Abandonment

The low turnout in Baltimore's primary election Tuesday is the signal that the citizens of Baltimore have no hope for anything in Baltimore to improve ("Election draws lowest turnout in history," Sept. 14). Let me be clear, the citizens of Baltimore haven't lost hope, they have abandoned hope. They believe nothing can change, and they have resigned themselves to another four years of spiraling misery. The reason is clear - 45-plus years of uninterrupted Democratic mayors and administrations have brought Baltimore to it's knees.

For years, Dr. Martina Callum has traveled the country and the world as a locum tenens physician, providing temporary health care in communities where few doctors exist. But after months on the road, she'd return home to an apartment in White Marsh that could barely hold the furniture, art and other items that she had accumulated over a lifetime. "I was flying back and forth to places like Alaska and paying a lot of rent here," says Callum, who was raised in East Baltimore.

Liquidation of some of the 399 Borders stores could begin as soon as Friday , the company has announced, pending court approval at a hearing tomorrow. The book and music chain operates large stores in Timonium, Columbia and Annapolis, as well as smaller mall stores in White Marsh, Columbia, Westminster and BWI Marshall Airport. Nationwide, there are 10,700 employees who will be dealing with this closure, not to mention the book lovers who liked to browse the shelves.

At about 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Harford County sheriff's deputies responded to an accident on southbound Interstate 95 between the Edgewood and Bel Air exits, under the Route 24 overpass, police said in a statement. A 2001 Dodge Stratus was headed south in the highway's middle lane when it was cut off, police said, causing the driver to lose control. The Stratus subsequently stalled in a lane that acts as both an entrance and exit ramp. The driver could not restart the car and walked to safety on the right side of the road, police said.

Sarah Palin has a habit of doing these kind of things, doesn't she?  Less than a month after she embarked on her touted nationwide tour of historical sites across America, Palin never seems to have gotten much farther than the East Coast.  In fact, Palin and her family have returned to Alaska with her plans in limbo, reports Realclearpolitics.com .  "Though Palin and her staff never announced a timeline for the remaining legs...

Each week, The Sun's John McIntyre presents a moderately obscure but evocative word with which you may not be familiar — another brick to add to the wall of your working vocabulary. This week's word: DESUETUDE Those clever Romans had a word, suescere , "to become accustomed to," and by adding the prefix de- they made it desuscere , "to put out of use," effectively to become unaccustomed to. The French turned it into desuetude , for a state of disuse, inactivity or abandonment.

The legislature is close to finishing another of its illustrious sessions, and this one has had its proper share of contentious debates. If we are really being honest , we must admit that in all of the political opinions expressed from around the state, it is the issue of justice that most often provokes the passionate responses we have come to see in the Readers Respond section of The Baltimore Sun. We expect things to be "fair. " Yet no one can agree what "fair" really is for any given issue.

Regarding "Liberals' concern for civility didn't last long" (March 30), Marta Mossburg can rest assured on her think-tank fainting couch that it was long before the Tucson tragedy that the civility that is supposed to be forever associated with progressives had long since eroded. With the election of President Obama, there was optimism that America was finally being pulled out of eight years of regressive fiscal and foolhardy foreign policies. Unfortunately for some, Robert Dole's version of health care reform became "socialism," Cash for Clunkers became "Marxism," and mild tax increases for the top income earners was "tyranny.

From the Baltimore Crime Beat blog: The Baltimore police commander who heads the homicide unit was suspended today after he abandoned his unmarked cruiser on the side of I-95 near Route 32 in Howard County, city police confirmed. Maj. Terrence P. McLarney apparently ran off an exit ramp in Sunday night's rain storm. State Police said his car went into a ditch and there was minor damage to the front bumper. Another motorists called police to report seeing the vehicle off the road.