Hate

WASHINGTON -- After years of seeding and feeding, the hate industry hit the jackpot with Benjamin Nathaniel Smith.Smith, 21, was the suspected gunman in a three-day shooting rampage against blacks, Jews and Asians that left two people dead and nine injured in Illinois and Indiana before he killed himself.Police say they are investigating why Smith did what he did and whether he acted alone. But it is easy to see that he did not act alone. He had many cheerleaders.Smith spoke the language of the new white "victimism," a language of "concern for my own people," he said in an interview with an Indiana University television station last October, and a sense that the white man's days were numbered.

BENJAMIN N. Smith took his own life before police caught up to him, so some things about his motivations we'll never know.Authorities have an obligation, though, to make known whatever can be learned about what inspired Smith to randomly shoot and murder African-Americans, Asians and Orthodox Jews in three states last weekend.This assassin represented the intersection of two trends growing in the United States -- each anti-social and dangerous.The first is the general hate, revenge, suicide and destruction that seems to be corroding the souls of so many individuals in this country.

Harbaugh is a class actIn a time when many stories about professional athletes dwell on negative behavior, it is nice to see the opposite firsthand.Recently, Ravens quarterback Jim Harbaugh was at the Arbutus A.A. youth football program's homecoming, watching his son play for the Reisterstown Mustangs. After the game, he came to the announcer's tent and spoke a few words, signed a few items to be auctioned for the benefit of the youth football program, then stayed until everyone that wished had obtained an autograph and/or picture with him.Harbaugh took his personal time to do this (without charging a fee like some)

LIKE A TIRESOME GUEST who keeps returning to a holiday open house, the Ku Klux Klan is once again planning to demonstrate in Annapolis. The march, scheduled for Saturday, will be the Klan's second demonstration in the state capital in four years.The Klan stands for vile bigotry. The purpose of its periodic demonstrations is simply to call attention to a horrid, racist dogma. That is the group's right under the Constitution.In decades long gone, Klan rallies attracted hundreds, even thousands, of robed members who proudly marched through the streets of Annapolis.

An article about online hate groups in yesterday's Plugged In section contained an outdated address for Raymond A. Franklin's Hate Directory Web site. The authorized site is located at http: //www.bcpl.net/(tilde)rfrankli/ hatedir.htm.The Sun regrets the error.Pub Date: 10/27/98

LIKE A TIRESOME GUEST who keeps returning to a holiday open house, the Ku Klux Klan is once again planning to demonstrate in Annapolis. The march, scheduled for Saturday, will be the Klan's second demonstration in the state capital in four years.The Klan stands for vile bigotry. The purpose of its periodic demonstrations is simply to call attention to a horrid, racist dogma. That is the group's right under the Constitution.In decades long gone, Klan rallies attracted hundreds, even thousands, of robed members who proudly marched through the streets of Annapolis.

Almost 200 students, faculty and staff gathered at Goucher College last night to protest anti-gay sentiments that have been scrawled recently in the college's four dormitories."

APPROXIMATELY half of the questions asked by the White House press corps at President Clinton's April 30 news conference were about the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Does the president feel responsible for all the friends and staffers who have been saddled with huge legal bills? Does he support the Secret Service's claims of a right to refuse to testify about goings-on at the White House? But, in one way or another, all of the queries were variations on a single theme: Mr. President, why can't you just tell us the truth?

The townhouse of a black North Laurel family was vandalized, ransacked and flooded Tuesday, two weeks after racist fliers were distributed at the complex calling for whites to "take back what is ours."Police yesterday called the incident -- which included offensive epithets painted on the walls -- the most destructive hate-bias crime in Howard in recent memory.The management at the Seasons Apartments in the 9200 block of Traders Crossing relocated the victims -- Sonia James, 27, her 2 1/2 -year-old son and her mother, Mary Alice James -- to a furnished townhouse elsewhere.

I READ THE NEWS the other day about Bob Irsay's failing health. And I felt . . . nothing.This caught me completely off guard.I come from a family where blood feuds are not only tolerated, but actively encouraged. But here was the great enemy of my people lying deathly ill and I had nothing going.I couldn't even come up with a decent pull-the-plug joke.Was I, God forbid, showing latent signs of maturity?Had I learned, when I wasn't looking, and when I certainly hadn't meant to, something about the merits of forgiving and forgetting?

There are some restaurants that just generate strong feelings both pro and con. We've discussed a lot of them on my blog, Dining@Large. One reader suggested the topic would make a great Top 10 Tuesday, and I agreed. So last Tuesday I published this list of the 10 most controversial places in this area - ones that could ruin marriages or cause friends to come to blows - along with reasons people say they like them or hate them: ... 1 Ambassador Dining Room in Tuscany/Canterbury. Love it: Good Indian food, wonderful setting and suave service.

