Control

With Johns Hopkins women's lacrosse team losing most of the draws and trailing by a goal at halftime against Loyola on Wednesday night, Blue Jays coach Janine Tucker knew she had to make a change, so she sent freshman Erica Matz to handle the draws. Matz turned the game around. Her ability to win possession sparked a five-goal Johns Hopkins run and the No. 14 Blue Jays went on to take their first-ever win over the No. 9 Greyhounds, 11-8. “In the recruiting process, Erica really stood out on the draw,” Tucker said.

The current gun control debate is being controlled by politicians and the media, both of which have self-serving agendas that have nothing to do with the merits of this most important constitutional right as it relates to our freedoms. We all want the same outcomes. We all want to go about our daily lives enjoying life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The fact that the recurring gun control debate draws such a passionate response is evidence enough that one side is not being allowed to be heard.

Susan Reimer 's moral indignation regarding the dearth of women's responses to the political furor over birth control is misplaced ("In birth control debate, where are the women's voices?" Feb. 16). Women are not speaking out because birth control availability is not the issue, religious freedom is. President Barack Obama reneged on a promise to faith-based organizations that they would not have to violate their religious beliefs when providing health care coverage for their employees.

Why is the Federal Government involved in this at all? ("Virginia Tech faces $50,000 penalty," March 23.) How much are we paying federal bureaucrats for monitoring these situations to see whether and how much the feds should fine schools? How much is it costing our schools (which of course means our students and their families) to ensure they are in compliance with all these byzantine federal laws and regulations that are being churned out daily by thousands of government lawyers sitting in their cubicles?

With the passage of the new bill, the criminal element in Maryland will now feel much safer, knowing that fewer law-abiding people will have legally owned guns.  Chicago is just one example of tough gun controls laws and how well they work.  Well done, Governor, you will be able to proudly claim credit for  the pending gun crime increase that is coming. Daryl Leger Annapolis

Newtown, Conn., has just experienced the single most horrid gun tragedy in our nation's history. Yet we are admonished once more that to raise the issue of gun control in the aftermath of such tragedy is untimely or even opportunistic. It is, of course, neither. Claiming that it is somehow inappropriate politicizing to point out how our current legal climate facilitates, or at least contributes to, these horrors is offensive. More to the point, the argument against relying on such events to discuss how our understanding of the right to bear arms has run amok rests on false premises.

The argument by Catholic bishops and other conservatives that providing contraception and reproductive health services for all women is a denial of Catholics' religious freedom is without merit ("O'Brien's quixotic fight," Feb. 9). The law is not forcing anyone to use contraception. It is saying it should be available without cost for those who want it, even those employed by religious-run institutions like universities and hospitals. Let's relegate to the past the many women who suffered debilitation or death because of too frequent pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases.

Malathion is bad stuff, no question.It's a pesticide, designed to kill something (in this case, mosquitoes). The less contact we have with it, the better. Like any pesticide, it ought to be used as sparingly and carefully as possible. Is the state Department of Agriculture, which runs Maryland's mosquito-spraying program, doing that? This is the question County Council members ought to be asking now that a grass-roots effort to halt the use of malathion has found its way to them.A small group of citizens wants the county to stop paying $52,000 a year to participate in the state program unless it abandons the use of malathion.

Her ambition is as clear as the jewel that glimmers from her pierced navel. Britney Spears doesn't want to be like Mike, as in Michael Jackson. She wants to be like Mike's sister, Janet. That much is clear as Spears, who turns 20 on Dec. 2 and released Britney, her third album, yesterday, enters the next phase of her brief, best-selling career. After all, now that she's almost not a teen-ager anymore, that Lolita baby-doll pose that has served her so well the last three years is going to need to grow up, and fast, if she wants to keep pace with an audience that inhales and spits out trendy pop singers faster than you can say "Paula Abdul."

The proposed new tax on plastic shopping bags in Prince George's Countyproves once again that Maryland politicians are not only out of touch with reality but arrogantly push their personal agendas at the expense of the citizenry ("Lehman, Frush pushing for disposable bag fee," Leader , Feb. 2). Do they not see the thousands of empty, abandoned homes in this state? Do they care at all about the number of people who are in foreclosure because they cannot find jobs to pay for them?