Absurd

I WALKED OUT of New York's Penn Station right into a horde of bodies that couldn't quite avoid smashing into each other along 7th Avenue near 34th Street. After about 20 minutes, I figured the driver who was supposed to take me to Queens wasn't going to show. So down into the subway I went, to hop one of those cars to Queens that former Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker said were so horrible. (The ride wasn't that bad.) My debating partner, Congress of Racial Equality national spokesman Niger Innis, picked me up in Queens, and the two of us headed for the Rev. Floyd Flake's huge church.

Free Trade HurtsAn established manufacturing company has remained competitive for many years by means of modern thinking, methods and equipment.The contributions of this company and its 800 employees to the good of the nation, through depressions and prosperous times, through war and peace, are part of the proud heritage of all who are touched by the company history.The principal manufactured product of this proud organization is produced at a rate of about one-half the labor-hours per unit of any competing organization.

WHEN IT comes to news reporting, the old city-room edict is always: first, get the story; and second, get it right. When the writer gets it wrong, it's a mess. It gets the reader who knows better all upset, confuses history and puts an error in the record books. I know; I've had my share of errors.Recently, the New York Times, which is known for its excellence, included what some of us around Baltimore consider a glaring error. On Sunday, July 9, the Times published an article about Baltimore in its travel section, called "What's Doing in Baltimore," by writer Melinda Henneberger.

There has been much hue and cry in recent days about the General Assembly approving a "rain tax" this year that is punitive, anti-commerce and unnecessary. What's truly remarkable about these protestations is how none of the underlying claims are true. Rather, this may be a lesson in the perils of approving a policy at the state level but leaving the business of carrying it out to local government. It's far easier for county elected leaders to point a finger at Annapolis than to actually educate themselves on an issue - let alone try to explain why a tax is so clearly in their constituents' self-interest.

THE people who thought up the name Rhinos for a possible National Football League team in Baltimore didn't know, forgot or didn't care about Eugene Ionesco.He's the Romania-born playwright who in 1958 wrote a play, "Rhinoceros," about people who turn into rhinoceroses that blindly follow the leader except for only one individualist.Told with humor and weird characters, the play is a metaphorical attack at fascism and how people yield to its terrors by becoming rhinos.When the play became a movie in 1974, Zero Mostel, right, played John, who humorously turns into a pachyderm before the audience's eyes.

Please allow me (or "myself" as Mike Myers famously said ) to introduce myself. Those of you who have been reading Baltimore-area newspapers for the past decade might (or might not) recognize my byline (I've written articles for The Sun, The Examiner, the Howard County Times, etc.) but this is my first attempt at a regular blog. We're calling it the Ridiculous Report and, on it, I plan to show on a frequent basis how common sense is often lost in our discussions of politics, government and the news in general.

This is truly absurd ("City won't pay lead damages" April 3.) What are the mothers and fathers of children affected with lead poisoning to do? How long will the children stricken with lead poisoning, going to survive? What about the medical costs? This aliment came from some landlord too lazy to fix the paint problem before renting these homes to residents. What other recourse do these people have? Anyone who understands HUD should know that it's all about the numbers!

WHEN I read the article, "A brand new Frankenstein monster" (Other Voices, April 3), my reaction was one of disbelief. I know that the author, Stephen Vicchio, is chairman of the philosophy department at the College of Notre Dame. I found it difficult to accept that an article such as this could have been written by one in his position. I found the tone and manner of the article to be petty and mean-spirited, and Dr. Vicchio's assertion absurd that various acts of Presidents Reagan and Bush (the "creators of a monster . . . complete with a bolt through his neck . . ."

JAMES CASEY, the Laurel horse doctor whose arrest on ticket scalping charges at the Kentucky Derby led to a two-alarm political scandal in the Bluegrass State, has won a legal victory in the big, misguided war against ticket scalpers. On Monday, a Kentucky judge dismissed the charge against Casey, agreeing with a defense argument that police had no right to arrest him for such a minor offense. In Kentucky, scalping is called a violation -- kind of like a speeding ticket or littering -- and it's less serious than a misdemeanor.