Disgrace

The only bigger disgrace than the Maryland Senate failing to remove Sen. Ulysses Currie from his job was the Ethics Committee's prior hearing on the matter which recommended Mr. Currie's censure ("Disgrace in the Senate," Feb. 19). It was troubling to this reader to learn that a freshly retired Maryland Court of Appeals judge appeared before that committee with his new client and his client's other already retained counsel to give the judge's pedigree of integrity to someone who was a criminal in all but name.

The only bigger disgrace than the Maryland Senate failing to remove Sen. Ulysses Currie from his job was the Ethics Committee's prior hearing on the matter which recommended Mr. Currie's censure ("Disgrace in the Senate," Feb. 19). It was troubling to this reader to learn that a freshly retired Maryland Court of Appeals judge appeared before that committee with his new client and his client's other already retained counsel to give the judge's pedigree of integrity to someone who was a criminal in all but name.

Wow, two baseball players will receive $331 million to play a game ("Angels sign Pujols, Wilson," Dec. 9). That's almost obscene, yet we applaud it. I've been an educator for 25 years. I get up every morning at 5 o'clock, drive 50 miles one way to work and spend the day educating and caring for special education children. While I haven't done the math, I would imagine that Mr. Pujols makes more in a week than I make in a year - or two. Don't get me wrong. I love my work, but it would be a great day when educators make millions of dollars and ballplayers made thousands.

Whenever a wayward politician (or staff member) nowadays gets caught, they never admit that they did something wrong. According to them they made a "mistake" ("Disgrace in the Senate," Feb. 19). They make this denial even though they did exactly what they intended. They didn't try to do one thing and it ended up as another, which would be a mistake. It seems that their "mistake" was they got caught. Frederick C. Lohn, Pasadena

In using his public office for private gain, Sen. Ulysses Currie disgraced the Maryland Senate. Today, in rendering its final judgment on that offense, the Senate has disgraced itself. The upper chamber of the Maryland General Assembly voted unanimously to censure Senator Currie for failing to disclose his paid work on behalf of Shoppers Food Warehouse. He loses any possibility of ever regaining his committee chairmanship or climbing the ranks of the Democratic leadership, but those sanctions are meaningless.

The street brawl between the Xavier and Cincinnati men's basketball teams Sunday brings to light what big-time intercollegiate sports has become ("Ohio prosecutor will consider criminal charges after Cincinnati-Xavier basketball brawl," Dec. 12). You have thugs and hoodlums with a gangster mentally being recruited to play basketball and football. After listening to the rambling harangue by one of the Xavier players post-game, all I could think was, "do these goofballs actually attend and pass college courses?"

Given that in 2011 Maryland ranked last in job creation and 44 t h in having a business-friendly environment, some response is required. We could start by getting rid of the Baltimore Development Corporation, the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, and any other public or quasi-public group that has business development in its charter. Think of all the millions of dollars we could save and put to better use, like lowering the personal and corporate tax rates here.

"Disgrace," by J.M. Coetzee. Viking. 220 pages. $23.95. When David Lurie, an English literature professor, pressures one of his female students into a sexual relationship she does not want, his life begins to unravel. The student charges him with harassment and David, 52, is forced to resign, his reputation in ruins. That predicament opens "Disgrace," a tough, sad, stunning novel by J.M. Coetzee, set in post-apartheid South Africa. "Disgrace" won the 1999 Booker Prize, making Coetzee, a white South African, the only two-time winner of Britain's highest literary honor.

Why don't those running down former mayor Sheila Dixon realize that they too may have some hidden sins that may not be as public as hers ("A Dixon comeback?" July 14)? We are the most accusatory people on earth. I understand that those in authority have a greater responsibility to display good character and integrity, and I know she did wrong. But she paid for her crime, and people still aren't satisfied. They want her to keep on paying her debt to society forever. The truth is that Ms. Dixon loved Baltimore, and there has been a great vacuum since she left.

Once again, Baltimore is becoming the scourge of the sporting nation. Mr. Ridgely aptly pointed out yesterday in this paper that the advertising agency handling the Preakness this year has made an utter folly of the race itself. These advertisers would much more readily encourage infield-goers to race on top of the portable potties than attend (and actually watch) the pivotal race of the Triple Crown. I wouldn't be surprised if several of the representatives from the advertising agency have participated in the drunken shuffle in their pasts.

