Default

Once again, The Sun endorses its favored candidate, U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, by refusing to cover any of the other contenders in the race. The rest of us can just go pound sand. In 2010, The Sun tossed us underdogs a bone in the form of an online blog but no print coverage. This year, it's an equally worthless online election guide. So much for fairness and participatory democracy. With no surprises left, The Sun will endorse Senator Cardin over the GOP nominee again this fall, even if Mr. Cardin drops dead in the meantime.

Could it be that President Barack Obama's best chance for re-election in November is ... Mitt Romney? The dismal state of the economy, and especially the stagnant high unemployment rate, clearly are red flags for Mr. Obama's hopes of retaining the White House. And the similar crisis in Europe is no help either. So it may be that the American public's continuing doubts about Mr. Romney will in the end give the president another four-year lease. That possibility helps explain why the Obama campaign and its super PAC allies have been hammering so hard on Mr. Romney's claim to be a Mr. Fix-It of the business world.

"White House sounds alarm" is the headline for an article in The Sun ( July 13). "Obama says checks might not go out unless deal is made. " Later in the story it says "Republicans have said the Treasury should prioritize its bills. " I agree completely. If a deal isn't made, the first checks that should not go out are for the senators and congressmen who are grandstanding to make political points, not working for what's best for the country. Shame on all of them. David Gosey, Towson

Reactions to Robert Lane Greene's post at Johnson  on split infinitives  got me to thinking about the One Way Only crowd.  Specifically, it was a comment by David M. Rowe: Yes, avoiding split infinitives at all cost can be labored and pedantic. Making them the default usage, however, reduces an authors tone to the level of over-hyped consultants' jargon. ("Our model allows you to rapidly, effectively and inexpensively improve your forecasts. " Ugh!

I sympathize with the letter Dovey Kahn wrote in today's Baltimore Sun ("Obama by default," Sept. 6). Just as some will hold their nose and vote for President Obama in 2012, I held my nose and voted for John McCain in 2008, and I'll likely be holding my nose again in 2012. I'm a tea party guy, which means I want less spending, smaller government and someone who'll balance the books. That means I won't be voting for President Obama. But I'm also agnostic, pro-gay marriage, pro-abortion, and I detest our involvement in wars we have no business being part of. That makes Republican candidates like Texas Gov. Rick Perry Rep. Michele Bachmann and Sen. Rick Santorum the lesser of two evils in a matchup versus President Obama.

The number of borrowers defaulting on federal student loans continues to rise in Maryland and elsewhere. But even during the long and painful economic recovery, many of these defaults likely are unnecessary. The federal government has long offered leniency for borrowers in financial hardship. But two years ago it added an income-based repayment plan that caps monthly payments based on a borrower's income and family size. If a borrower earns little or nothing, the monthly payment would be zero.

Employers rushing to automatically enroll workers in retirement plans and directing the money to one-stop life-cycle funds are leaving old-fashioned investment advice behind in a cloud of so much dust. That may be a mistake, say advice providers, who are trotting out performance figures that seem to make the case for giving workers access to more advice, not less. While about half of workplace retirement plans offer advice and an equal number automatically enroll workers into a default investment option, the default system is the one with all the momentum, said David Wray, president of the Profit Sharing/401(k)

NEW YORK -- Maryland Cable Corp., the Prince George's County cable television operator, defaulted on its bank loans yesterday after extended negotiations with bankers to secure a waiver on principal repayment of its $92 million bank loan failed.The company has been given 30 days by a bank syndicate led by Citicorp to devise a comprehensive restructuring plan on its debt. In the meantime, service will continue for all subscribers."There will be no impact on our customers or our business," said John Motulsky, senior vice president for MultiVision, the Greenwich, Conn.

The developer of the Harbour Gates apartment complex in Annapolis has gone into default on its construction loan, tenants learned this month, and the bank has scheduled a foreclosure sale for next month.Residents of the 516-unit development, on Bestgate Road near the Annapolis Mall, received notice from attorneys for the project's lender that all rent payments should be made to an agent for the bank, San Diego-based HomeFed Bank.Unless HomeFed and the developer, Catwil Corp. of Stockton, Calif.

An article in Sunday's Sun about troubled HUD projects incorrectly identified the location of Hyde Park Apartments, which is in Hagerstown. Also, Stephen's Square in Baltimore has been identified as troubled, not Steven's Forest in Columbia.The Sun regrets the errors.Coming home is scary for Toinette Bostic.Even on a peaceful summer afternoon, the 23-year-old mother of four feels unsafe walking into the dim, austere lobby of her apartment building that was once an abandoned school on Baltimore's North Avenue at Broadway.

