Filling a need

Andrew Cassel ("Big foundation, many questions," June 28) veers off to a land I don't know when he asks if nonprofits waste mountains of money on overhead, meet their goals or build monuments to their founders, meet society's needs or crowd out the public and commercial sectors.

Cassel was correct to highlight the significance of Warren Buffett's gift to Bill and Melinda Gates' foundation, which is spending its money in precisely the right places to accomplish precisely the right goals. Cassel is also correct in identifying the importance of non-profits to the social and economic well being of the Philadelphia community.

Bethesda Project has been providing housing and supportive services to the homeless for more than 25 years. We spend 88 cents out of every dollar we receive on direct service. We exist, and persist, precisely because the public and commercial sectors do not provide the services we provide.

When was the last time a commercial developer in Philadelphia produced affordable housing for the poor and the marginalized? When they do, we will gladly close down our operation. Until then we will continue our work, and thank God for the Gateses and the Buffetts of the world.

Angelo G. Sgro

Executive director
Bethesda Project
Philadelphia

Who's Brangelina?

For those of us mildly interested in being able to participate in light social banter, your Newsmakers feature nicely encapsulates the highlights of celebrity news. However, it is increasingly difficult to stomach the silliness of the Hollywood name game. Bennifer, Brangelina, Tomcat, Jameron - Plop! (Please stop!)

The combining of celebrity couples' names into a hybrid is a trend that has run its course. It is neither innovative nor clever; neither necessary nor funny. Maybe Newsmakers could do something really groundbreaking by resisting the temptation to fall into the ridiculous linguistic patterns established by the national celebrity press.

Christopher Lawler

Cherry Hill

Easier to be illegal

I believe our government actually encourages and prefers to have illegal immigrants in this country. Certainly our government makes it incredibily difficult, if not virtually impossible, for one to come to this county legally.

My foreign-born husband had an extremely difficult time obtaining his permanent-residency status after we were married. It took intervention from my congressman to obtain his interview with the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Now, his sister has been denied the ability to visit us even for a short time. She unsuccessfully tried to obtain a year-long visa to help us out with child care. Had his sister played a little "loose" with the visa-waiver laws and just flown back and forth every three months for a year, it would have been fine.

It's no wonder that people come here illegally through the back door, when the front door is always locked.

Jeanette Viala

Chesterbrook

Real patriotism

Re: "GOP's burning flag issue may pass," June 25:

I'm glad the flag-desecration amendment failed. It would wrongly equate patriotism with symbolic gestures like respecting the flag, rather than with more meaningful acts like conserving energy or exposing government misdeeds.

Patriotism, "love of country," refers to acts that help the country; the more helpful and the more difficult the act, the more patriotic. Worshiping the flag is neither very helpful nor particularly hard. Burning the flag is much less unpatriotic than, for example, crafting unwise policy. If senators who got us into Iraq want to ban unpatriotic acts, I suggest that they start with their own lawmaking.

Ilya Shlyakhter

Princeton

Train nurses well

I was dismayed to read that a one-year nursing degree is one method being used to solve the nursing shortage problem ("Nursing his new dream," June 2). Once again, nursing and health care lower the standard rather than find ways to retain both nurses and the level of nursing education. This would not be acceptable in other professions.

Nursing fought to dismantle three-year, hospital-based diploma programs. Now the nursing schools are catering to the "quick fix" and bragging about it. It saddens me that my alma mater, Thomas Jefferson University, has traveled so far from its original mission to educate nurses in a holistic, thoughtful way.

Michele LeNoir Palamountain

Philadelphia