Foolish

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's proposal to close more than half of the city's recreation centers in order to balance her budget ("Worst-case city budget cuts police, fire, recreation," March 25) is an unfortunate case of being penny-wise but pound-foolish. Last summer, dozens of recreation centers partnered with the city school system to provide day-long, comprehensive summer learning programs. The partnership was an excellent way to keep our young people engaged and safe, while providing meaningful summer learning opportunities that will last a lifetime.

I've lived in Baltimore most of my life and own a house in the city, but I travel for work, and when I go to Portland I stay at a hotel along the streetcar line, in Seattle along the streetcar line, in San Francisco along one of their streetcar lines, and in New Orleans at a hotel with the streetcar out front. When people who don't know Baltimore come to visit, I tell them to find a place along the light rail line, usually in the county. Begin to see a theme here? Why, because you always know where it is going.

In the wake of the great Republican victory three weeks ago, Rep. Newt Gingrich and his colleagues have been whooping it up for constitutional amendments. I wish they would quiet down.2 James J. Kilpatrick is a syndicated columnist.

Memorial Day is still several months away, but it would be nice to think that all Americans still hold some place in their hearts for those who have gave what Abraham Lincoln called the "last full measure of devotion" for their country. The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have made the casualties of battle not some historic recollection of Gettysburg but a real and ongoing reminder of the cost of freedom and the extraordinary sacrifices made by the men and women now serving in theU.S.

Unbeaten Foolish Kisses faced her first big test yesterday at Pimlico, and passed with an A-plus.Rated just off the pace by jockey Edgar Prado, Foolish Kisses blazed by pacesetter Pleasant Dilemma through the lane and won the ninth running of the $50,000 Miss Preakness Stakes by three lengths.It was the third win for the 3-year-old daughter of Derby winner Cannonade out of Ceylon Burgoo who was purchased for $3,000 by owner Philip Torsney from Maryland breeders Charles and Cynthia McGinnes.

There were four Triple Crown nominees in the original field for the $75,000 Deputed Testamony Stakes, but none of them reached the wire first at Pimlico yesterday.That distinction belonged to Foolish Pole, ridden deftly by Herb McCauley to a 6 1/2 -length romp over 1 1/8 miles."My horse was full of run and placed himself perfectly," said McCauley, who came in from New Jersey to ride two winners and a runner-up in his three mounts. "We got the ideal trip."With the pace snail-like (25 seconds for the quarter and 48 3/5 for a half-mile)

CARROLL COUNTY'S commissioners will be hard-pressed to explain to voters how they threw away a $121,000 federal grant for a proposed linear park because they did not want to spend $20,000 -- after they had already spent $30,000 in county taxpayer money on consultant work for the project. It was a foolish decision that showed no grasp of governmental leadership or financial management. Their flimsy excuse of "no new spending" should be exposed for what it is: addle-brained cowardice.All told, state and federal grants would pay $262,000 of the $360,000 cost of the 2.3-mile hiking-biking trail in Westminster.

Democrats would be foolish to run Jesse Helms off his chairmanship. His buffoonery is their only hope of getting back on top next time.Arnold pregnant is not half as funny as Arnold the scientist.Blue Cross of Maryland is asking regulators for the God-given, American right to go boom or belly-up with other people's money and lives.

TRICKFoolish white manin a hole,Digging like madfor Somalian gold.Little does he knowhe'll find no friend.For he works to robhis own black kin.HOMELESS CHRISTMASCold, wet and wintered,gray sky in snowAbove the asphalt blackConceals the guttered crack.

I had the tunes of songsto make me weep for joyand lauds of flowers, fragrant, lushand full to bloom.The melodies I could have hummedThe buds I could have grown withinBut frail and foolish --pondering --I dwelled within a hopeless thingWhile music taught the rose to sing.

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. " - Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson, meet Ronald Ernest Paul. He is the very soul of a foolish consistency. Meaning that he is willing, often to a fault, to follow his ideology to its logical and most extreme conclusions. In this, the congressman differs from other GOP contenders for the White House and, for that matter, from most politicians, period. Your average pol might rail against the intrusion of government into the private lives of its citizens, then turn right around and advocate a law regulating what a gay man does in his bedroom - and see no contradiction.

