Crisis

WASHINGTON -- It was the biggest crisis of Bill Clinton's first term and the most violent of his career:Hundreds of angry Cuban refugees, breaking out of Arkansas's sprawling Fort Chaffee army reservation in 1980, attacked state police and National Guardsmen with broken pieces of sidewalk and even live snakes before being driven back inside by batons and buckshot, where full-scale rioting and burning ensued.Vastly outnumbered police, meanwhile, kept a worried watch on an inflamed local populace ready to defend family and property with all the guns and ammunition at hand.

The nation's transportation system is broken, agreed a panel of transportation wonks gathered in downtown Baltimore on Thursday, but they could not agree on how to fix it. "Transportation is broken. There's no way to fund it. America is one big pothole," said Ray LaHood, a former U.S. transportation secretary. "It will be up to the American people to say enough is enough. " Opinions for fixing it at the Greater Baltimore Committee's seventh annual transportation summit ranged from increasing federal investment in local infrastructure projects that would help address broader issues to cutting all federal investment in such projects to focus on national highway needs instead.

Most of the talking head shows have had some coverage of the immigration crisis, but they all talked from their political perspective and very few referred to any facts. I would like to surface some facts. Both parties are responsible for this crisis. It is very serious. It could bring about the end of the United States as we know it today. There are real dangers in what is happening for the people attempting to enter our country illegally, for our citizens and for the country itself.

It is during times of crisis that we see the very "best" in our fellow Americans. First responders and other heroic professionals routinely surprise us with tremendous and often unexpected acts. The University of Maryland Shore Regional Health System represents an often overlooked group of medical professionals who perform such acts every day. My father recently suffered a massive stroke and was admitted to Shore Regional Health's Easton facility. We do not yet know whether he will survive, but we are certain he could receive no finer care.

A crisis of enormous economic and humanitarian impact is unfolding in Central America, and it's hard to find much mention of it in our national media, other than constant references to a result of the crisis: tens of thousands of human beings, many of them unaccompanied children, trying desperately to enter our country illegally. They are attempting to escape the poverty, gang violence and drug wars raging in their home countries, and they are flooding our border and overwhelming our immigration authorities.

The Effort by the governor of Wisconsin to restrict collective bargaining by labor unions is an unacceptable infringement on the rights of its citizens ("Wisconsin's governor to senators: Come home" Feb. 22). But the sad truth is that it demonstrates a rare sober effort by any government official in the U.S. to act seriously to diminish gross budgetary problems. It is sad that our federal government buckled to political pressures to extend Bush's tax reductions for our wealthiest citizens and that we are now asking middle class union members in Wisconsin and other citizens to pay the price for irresponsible spending.

Dan Rodricks is right to call attention to our nation's dental care crisis, as are Rep. Elijah Cummings and Sen. Bernie Sanders for trying to make dental care more accessible ("Wall Street pays, the nation smiles," June 17). According to the Institute of Medicine, our dental care system is failing a third of our population - more than 100 million children and adults. The problem is long-standing: A landmark 2000 report from the U.S. Surgeon General's Office declared oral disease a "silent epidemic.

The current crisis in the Middle East deals with the Syria's use of chemical weapons, but the fact that it is taking place in Syria is immaterial. The problem could be anywhere in Europe, Africa or Asia and be of no less importance ( "Syria: Where's the outrage?" Sept. 3). The issue is not regime change in the middle of a sectarian civil war but the use of deadly gas by a rogue state. We in the free world must not sanction or tolerate in any the use of such horrific weapons. All possible measures must be undertaken to prevent this catastrophe, even if it means punitive or military action against the offender.

My heart goes out to the victims, their families and all in our great community who have been touched by the recent tragedy at the Mall in Columbia ( "A tragedy of undetermined cause," Jan. 28). Events such as these bring into sharp focus both the worst and the best of humanity. While we are reeling from this horrific and senseless act of violence, we are inspired and reassured by the prompt, coordinated and effective actions of our local officials and emergency response teams.

THE BALTIMORE City public school system has skated too close to the brink of bankruptcy. Two looming crises and a political reality prompted the school board this week to abandon a national search for a new chief executive officer and appoint interim chief Bonnie S. Copeland to the job. Board members took a leap of faith, just days before district officials are scheduled to visit the state legislature to seek a funding increase. It's money they can justify they need, and must ask for with straight faces.

