I was trawling around on the Internet when I came across a picture of the luncheon meeting of the living presidents and the president-elect, Barack Obama. It was extraordinarily striking to me. It put into perfect perspective what I have been feeling as we count down the days to the inauguration. Why?

Here was a picture of a black man with the living presidents and the black man didn't have a towel draped over his arm and was not carrying a tray of refreshments. I called a couple of my friends and told them about this. Both laughed out loud, then there was a profound silence. I think one was weeping.

I have been very fortunate -- fortunate to have parents and grandparents who always had high expectations for me. Even though I have had some professional success rising to the VP level of two large, well-known brokerage firms and working in investment banking in Eastern Europe for an international consulting firm, I never thought I'd see a picture like that one.

Wow. Makes me think that finally we may start to put aside the absurdness of race being a qualifying factor in assessing someone's ability to get the job done. Makes me wonder how many of those black men in the White House in years past serving refreshments could have been better chief executives than the folks they were serving. Maybe finally we're growing up!

DAVID HUNTER
Forest Hills

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One does not have to be a Freudian (which I am not) to hold that if young adults are not honest persons when entering business school, it is highly unlikely that an ethics course will convert them to be moral. Indeed, there is evidence that college ethics courses do not affect a person's character. When I checked into it many years ago, more philosophy and religion books were stolen from a college library than of any other field.

Accordingly, I find myself disagreeing with my friends Clarke Thomas and Bill Frederick's recommendation to have students take stand-alone business ethics courses ("Corporate Ethics, Missing in Action," Jan. 7 Clarke Thomas column). But while no class (at this late stage) will induce students to want to do the right thing, there is much to be learned about just what is the right thing to do in complicated business situations.

Everyone knows that it is wrong to steal a silver candlestick from your host's table, but it is by no means equally clear what is right and wrong in complex economics, marketing, finance, accounting and other business contexts. In my view, therefore, ethical issues should be raised and discussed in all these specialized courses, so as to teach students who may indeed want to do the right thing how to figure out just what that path comes to in circumstances where nothing is so obvious. My strong preference, therefore, is of ethics across the business curriculum.

RUDOLPH H. WEINGARTNER
Squirrel Hill
The writer is a retired professor of philosophy.

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In these tough economic times, one would think that everyone would be doing everything possible to promote one's city, especially when good weather is not a draw for that city. However, on the last two occasions when I have visited Pittsburgh, my first introductions to the city have been the rudest airport police possible.

On Jan. 1 at 9:30 p.m., my sister arrived at the airport to pick up my mother and me. She waited outside the Southwest baggage claim door after I loaded our suitcases into her car and went back into the airport for our 89-year-old mother, who was waiting in the warmth inside in a wheelchair. During that time, an airport policeman arrived on the spot and sarcastically asked my sister, "Do you always park in a crosswalk?"

My sister, who lives in a rural town near Erie, replied, "I didn't even know I was parked in a crosswalk. We don't have crosswalks where I live. I parked here because there is a wheelchair ramp in the sidewalk." He replied that he should give her a ticket but fortunately did not. My oldest brother, who lives in Virginia, had a very similar experience when he visited Pittsburgh and picked me up at the airport last summer.

Contrast this with the Tampa airport, which dismissed its previous airport police force due to numerous complaints, and replaced it with friendly and helpful regular citizens who run through a few months of training, do not carry guns, but will quickly call police if necessary.

Pittsburgh, people have a lot of choices of cities to visit and vacation. Please don't make things any less appealing for your town!

JANINE MOGAN
Naperville, Ill.

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I would like to bring your attention to the disproportionate and biased worldwide demonstrations and public opinions against the state of Israel for going to war to protect its citizens against the bombardment of rockets by Hamas, a terrorist organization that our President George W. Bush condemns.

Even in our own country, for example, in Fort Lauderdale, some members of a Palestinian demonstration were vocally violent, calling for Jews to be in ovens. Now, as a Holocaust survivor, a hidden child in France, I find it unbearable that, under the guise of free speech, Jewish people should be assailed.

Anti-Semitism professed throughout centuries should be eradicated. And Israel, such a tiny but courageous country that has provided so many scientific and technologic benefits for humanity, must survive and live in peace. The Palestinians could have had their own state in 1948, if they had not attacked Israel then.

SOLANGE LEBOVITZ
Squirrel Hill

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I am frightened by the viciousness of the Israeli attacks and angered by the world's politicians who sit by and wait. I can't claim to be a Middle East expert and, evidently, neither are our national leaders judging by the mess they've made in Iraq.

It doesn't take an expert to observe in the visual footage on TV that the Israeli philosophy has become a hundred eyes for an eye, a hundred teeth for a tooth. Additionally, the dead in Gaza are ragged, unfed, oppressed, living in rubble and unable to leave thanks to their closed borders (remember the wall?). On the other hand, the dead in Israel are well-fed, privileged and free to come and go at will.

I had to laugh when one Pittsburgh newscaster recently announced that Israel finally has control of northeast Gaza. It has had military occupation of the entire territory for how long now?

Just as I observe this on TV news (despite the accompanying rhetoric) so do your readers. What an outcry there would be if this were happening in Africa. Every movie star would hold a fund-raiser. I can only guess that our world leaders are not stopping this slaughter because, at heart, they are afraid of the Israelis just as I am becoming.

DIANNE BURNHAM
Churchill

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I have to agree with Dan Simpson when he holds the United States responsible in part for the hideous pounding that Israel is administering to the 1.5 million people of the Gaza Strip ("On Israel, South Africa and Manners," Jan. 7 column). Without U.S. tax dollars and U.S. complacency, Israel would never get away with its ensuing massacre in the Gaza Strip.

As a Pittsburgher and as an American, I was outraged to learn about this decades-old military occupation and have spent two years witnessing the brutality placed upon the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. It's time we as a city make our voices heard!I was pleased to hear of the upcoming events in solidarity with Gaza, starting January 8 and ending on the 11th, including a vigil outside of the Hillman Library at 5pm Thursday and a Palestine photo exhibit starting at Pitt this Friday, with these events being sponsored by Pitt Students for Justice in Palestine. And I would urge everyone who cares about human rights and where their tax dollars are going to attend these events.

JONAS MOFFAT
Lawrenceville

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I am writing in response to Teresa Ankney's Jan. 4 letter ("Pittsburgh Promise Is Not for Everyone"). Clearly this program for students attending Pittsburgh Public Schools is designed to both assist students and their families with college expenses and to direct students to colleges in Pennsylvania, to help support and maintain higher education in this state.

The number of choices of colleges and universities included in the Pittsburgh Promise is impressive and continues to grow. If your college of choice is in another state, or not on the list of schools in Pennsylvania, then you have to acknowledge that the financial assistance offered by this program was not central to the choice you made.

Many more students in Pittsburgh now have the opportunity to attend college as a result of this program; they previously may not have even had a choice to continue their education because of financial constraints. If more families chose to move to the city, so that their children can also have this benefit, they should be applauded for this.

We all stand to gain from supporting better public education for all children in Pittsburgh, regardless of whether we choose to use the funding offered by the Pittsburgh Promise ourselves. We should encourage opportunities such as this for every child in Pittsburgh, so that they will strive for a better education, finish high school with good grades and have the opportunity to succeed in life through higher education.

LAURA HAIBECK
Squirrel Hill

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