In using his public office for private gain, Sen. Ulysses Currie disgraced the Maryland Senate. Today, in rendering its final judgment on that offense, the Senate has disgraced itself. The upper chamber of the Maryland General Assembly voted unanimously to censure Senator Currie for failing to disclose his paid work on behalf of Shoppers Food Warehouse. He loses any possibility of ever regaining his committee chairmanship or climbing the ranks of the Democratic leadership, but those sanctions are meaningless.

Given that in 2011 Maryland ranked last in job creation and 44 t h in having a business-friendly environment, some response is required. We could start by getting rid of the Baltimore Development Corporation, the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, and any other public or quasi-public group that has business development in its charter. Think of all the millions of dollars we could save and put to better use, like lowering the personal and corporate tax rates here.

Barry H. Landau, the once-esteemed collector of presidential memorabilia, admitted in federal court Tuesday that he stole thousands of documents regarded as cultural treasures from historical societies and libraries in Baltimore and up the East Coast. The 63-year-old's guilty plea, to two criminal counts involving theft of artwork, revealed a scheme in which prosecutors said he compiled lists of items to steal by matching names of historical figures, from poets to president, to their "potential monetary value.

The street brawl between the Xavier and Cincinnati men's basketball teams Sunday brings to light what big-time intercollegiate sports has become ("Ohio prosecutor will consider criminal charges after Cincinnati-Xavier basketball brawl," Dec. 12). You have thugs and hoodlums with a gangster mentally being recruited to play basketball and football. After listening to the rambling harangue by one of the Xavier players post-game, all I could think was, "do these goofballs actually attend and pass college courses?"

Wow, two baseball players will receive $331 million to play a game ("Angels sign Pujols, Wilson," Dec. 9). That's almost obscene, yet we applaud it. I've been an educator for 25 years. I get up every morning at 5 o'clock, drive 50 miles one way to work and spend the day educating and caring for special education children. While I haven't done the math, I would imagine that Mr. Pujols makes more in a week than I make in a year - or two. Don't get me wrong. I love my work, but it would be a great day when educators make millions of dollars and ballplayers made thousands.

Why don't those running down former mayor Sheila Dixon realize that they too may have some hidden sins that may not be as public as hers ("A Dixon comeback?" July 14)? We are the most accusatory people on earth. I understand that those in authority have a greater responsibility to display good character and integrity, and I know she did wrong. But she paid for her crime, and people still aren't satisfied. They want her to keep on paying her debt to society forever. The truth is that Ms. Dixon loved Baltimore, and there has been a great vacuum since she left.

The number 301 Number of TD passes in Brett Favre's career. The quote "We're the laughingstock of the league. It's embarrassing. It's a disgrace. Teams just look at you with no respect." Lorenzo Neal, Bengals fullback, on being the NFL's only winless team at 0-6.

It's a safe bet Ta-Nehisi Coates' father no longer thinks he's "a disgrace to the family name." But 16 years ago, that's exactly what Paul Coates told his fourth-oldest son. At the time, Ta-Nehisi was a junior at Polytechnic Institute. It was near the end of the school year. Ta-Nehisi struggled at the elite Baltimore school his first two years there, failing three courses when he was a freshman and three more when he was a sophomore. Ta-Nehisi was given a reprieve - you know, the kind that Baltimore schools Chief Executive Officer Andres Alonso thinks schools like Poly and City College and Western aren't giving to failing students - and allowed to return.

The scandal revealed by news reports of "Operation Fast and Furious," during which the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms allowed more than 2,000 automatic weapons and other guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartel members, is a disgrace to the department and a gross violation of our border security. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder should resign his post as head of theJustice Department. What needs to be investigated now is what did President Obama know about this operation and when did he know it?

I have been thinking about media and public shame a lot lately. And events this week with Rupert Murdoch globally and Sheila Dixon locally have focused my troubled thoughts. The litany of public figures who have been in the news lately for behaving shamefully is a long and sad one. The indictment of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards in June brought back the whole sorry saga of him fathering a child out of wedlock with a campaign videographer as his wife fought a cancer that would claim her life in 2010.