Once again, The Sun endorses its favored candidate, U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, by refusing to cover any of the other contenders in the race. The rest of us can just go pound sand. In 2010, The Sun tossed us underdogs a bone in the form of an online blog but no print coverage. This year, it's an equally worthless online election guide. So much for fairness and participatory democracy. With no surprises left, The Sun will endorse Senator Cardin over the GOP nominee again this fall, even if Mr. Cardin drops dead in the meantime.

Baltimore Behavioral Health Inc. has sold its West Pratt Street campus to an affiliate of the Abell Foundation for $3 million, according to a recently filed deed, a move that the struggling mental health clinic had long sought as a way to help stabilize its finances. BBH will continue to operate at the Pratt Street location by leasing space in one of the two buildings there. The University of Maryland Medical Center will rent part of a second building for a program that it runs for the Baltimore City Office of Addiction Services.

The devastation of losing a house to foreclosure can lead to depression and a host of other conditions, according to the authors of new study who warn of a looming national health crisis. They are advocating for a new unified approach by financial and mental health advisers to provide homeowners with aid. The study, led by a University of Maryland researcher, found that one in five people in default on their mortgages have serious symptoms of depression. About one-third have seen their finances so crimped that they cannot afford to fill prescriptions and get enough to eat, which worsen health problems.

The number of borrowers defaulting on federal student loans continues to rise in Maryland and elsewhere. But even during the long and painful economic recovery, many of these defaults likely are unnecessary. The federal government has long offered leniency for borrowers in financial hardship. But two years ago it added an income-based repayment plan that caps monthly payments based on a borrower's income and family size. If a borrower earns little or nothing, the monthly payment would be zero.

About 320,000 student borrowed who started to repay their loans in 2009 were in default by the end of 2010, according to the latest figures from the Department of Education. The department said that 8.8 percent of borrowers who started repaying loans in 2009 were in default by the end of last year. In comparison, 7 percent of students who started repaying in 2008 were in default by the end of 2009. Debbie Cochrane, program director at the Institute for College Access and Success, says the problem is more severe than these figures suggest.

I too, sympathize with what Dovey Kahn wrote in The Sun on Sept. 6th ("Obama by default"). But, unlike Mr. Pasek ("Voting Republican for president, by default" Sept. 7) I cannot vote for any of the mainstream GOP candidates. Like Mr. Pasek, I believe in social equality, less government and balanced budgets. I also detest the wars in which we are often recklessly involved. But I also believe in science. The evidence for evolution and global warming is pervasive. If you can ignore the evidence in one area, what will stop you from confirming your biases in other areas, when the evidence is equally prevalent?

PRESIDENT Clinton's attorneys recently asked the judge in the Paula Corbin Jones case to move up the trial date, arguing that the case needed the controlled setting of a courtroom, away from "gossip, innuendo and hearsay being passed off as fact."But their aggressive tactics are the last thing the president needs. Instead, the better tactic would be to walk away from the matter tomorrow, by taking immediate steps to get the sordid lawsuit off the front page.How to do this? The president would simply tell his attorneys to stop defending the case.

I sympathize with the letter Dovey Kahn wrote in today's Baltimore Sun ("Obama by default," Sept. 6). Just as some will hold their nose and vote for President Obama in 2012, I held my nose and voted for John McCain in 2008, and I'll likely be holding my nose again in 2012. I'm a tea party guy, which means I want less spending, smaller government and someone who'll balance the books. That means I won't be voting for President Obama. But I'm also agnostic, pro-gay marriage, pro-abortion, and I detest our involvement in wars we have no business being part of. That makes Republican candidates like Texas Gov. Rick Perry Rep. Michele Bachmann and Sen. Rick Santorum the lesser of two evils in a matchup versus President Obama.

The tentative debt limit agreement President Barack Obama and leaders in Congress negotiated over the weekend is awful. It involves extensive spending cuts at a time when economic growth and job creation are practically non-existent, all without actually providing enough deficit reduction to secure our long-term prosperity. It offers no assurance (and considerable doubt) that the wealthy and large corporations, who now pay as low a percentage of their incomes in taxes as at any time in decades, will contribute anything whatsoever to the ultimate solution, and it represents less an example of a well-functioning democracy than a case of panicky deal-making.