Editorial

The Sun has indeed reached new lows by blaming the Kermit Gosnell matter on the anti-abortion lobby ("Kermit Gosnell and the 'liberal media,'" April 16). No wonder newspapers are dying. The most shocking thing about The Sun's view is that it is not shocking at all. Sadly, this is what we've come to expect from editorial boards today. Bernard P. Codd Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

Harford County Public Schools leadership has left the realm of reality as it applies to budget management. The decision that no doubt will be getting the most attention in the coming weeks is a recommendation by the administration, and approved by the board of education, to levy fees against students who participate in after school programs ranging from athletics to band to yearbook. This is a terrible idea, and one that could well result in less money being collected through extracurricular activities than comes in at present.

I am sitting here open-mouthed at your editorial regarding the Benghazi hearings ("Benghazi deserves a real review," May 9). Maybe you should let one of your staff actually watch them before making fools of yourselves. You state that the administration's claim that the attacks were connected to protests over a film was not really a leap. It wasn't a leap, it was actually a lie. Foreign Service officer Gregory Hicks stated that they knew immediately that it was a terror attack. You say that the Republican talking points are designed to discredit Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama.

With a new baseball season comes new hope, and there's reason to believe that hope may be justified this summer for IronBirds watchers. Granted, since June 18, 2002, the three months of regular minor league baseball available at Ripken Stadium in Aberdeen has been a dependable source of a little good clean fun. Whether the home team would win or lose, on the field, the experience of going to the ballpark and taking in the sights and sounds has...

Readers might conclude that they were well served by The Sun editorial page's 1971 endorsement of City Council President William Donald Schaefer for mayor. Perhaps less so by its lament that he was "not an inspiring leader" or its prediction that the city would soon "yearn for charisma" from the mayor's office. The Sun has published editorials, usually several a day, throughout almost its entire 175-year history. That adds up to a lot of opinions about the day's news, some of which look prophetic when viewed through the prism of history, others profoundly lamentable.

For years I would carefully craft letters to the editor of the Sunpapers, feeling that the letters section was the appropriate place to have reasoned and civil discourse about the content of the paper. The process of having letters edited was at once frustrating and instructive. Sadly, today's paper mirrors the problems infecting much of the media, allowing a no holds barred, "democratic" approach in which equal weight is given to each opinion regardless of how ill informed the opinion is. While instructive at showing a "diversity" of opinion, the result turns the editorial page into a barroom brawl.

Many thanks to the Baltimore Sun for an eloquent editorial on the Ben Carson saga ("Ben Carson and the price of free speech," April 13). This is a work of art! The Sun's staff has captured the essence of free speech with professorial precision. And, have accepted free speech that may be controversial, as long as it stays in context. We also got a lesson in what happens when our so-called free speech becomes aberrant, degrading, and outside the limits of good taste. This piece should also send an alert to those who are steadfast in their defense of Dr. Ben. Loyalty and preconception must be tempered with common sense and reality.

I stopped paying for The Sun years ago because of the one-sided liberal spin on virtually every page. But I receive the paper free a few days a week as a County Times subscriber, and every once in a while I read the editorials for a good chuckle. Thursday's edition did not disappoint; in fact it was a double chuckle. Gov. Martin O'Malley's tough budget? Give me a break ("A tough budget," Jan. 19). The only reason we have a gap between spending and revenue is that Democrats are addicted to spending.

The Sun was incredibly forgiving in its recent editorial about Baltimore's scandalous water billing system ("Tax sale timeout," March 25), particularly since The Sun's own reporting has convincingly shown the Department of Public Works' incompetence and mendacity, its manipulation of citizens, and its outright fraudulent and systematic overbilling. People have even had their homes confiscated because of this system of incompetence and extortion, yet the mayor has had the audacity to assert that nothing can be done about this because to do so might damage the city's bond ratings.

The Baltimore Sun's editorial board seems to think Newt Gingrich's opposition to the ground zero mosque is a minority position ("Freedom and religion," editorial, Aug. 5). However, New Yorkers oppose the "Cordoba House" mosque by a whopping 61-26 percent. New York City residents are 56-33 percent against, suburban residents, 66-21 percent against, and up-staters are 64-21 percent against (Siena College survey). Surely, The Sun can't be suggesting that the majority of New Yorkers who live in a city with over 100 mosques, are, as they characterized the former Speaker, "anti-Muslim"?