Humanity faces its biggest refugee crisis since World War II, and Rep. Andy Harris, the Republican congressman from Maryland's 1st District, pledges to do everything in his power to keep a tiny fraction of Central American children out of a shelter in Carroll County. Harris is a doctor, but apparently not a compassionate one. Maybe he should start his own organization as a conservative counterweight to rampant humanitarianism. He could call it Doctors With Borders, Medecins Avec Frontieres.

Gov. Martin O'Malley and a group of faith leaders agreed Monday that thousands of immigrant children who have poured into the United States should be housed in foster homes and other small settings, not large centers as the federal government has proposed. The governor invited about 50 religious leaders and others to meet at the State House in response to the crisis that has developed along the nation's southern border as tens of thousands of unaccompanied children - many fleeing violence in Central America - have entered the country seeking refuge.

I disagree with letter writer Rick Alvi's claim that President Obama is to blame for the recent influx of unaccompanied minors illegally crossing our border ( "Border crisis is Obama's mess," July 13). In 2008 President George W. Bush signed legislation that set guidelines on how to handle immigrant minors who are not from Mexico or Canada. It required immigration officials to take of the minors as well as help meet their health and legal needs no later than 72 hours after they were picked up. President Obama is simply following the legislation signed by Mr. Bush, and he is asking Congress to help come up with a solution.

Catholic Charities wants to care for about 50 children from Central America at a campus in Baltimore County, seeking a role in the immigration crisis even though the consideration of other sites in Maryland has met with fierce local opposition. The organization plans to apply to federal officials to house the children at St. Vincent's Villa, a residential facility on Dulaney Valley Road, Catholic Charities head William J. McCarthy Jr. confirmed Thursday night. McCarthy said housing the children would amount to his organization doing its job. "Our role and our mission is to meet the needs of these children," he said.

The recent deluge of children from Central America entering the country illegally is not President Barack Obama's fault alone ( "America's refugee crisis," July 9). We sell chicken to Central America cheaper than farmers there can raise their own, causing them to look for other ways to feed their families. We import billions of dollars worth of drugs from the region, creating conditions that make normal life there impossible, then we complain when people try to flee. Our problem is that the difficulties we have created are so complex that no politician wants to try to solve them alone, nor would anyone be able to succeed alone.

Absent from U.S. media encomia for recently deceased former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze is any mention of the historic deal he reached with his U.S. counterpart James Baker in 1990 ensuring that the Soviet empire would collapse "with a whimper, not a bang" (Mr. Baker's words). Mr. Baker keeps repeating that the Cold War "could not have ended peacefully without Shevardnadze. " But he and others are silent on the quid pro quo . The quid was Moscow's agreement to swallow the bitter pill of a reunited Germany in NATO; the quo was a U.S. promise not to "leapfrog" NATO over Germany farther East.

When Peggy Walton returned to Ukraine six months ago, 20 years after a two-year stint as a Peace Corps volunteer, she only wanted to quell her own restlessness and satisfy her curiosity about how the country had changed.  Little did the retired Howard Community College professor know she'd wind up in the middle of a riveting international crisis that would force her to flee the country, leaving behind an unfinished job, worried Ukrainian friends...

We wonder whether the thousands of hardworking Maryland families who have received counseling and assistance through Governor Martin O'Malley's response to the national foreclosure and subprime lending crisis would agree with Marta Hummel Mossburg's assertion that it has all been a waste of effort ("State fails to stem the tide of foreclosures," Jan. 5). Maryland's response to the crisis is considered among the most comprehensive in the nation because it has had tangible benefits.

Most of the talking head shows have had some coverage of the immigration crisis, but they all talked from their political perspective and very few referred to any facts. I would like to surface some facts. Both parties are responsible for this crisis. It is very serious. It could bring about the end of the United States as we know it today. There are real dangers in what is happening for the people attempting to enter our country illegally, for our citizens and for the country itself.

I can't believe how much talk about the Texas border crisis I've heard on cable news the last two weeks without any mention of the Mariel boatlift of 1980. This is textbook for what I mean about TV news -- from the network and cable level on down -- being hopelessly short on context and any sense of even recent American history. No wonder we are such an addled nation that thinks everything that comes along is the biggest, newest, baddest or best thing ever. No wonder we are such an easily confused and jangled bunch.