Dear Year 2011: Goodbye and good riddance. Don't let the door hit you in the behind on your way out. Or, rather, let it hit you. You deserve it. How bad have you been? Let me count the ways: •The economy has been a nightmare. For all the new (insufficient) stimulus President Barack Obama tried to get to provide jobs and to rebuild the country's deplorably decaying bridges, roads and other infrastructure, his American Jobs Act has been pretty much a nonstarter. •In the disgraceful tug-of-war between the president and the practically-do-nothing Congress over entitlement cuts, tax increases and keeping the federal safety net for the neediest Americans from being shredded, both branches of government came up with a whopper of a black eye. •It took Mr. Obama nearly a year of knuckling under to the Republican obstructionists, particularly in the House, mugged repeatedly by the tea party freshmen, before he finally stood up to them in the final go-around on a paltry two-month extension of payroll tax and unemployment benefits.

If anyone was worried that the much-belated move to raise the debt ceiling was an indication that fiscal sanity was taking hold in Washington, they can put those fears aside. The Federal Aviation Administration continues to be held hostage by House Republican leaders who appear to hate unions more than they care about air passenger service and the U.S. economy. For those who hadn't taken notice of the dispute - admittedly, that's not too difficult considering the magnitude of other recent events - the FAA brouhaha reveals Congress at its most self-destructive (next to the debt ceiling debacle, that is)

What do you call someone who charges you $20 for a service then hands you $1 and expects you to see him as a benefactor? A clever marketer? A con man? In Anne Arundel County, that's what you call the County Council. Only the game they are playing in Anne Arundel is worse, not only because it's a transparent attempt to fool the voters but because it will worsen the county's woeful budget situation. County residents may recall that just a matter of weeks ago, the council approved a $1.2 billion budget that includes a 3-cent property tax increase.

Rick Ross is the most consistent — and arguably the most important — rapper working today. Hip-hop's crown changes heads with swift regularity (ask me tomorrow and I could say Kanye West or Lil Wayne based on whatever new leak was liberated). But on Monday, May 23 — the day Ross and his Maybach Music Group drop the compilation album Self Made, Vol. 1 — the Miami behemoth is king, thanks to an unrelenting onslaught of crisp, expertly edited lifestyle videos and less-engrossing-but-still-entertaining low-budget music videos.

Jimmie Johnson will never win over a percentage of NASCAR fans that thinks he is 1) too boring, 2) too cute, 3) not Southern enough. But he is a five-time defending Cup champion for a good reason: He doesn't drive recklessly. He doesn't get caught up in the emotion of payback or tradin' paint. Sunday was a case in point. He had a shot to make a move on Kevin Harvick after Harvick passed him on the final lap at Fontana. But he backed off, with good reason. Victories are important.

The havoc on Wall Street following the collapse of the subprime-mortgage market boils down to a simple truth: For years, lots of very smart people took lots of very foolish risks. But behind that simple truth is a more surprising one: The financial whizzes made bad decisions in part because that's what they were paid to do. - James Surowiecki, The New Yorker

Slim pickings: Citation was such an overwhelming favorite in 1948 that only three horses opposed him in the Preakness. With Eddie Arcaro aboard, he breezed by 5 1/2 lengths.Money horse: Master Derby, which went off at 23-1 odds in the 1975 race, held off favorite Foolish Pleasure and paid $48.50, the largest win price in Preakness history.Pub Date: 5/16/98

A TV helicopter buzzing overhead. Baltimore County firefighters and Maryland Natural Resources Police officers on the scene. Defying a police order, two men in an inflatable boat braved the elements on the icy Patapsco River. Last week's much-publicized incident in Linthicum had all the elements of a daring rescue, except the victim was no capsized fisherman or stranded swimmer. It was a deer — as in a wild animal. You know, the kind that live out there , where they take their chances with cold weather and rivers and other of Mother Nature's challenges.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's proposal to close more than half of the city's recreation centers in order to balance her budget ("Worst-case city budget cuts police, fire, recreation," March 25) is an unfortunate case of being penny-wise but pound-foolish. Last summer, dozens of recreation centers partnered with the city school system to provide day-long, comprehensive summer learning programs. The partnership was an excellent way to keep our young people engaged and safe, while providing meaningful summer learning opportunities that will last a lifetime.