Baltimore feels the loss of Mary Pat Clarke

I want to express my extreme sorrow about the passing of Mary Pat Clarke (“Baltimore’s first female City Council president, Mary Pat Clarke, dies at 83,” Nov. 11).

Mary Pat is one of the main reasons that my wife, Karen, and I moved to Baltimore. We are both from the San Francisco Bay Area in California. We planned on going back home after graduation from the University of Maryland School of Social Work. Then, Jody Olsen, a classmate, suggested that I apply for the position of executive director of Greater Homewood Community Corporation, an umbrella community organization of 12 neighborhoods that surround Johns Hopkins University. Jody’s pitch was that this job was exactly like the one I was seeking in California. She suggested that I might learn something useful by interviewing for it.

I interviewed with Mary Pat and Jim Campbell, their community organizer. I was smitten. This was exactly what I was looking for. I told Karen that it was unlikely that I would be offered the job because my work experience in the Peace Corps was in a desert in Venezuela and in Maine during a severely cold winter. But, I said, if I was offered the job, I would take it.

I was offered the job — on the condition that I pass the interview with the board of directors. To my surprise, Mary Pat was not present at this crucial interview. Instead, she and her daughters were babysitting our youngest son, Nathan.

I enthusiastically accepted the job!

There is much more, but it would take a book to tell the story and perhaps a different venue. But everywhere in Baltimore, people feel the loss of Mary Pat Clarke.

— Dick Cook, Baltimore

Biden OKs missile launch that could provoke WWIII

I must have missed it: When did America vote for direct, hands-on participation in combat against Russia in Ukraine? When did Congress fulfill its constitutional obligation to authorize this brazen move to the precipice of mutual thermonuclear destruction (“NATO and Ukraine to hold emergency talks after Russia’s attack with new hypersonic missile,” Nov. 22)?

At this writing, Western officials haven’t even attempted to refute Moscow’s contention that this is no mere matter of granting Kyiv “permission” to deploy long-range missiles deep into Russia. Since Ukraine completely lacks both the satellite technology to maintain the weapons’ guidance systems and also the trained technicians to operate them, the entire endeavor would have to be carried out, soup-to-nuts, by U.S. and NATO personnel. You read that right: head-to-head warfare between nuclear superpowers!

Russia has repeatedly stressed that the response to such attacks would be delivered, not to Ukraine, but rather to its Western sponsors. Mistaking forbearance for weakness, NATO spokespersons have scoffed, contending that since previous provocations elicited no nuclear reaction, the West can cross any and all Russian red lines with impunity. It’s reminiscent of the fabled blind man trudging toward the edge of a sheer cliff. He rejects all warnings of impending doom because “each step is just like the previous one” — until it isn’t.

Outrageously, this wild escalation occurs just days after voters decisively chose Donald Trump, a candidate who vociferously pledged to do the opposite, that is, to rapidly bring the conflict to a negotiated end, as president! Say what you will about Trump, but there is historical precedent for a lame-duck administration acting so blatantly in defiance of clearly-expressed popular will. In the interval between Abraham Lincoln’s election in November 1860, and his March 1861 inauguration, then- incumbent President James Buchanan launched a feverish drive to arm the Southern States, even as they were loudly proclaiming their intentions to secede! In today’s nuclear age, such treachery could destroy humankind itself.

America’s involvement in the Moscow-Kyiv conflict was never about defending non-existent democracy in Ukraine. From the beginning, it was a cynical geopolitical ploy to weaken Russia and prevent any challenge to the current, hegemonic casino economy from the rising nations of the Global South and East. Now, with Ukraine losing badly, and a presumptively antiwar U.S. president set to take office, the “perpetual warfare” crowd is desperate. This latest gambit is a reflection of their disheveled mentality.

But unless citizens make their voices heard, it could also be the epitaph for civilization.

— Doug Mallouk, Catonsville