Two projects in rather close proximity to each other are getting a lot of attention from the people who live near where they're proposed. While both have the potential to result in similar kinds of traffic problems, one is in keeping with laws already on the books, while the other will require a change in the law before it can be built. Specifically, plans to build an apartment complex of 285 units on 17.7 acres near the historic Mt. Soma farm at the southern end of the Bel Air Bypass are within what zoning allows on the land in question.

Get ready to help pay for road construction elsewhere in Maryland. The tolls are going up at the state Transportation Authority's two Susquehanna River bridges - I-95 and Route 40 - and it's pretty clear the money will be used to subsidize projects like the InterCounty Connector that serves commuters in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. Starting July 1, the cost to cross the Susquehanna using either the Route 40 Hatem bridge or the I-95 Tydings bridge will increase from $6 for a round trip to $8 for a round trip.

Your editorial about phone record surveillance was certainly thought-provoking ("Surveillance state," June 7). What is of most concern about our government is the top-secret court that, we now know, actually exists. Where in a democratic republic is there justification for any top-secret court? Joy Shillman, Baltimore

It helps no one to allege that the military's disagreement with lawmakers' proposals to remove control of criminal sexual assault cases from commanders amounts to insensitivity ("They still don't get it," June 6). In fact, many readers could well conclude that your editorial accuses commanders of outright hostility to victims. That stridently emotional position is simply not factual. Commanders' objections to removing their discretion to deal with the problem of sexual assaults while holding them accountable for it does not mean that they, or the armed forces in general, harbor any animus toward victims.

What's the fair going rate to pay someone who has been elected to public office? It's an open question, and one that needs to be asked often and, once settled for one generation, asked anew again for the next generation. These days it's being asked in Aberdeen, thanks to a proposal from the city's elected officials to increase the rates of pay for the offices they hold. Famously, Ulysses S. Grant, after serving as president in the wake of his decisive role in helping preserve the Union in the Civil War, was far from set for life in his retirement.

Regarding your recent editorial on combined reporting for corporate income tax in Maryland, you argue that a switch to combined reporting in favor of a 0.65 percent decrease in the corporate rate would represent only a temporary "inconvenience" (How to make Md.'s taxes more competitive," May 9). The Council On State Taxation, a trade association representing almost 600 corporations engaged in interstate commerce, including significant operations in Maryland, has found that combined reporting neither provides the panacea for perceived "hiding" of profits nor provides the "permanent" revenue benefit asserted in the editorial.

The Sun's March 2 article "Driving patterns of the past create problems for today" and the March 6 editorial "Wrong way on mass transit," taken together, may have done more to confuse than inform readers on this issue.The article did an excellent job of explaining why highways and mass-transit systems are less capable of relieving the growing congestion on the highways. But the editorial seems to contradict the article, promoting expansion of mass transit despite the lack of funds and the inability of these services to meet the needs of commuters.

Most of the opinions on The Sun's editorial page are things I disagree with, although I don't have to keep up good relations with the governor or the current president and administration. Every once in a while you do get it right, but I the believe your view on speed cameras not being pure revenue generators for the government is wrong. It would be nice to know who writes some of this drivel. Craig Garfield, Ellicott City

Regardless of how most of us feel about individual elected officials or their leanings on particular policies, it's a fair observation that a lot of people get involved with politics because they want to make a difference. Some lose their moral compasses and succumb to the temptations presented to those who end up with authority for allocating public money or hiring public employees. Others may well have been no good from the start. History tells us all political parties are afflicted with people who give in to temptation or got into politics to have access to such temptations.

A blank wall can be a foreboding bit of architecture. Be it brick, block, concrete or wood, a building side with no windows generally has an unwelcoming aura. Possibly, that's why in many communities, an urban American tradition has grown up that results in big, blank walls being turned into forums for artistic expression. Early in this tradition, which seems to have its roots in grassroots urban renewal efforts in the 1960s and 1970s, but in those days a fair amount of the work was done clandestinely and regarded by many as graffiti.