When this is sorted out, the U.S. will be regarded as a bully. We'll have made more enemies than friends, and the next administration will be stuck with the result.
Hopefully it will care about foreign affairs and include somebody with some expertise in that area.
Chuck Frainie
Woodlawn
Waste of time
It isn't bad enough that we already have hundreds of highly trained police officers wasting their guns and badges enforcing a 55 mph speed limit on roads that are designed to accommodate 75 mph.
Now we will have even more wasted on the newest "menace" to our society -- ticket scalpers.
I know Peter Angelos said he would hire private security officers. But everyone they catch will have to be turned over to a real cop, who could be fighting real crime on the streets or the light rail.
Dave Reich
Timonium
Incalculable harm
With teachers still up in arms about impending layoffs, one has to wonder about the rationale that motivated Baltimore School Superintendent Walter G. Amprey to mail 10,000 letters to the entire staff warning of future discharges.
It was enought to scare the bejabbers out of each and everyone of the 10,000 recipients.
It turns out, however, that the number of personnel affected is approximately 360, or about 3 1/2 percent of the total. The mailing and clerical costs were a needless extravagance. The harm to teacher morale: incalculable.
Abner Kaplan
Baltimore
Educate, don't suspend, pupils
Because your newspaper seems unable to explain suspension rates in Maryland public schools, it offers such vague reasons as varying discipline standards among parents and "cultural differences" (editorial, June 21).
Perhaps the school system should provide all parents with behavior rules to be observed at schools, so there won't be any misunderstanding how students are expected to act, at least at school.
I always thought that suspension was a technique used to solve a problem and not merely employed to "exact punishment."
Suspension is a solution. Discipline by parents is the punishment. The school merely returns unruly kids to their parents for a little work.
But in this day and age many parents follow the easiest path. They either abuse their children or offer no discipline at all.
Thus, we end up with psychologically damaged children or youngsters who adhere to no rules.
I think we are gradually getting beyond the second reason -- cultural differences. As more and more diverse groups become assimilated into the melting pot, this argument increasingly fails to hold water.
Obviously, "School systems aren't court systems." But when those attending school are unable to respect their peers' right to learn, schools must respond.
Americans love to show off. We thrive on attention, whether it's sports, clothes, cars, girl/boy friends. And unless we receive it, we frequently act up, both as children and adults.
Finally, as The Baltimore Sun has yet to realize, the public schools' "core mission" is not to "develop students," but to educate them. Whether or not they want to be educated is the responsibility of the home and not the school.
D. Bush
Columbia
