements, why not fund existing ones, such as the underfunded state employee pensions? On both the state and national level, politicians should be ashamed for making new promises when past ones go unmet in what is merely a cold calculation to buy votes. The Inquirer's complicity in these charades is despicable.

Michael Hudson
Pottstown

Animal cruelty

As a humane educator and volunteer for local animal rescue groups, I say shame on farm owners for using baby chicks to make a buck ("Cheep thrills - chicks for rent," March 21). These delicate, fragile animals have no business being handled by little children in an unfamiliar - and most likely stressful - home environment.

How can it be a good idea to allow young kids to pick up and handle an animal with bones the size of matchsticks? As with so many other "uses" of animals, this enterprise is for the amusement and financial benefit of people, done without considering the risks to the animals.

Parents wanting to teach their kids responsibility and kindness to animals should visit an animal shelter.

Leah Gordon Schutzman
Newtown Square