Discourse

It started small. Twenty people, maybe. Less than two years later, the group has ballooned to more than 90 members -- and every day without fail, some of them gather to continue an informal discussion about Howard County schools. All through e-mail. The people who subscribe to the e-mail list known as Howard County Public Education Forum can write their thoughts and get them to all other members with the click of the "send" button. Messages written by other subscribers come to their e-mail inbox.

WASHINGTON -- Although voters might not know it from the campaign so far, the next president will face issues beyond tax cuts, health insurance and Bob Jones University. Global terrorism, for example. A swelling trade deficit. A brooding, strengthening China. A desperate Russia. An unstable, war-torn Africa. Yet in keeping with other post-Cold War presidential campaigns, foreign policy has been largely blotted out by domestic issues in the election of 2000. While all four leading candidates "are hovered around the center" on foreign policy, according to James Goldgeier, a professor at George Washington University, their positions differ enough to have generated a vigorous debate.

MAYOR MARTIN O'Malley's recent intemperate and below-the-belt attack against the Maryland judiciary in Annapolis signals his impatience to implement full-scale zero tolerance enforcement in Baltimore. While the mayor puts the final pieces into place, too few people are asking whether Baltimore is ready for the consequences of New York-style policing. Having lived and practiced criminal law in New York City during Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's tenure, and being familiar with his New Orleans replica, I know the package Mayor O'Malley is offering Baltimore.

NEW YORK -- Return to the early 1990s, when people could still say "Generation X" without irony, when the twentysomethings who would fuel the Internet economy were still being derided as slackers, and Rob Nelson was heralded as a rising political star on the cover of U.S. News and World Report.As the co-founder of the activist group Lead or Leave, Nelson challenged politicians to either cut the federal budget deficit in half and control runaway spending on entitlement programs or leave Washington by 1996.

Here's the news: Talk magazine is, well, a magazine. This is news because we live in 1999 in the United States of Marketing and to experience the "buzz" on the arrival of Talk is to experience some disconnect the moment you actually get it and begin reading. One is led to expect something like the climactic scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Surely some revelation is at hand. After all, there's former New Yorker and Vanity Fair editor Tina Brown running the words side, Conde Nast veteran Ron Galotti running the money side, a partnership of Miramax Films and Hearst Communications, dazzling advertisers and a "rollout" approaching George Lucas volume.

WHEN IT COMES to quirky, impersonal relationships, Internet chat rooms have nothing on editors and their most voluminous letter writers. Like many newspapers, The Sun has its share of correspondents who offer their views for publication several times a month, sometimes more.Editors, and the newspaper's readers, come to recognize the writers' names, debating styles, the pet peeves that prod them to comment so often. Though they might get only one of 20 or 30 letters printed, that never seems to discourage.

As a teen-age boy, George Washington copied out in his notebooks -- presumably as an exercise in penmanship assigned by a schoolmaster -- 110 "rules of civility and decent behavior in company and conversation." These precepts were based on rules composed in 1595 by French Jesuits and translated in the American Colonies as early as 1640. In honor of the first president's birthday, which was traditionally celebrated on this day, here is a selection of Washington's rules:Every action done in company ought to be with some sign of respect to those that are present.

NOAM CHOMSKY has been the world's most important linguist since he revolutionized the study of language 40 years ago. In the United States, mainstream news outlets acknowledge his enormous stature in the field of linguistics. But the media response to Chomsky's work in the realm of politics is a different story.During this decade, millions of Americans have been drawn to the books and speeches of Chomsky the political analyst. His vast knowledge, clarity and strong commitment to humane values make Chomsky an appreciated speaker - and an energizing catalyst for social activism.

The national discourse was already in free fall, what with the airwaves dominated by a Jerry Springer sensibility and political debate reduced to the loudest and the lowest.But then came the Starr report.Somehow, a government report managed to offend a country that seemed beyond offending."This is telling us who we are as a society as a whole," said Pier Massimo Forni, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University. "This has put a mirror in front of us. We look in the mirror, we see our images in the mirror.

In a week in which the president of the United States publicly admits to adultry and says he misled the American people about it, religious leaders composing their sermons for this weekend certainly have plenty to talk about.For rabbis and ministers whose job it is to lead and instruct their congregations in the moral realm, it is a teachable moment."You can't ignore it," said the Rev. John Sabatelli, pastor of Christ Church, a Lutheran congregation in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. "What I plan to tell the congregation is: He was wrong.