Bad Idea

How's this for one of the biggest problems facing manager Buck Showalter this spring? The Orioles are hitting the ball too far. Showalter had to move batting practice from the northeast practice field to the southwest field that mirrors the dimensions of Orioles Park after several unhappy spring training spectators came to the O's administrative office hoping to be reimbursed for damage to cars parked beyond the left field fence....

Four years ago, the General Assembly put to rest a bad idea, but this session it's back. Two bills propose some kind of system for monitoring prescriptions for morphine and other pain-killing drugs that have a high potential for abuse. The classic version, reflected in a Senate bill, is "trip-scrip," a triplicate prescription form intended to help authorities prevent physicians from creating addicts or diverting drugs to illegal channels.There's just one problem: the system doesn't accomplish that goal, and it carries some painful liabilities.

SAN FRANCISCO - When I was bad, my parents threatened me with military school, which usually shut me up. I took them seriously. I had no idea of the cost of what I was sure would be a private penal colony. But they were no more likely to send me to military school than to Ft. Lauderdale on spring break. Nonetheless, I spent many morose hours curled up with the New York Times Magazine scanning its inky, small-type ads for military schools. They've been upbeat. In a recent issue: "Positive peer pressure and brotherhood within a structured setting."

THERE ARE many promising ways to "change the culture" in Baltimore City's troubled public school system. Appointing the head of the teachers' union to the school board is not among them.In announcing his plan to appoint Irene B. Dandridge to the board, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke referred to precedents in which corporations had appointed union representatives to their boards. But this is a very different proposition. Corporate boards do not set day-to-day policy or negotiate contracts. The school board is intimately involved in all these activities.

The thing many Americans love most about the Internet is its utterly democratic nature. Anyone can start a site for next to nothing and, if its content turns out to be broadly appealing, change the world or harvest a fortune from advertising. But the Internet isn't immune to efforts to manipulate its open path for economic benefit. Some Internet service providers have suggested that some Web sites could have their content delivered more quickly if they would pay a toll to be in an Internet fast lane, leaving competitors lagging behind.

UNDER MARYLAND law, two bodies share responsibility for overseeing the training and certification of teachers. The State Board of Education represents the interests of the public -- which in this matter are considerable -- while the Professional Standards and Teacher Education Board oversees the interests of teachers. That's a fair balance and is the result of a compromise reached when the Maryland State Teacher's Association first sought to give teachers sole power over training and certification.

WASHINGTON -- Capping credit-card interest rates is a bad idea that would undermine bank earnings and add to consumers' problems in obtaining loans, Federal Reserve bank economists said.The Senate on Wednesday passed a ceiling of 14 percent on the rates credit-card issuers may charge their customers as part of the banking bill before Congress. Such rates average nearly 19 percent.Although the proposal faces a minefield of congressional procedures before it could become law, fears of its eventual approval sparked a fall in bank stocks and credit-card asset-backed issues.

THIS TIME it probably will happen. This time, as a result of the Nov. 5 election, the Senate is likely to muster the two-thirds vote that will send a so-called Balanced Budget Amendment to the states, where 38 yeas would signify approval. Thus, a mischievous gimmick seems destined for the U.S. Constitution -- a gimmick that will not balance the budget but merely give politicians an easy vote for pretending this is so. It is a bad idea whose time, unfortunately, may have come.The amendment fails as an exercise in logic, economics and legislative mechanics:It takes Congress off the hook, postponing achievement of a balanced budget until 2002.

Once again, Maryland legislators may allow for-profit companies to offer debt management services to consumers here. Once again, it's a bad idea - at least until we know more. And it couldn't come at a worse time, with a growing number of Marylanders financially struggling and foreclosures setting a record. They certainly don't need a credit counselor trying to sell them other products, as consumer advocates fear would be the result. Debt management is when a credit-counseling agency negotiates with creditors on a consumer's behalf to come up with a repayment plan.

Capri pants are back. And that's bad news. The fashion item suburbanites used to call pedal-pushers is everywhere this season, on every rack in every women's department in every clothing store. They are the no-choice choice this summer. Let me be frank. Capri pants were a bad idea when my mother, with her test-tube figure, wore them in the 1950s and they are a bad idea now. They were a bad idea for every woman except Audrey Hepburn and Sandra Dee 50 years ago, and they are a bad idea for every woman except teen models now. To wear them, you must have a perfect rear end, perfect calves, perfect ankles and perfectly manicured toes, and if you look that good you should be wearing short shorts, not something it looks like you outgrew.