Prisons must focus on rehabilitation Recently, The Baltimore Sun recommended toughening Maryland's good time credit system because some prisoners do not deserve access, citing one "poster boy" anecdote ("Doing the time," editorial, March 17). We agree that review of the system may be useful but for entirely different reasons. The Sun's call for alarm about good time credits is unwarranted. Maryland, with its rate of 74 percent of actual sentence served, is far above the national average of 55 percent.

Atlanta -- The day before the national semifinals, the Florida players, almost to a man, presented "hate" as their motivational theme for the Final Four. The other teams hate us because we have what they want, they said. Other fans hate us because we're the champs. Everybody wants to see us get knocked off. "I'm not talking about someone trying to kill me," the Gators' Joakim Noah said Friday. "When I say `hate,' I'm talking about all the doubters. There have been a lot of doubters this year.

Hatred just isn't as powerful as it used to be. GQ magazine released its list of the 10 most hated athletes in professional sports last week, and it was abound with the usual suspects - Terrell Owens, Barry Bonds, Kurt Busch and Kobe Bryant. Being on such a list might have been considered a bad thing at one time, but hatred just doesn't have the staying power it did before. Today's athletes no longer fear public scorn. In fact, they welcome it. Being hated is good. Better to be infamous than famous.

Is there a team other than Duke you are rooting against most in the NCAA men's tournament? For true Maryland fans, if there was hate left over after hating Duke, we'd still use it to hate Duke even more. Michael S. Herman Sr. Baldwin Wishing misfortune upon a group of student-athletes just isn't right. It sends the wrong message to our children. Except, of course, in the case of Duke, who I hope gets knocked out in the first round with J.J. Redick throwing up a dozen airballs. Jeffrey Mariner Phoenix I'm rooting against the Belmont Bruins.

More poker could be the answer. Texas Hold-'em, Five-Card Stud or whatever your game, poker could be the answer to rising energy costs. Until a real third party emerges in this country to turn the political-corporate class upside-down and challenge the status quo of windfall profits and CEOs owning four homes, we should all play more poker, and maybe with all the lights turned off but the one over the card table. You'd save on your BGE bill. Look, I'm sure the revolution will not be televised.

The owners of Atomic Books dislike the 1980s. Even at a time when Ugg boots, drop-waist skirts, big hair and Duran Duran are back in style, store owners Rachel Whang and Benn Ray distinguish themselves with disgust for the decade of excess. "I remember a lot of bad music, bad haircuts and bad clothes," said Ray. Every so often, the duo publicly reaffirms their distaste with a "Hate the '80s Night." This time around, the event coincides with the store's fourth anniversary. The party, which is open to all '80s detractors, will be Saturday at the Ottobar.

Oh, you hate them. You hate their swagger. You hate what they wear, those Yankees caps and pinstriped Yankees jerseys and satin Yankees jackets that look like something from a bad bowling league. You hate the way they talk, which is megaphone-loud and New Yawk-y, and then they get a few beers in them and it sounds like Amphetamine Night at Yankee Stadium, everyone yapping about "Derek" and "Bernie" and "da Yanks, da mos' wunnerful team in da woild." But most of all, you hate their arrogance, their sense of entitlement, how they expect to win every year and when they don't, it's treated like a statistical anomaly, a blip in the natural order of life, a puzzler that even has God scratching his head.

WASHINGTON -- Sometimes, we act as if it just dissipated long ago, all the heat, all the hate, gone one milestone day. Like everybody got religion simultaneously, repented their sins and went forth to sin no more. We consider ourselves enlightened now, beyond it now, so much so that some of us resent you even bringing it up. Indeed, the very word we use to describe it feels 20th century, like rotary dials and vinyl records. Racism, the word is. Racism. So frequently misused and overused, you are sometimes faintly embarrassed to use it at all. After all, it's no longer a word that makes anybody say, Oh, my God. It has become sonic wallpaper.

SAN ANTONIO - As soon as Hank Becker hears the question, he immediately sits down near courtside of the Alamodome. This could take some time. "Why does everybody hate Duke? Because they are some arrogant SOBs," said Becker, 52, a resident of Meriden, Conn. "It started with that Laettner guy. Now we have to hear about how great their fans are. Then they got Dickie V. drooling all over them. They're just a bunch of preppies and yuppies." And what about Coach K? "He ... " Never mind. It might be better to skip that one for now. ... The Blue Devils have become the New York Yankees and the old Dallas Cowboys.