Letters to the Editor

Trudy Rubin rightly eulogizes the Annan Plan, but in doing so suggests a Plan B that is unlikely to bring about a resolution to the conflict in Syria ("What can be done in Syria?" Sunday). It is wishful thinking to assume that better equipment and more organization will help the rebels collapse the regime. This ignores the decentralized structure of the rebel forces and the lack of vertical coordination among them, realities that strongly prohibit the kind of organization that Rubin advocates.

The failure of the rebel forces to coordinate under the Free Syrian Army umbrella suggests that imposing a more strategic organizational structure will be extremely difficult, if not impossible. How Washington can help overcome this is really not clear.

Nevertheless, the article is helpful in pointing us toward some of the future trends in the conflict and the possibilities for American intervention.

Donald Eckard's analogy comparing the relocation of the Barnes collection to the theft of St. Mark's relics would be sacrilegious were it not such a hilarious stretch ("Dr. Barnes and St. Mark," Friday). For those who believe in such things, the remains of saints are considered venerable objects.

Dr. Albert Barnes wanted to control his prized possessions from the grave. His mean-spirited and arrogant character can be compared to that of the 19th-century Philadelphia banker Stephen Girard. Neither could conceive that his desire to manage his wealth ended at death.

The efforts to kowtow to Barnes' wishes by duplicating the placement of the art exactly as in Merion are specious. The artwork is by acknowledged masters. Would they be less so if not arranged by Barnes?

Only zombies rule from the grave.

Thank you for Carolyn Davis' article "National Adoption Center celebrates 40 years of finding homes" (June 20). I could identify with Joyce Mosley because I'm also a single mom and last year adopted Jamie, whom I met at a "match party" given by the center 18 months ago.

Jamie has developmental delays, autism, and epilepsy, but despite these challenges is a happy, playful girl with a bright outlook on life. I also have three other children, and Jamie is thrilled to have sisters to look up to.

I will always be grateful to the center for my family and for the work they do to bring children and parents together.

Edward Lear, the limerick genre's greatest 19th-century protagonist, at 200 years of age, deserves David Woods' tribute ("There once was a fellow named Lear ... ," Sunday). Perhaps no other poetic form can capture the untutored adolescent mind as well as a limerick. As a high school junior, I cared less for my grade in English class than the guffaws I got when I read this limerick aloud to the class:

There was a young man with a curse

Who wrote out a very small verse

He read it aloud

To a very large crowd

Bang! They took him away in a hearse.

While prolific, Lear was never as clever as the great poet "A-nany-mous," who composed such gems as:

A tutor who tooted the flute

Tried to tutor two tooters to toot

Said the two to the tutor

Is it harder to toot, or

To tutor two tooters to toot.

Thanks to Woods for recalling those halcyon days.

A column in Sunday's Currents section misidentified the president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad.