Injustice

As a Muslim, I am appalled by the Taliban's recent attack on the Pakistani teenager Malala Yousefzai, a blogger and female education rights activist ("Outspoken teen shot," Oct. 10). Islam is not only opposed to such senseless violence but obligates all believers to acquire knowledge. The Prophet Muhammad said "seeking knowledge is obligatory for every Muslim man and Muslim woman. " Moreover, the education of women is emphasized in his teaching that "if a man brings up his daughter, gives her a good education and trains her in the arts of life, I would stand between him and hellfire.

At great political peril, George Ryan did the right thing. Not to canonize the man. After all, the then-governor of Illinois was later imprisoned on corruption charges. But that doesn't change the fact that, in 2000, stung that 13 inmates had been exonerated and freed from death row in the previous 23 years, Mr. Ryan committed an act of profound moral courage, imposing a moratorium on capital punishment. In 2003, in the waning days of his term, he one-upped himself, commuting every death sentence in his state.

Shame on The Sun throwing away its credibility on editorials such as "License to kill" (March 23). The Sun seems to have jumped on the bandwagon of emotion and hype regarding Florida's gun laws. Like most anti-gun media, you use certain phrases and words to generate emotional responses while ignoring the facts because the facts refute your views. Unfortunately, most liberal anti-gun advocates refuse to use hard facts and data and will revert to the most emotional issues every time.

The recent study estimating that there may have been 26,000 cases of sexual assault in the military last year stirred a lot of tough talk from the Pentagon and the White House over the past 24 hours. But the question is whether that outrage will translate into much-needed reforms within the armed forces. On that front, we have our doubts. The U.S. military's failure to adequately address sex crimes within its ranks is hardly a new problem, but the rise of such incidents - up from 19,000 in 2010 - is shocking.

The articles in The Sun regarding Baltimore's speed cameras are highly commendable. The Sun and reporters Luke Broadwater and Scott Calvert deserve kudos for the great investigative work ("Goal is 'zero' speed errors," Nov. 20). Now for the $64,000 question: How many tickets were given out when schools were closed for summer, holidays, weekends, and at night. I'd bet my bottom dollar that the $19 million would drop by 75 percent if these cameras were only operated during school hours.

WASHINGTON - What would it take to get you to stand up for me? Let's say I'm routinely discriminated against and in some cases outright despised. Let's say I'm often used as a scapegoat and there's an ongoing debate over what rights I do and do not deserve. Under what circumstances would you be willing to break with the pack and speak a word on my behalf? Would it be enough that you simply saw a wrong being done? Or would you need to have some emotional investment in me before you spoke up?

THE NAACP, its critics say, is nothing more these days than a wing of the Democratic party. The organization's not about the business of civil rights anymore, the naysayers crow. Black conservative Ward Connerly dismissed today's NAACP as "largely irrelevant." Focus more organizational energy on the problems of teen pregnancy and crime among blacks, the scolds urge NAACP leaders. Forget about fighting racial injustices. The problem is, fighting racial injustice was exactly why the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was formed.

Iris Chang was in another strange room, this time at the Fairmont in Kansas City, just the fourth hotel she'll stop at in a dozen states in five weeks. In a few minutes it would be 11 p.m., and, thankfully, her workday was completed. Things are not always so frenzied for her. Still, there's a whirlwind quality to Chang's life. It's been that way since she unexpectedly exploded into national prominence seven years ago with her chilling account in The Rape of Nanking of atrocities against hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers during World War II. She has logged more miles and given more talks in that time than most people do in a lifetime.

Nothing but silence and black stillness fills the stage. Lights slowly fade up on the front door of a shabby household, an upper balcony and a clothesline. Two striking men enter discussing the day's work. So begins Reservoir High School's production of August Wilson's Fences. Fences opened on Broadway in 1985 and ran for 526 performances, winning a number of awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Tony Award for best play. The plot centers on the life of Troy Maxson, an outspoken African-American, and his family who live in Pittsburgh during the late 1950s.

For many whites, the verdict in the Rodney King case revealed an ugly reality they ordinarily do not confront. For blacks, it confirmed a humiliating injustice they cannot escape.For once, though, the races in Maryland yesterday seemed to share the same viewpoint."If it had been a white man," concluded Debbie Nyborg, 41, a white woman from Forest Hill, "I honestly think it would have been a guilty verdict. That's sad, but unfortunately, I think it's true."The events in California seemed to compel Marylanders to look unsparingly at the country's racial wound.

I served jury duty in Baltimore City recently, an annual event and my civic duty. It's inconvenient and thankless but necessary to be sure that people get the fair treatment that they're guaranteed by the Constitution. But what about the jurors? Where's the fair treatment for them? There is little information provided about what's OK to bring in and what isn't, either on the juror web site or in the summons. Weapons are forbidden (well, duh) as are knitting needles. Crochet needles are on the list of banned items, but I wrote that off as a mistake made by someone who doesn't know that crochet requires the use of hooks that are, by definition, not pointy.

Jeanine Cummins wants more than anything in the world to give a voice to people who are unable to speak for themselves. In the past, she has spoken for family members. In her 2004 memoir, "A Rip in Heaven," Cummins spoke for her cousins, Julie and Robin Kerry, who were gang-raped and murdered in 1991. She spoke for her older brother, Tom, who also was hurt in that attack on a bridge outside St. Louis. "My cousin, Julie was a really gifted writer," says Cummins, 38, who grew up in Gaithersburg.

The articles in The Sun regarding Baltimore's speed cameras are highly commendable. The Sun and reporters Luke Broadwater and Scott Calvert deserve kudos for the great investigative work ("Goal is 'zero' speed errors," Nov. 20). Now for the $64,000 question: How many tickets were given out when schools were closed for summer, holidays, weekends, and at night. I'd bet my bottom dollar that the $19 million would drop by 75 percent if these cameras were only operated during school hours.

As a Muslim, I am appalled by the Taliban's recent attack on the Pakistani teenager Malala Yousefzai, a blogger and female education rights activist ("Outspoken teen shot," Oct. 10). Islam is not only opposed to such senseless violence but obligates all believers to acquire knowledge. The Prophet Muhammad said "seeking knowledge is obligatory for every Muslim man and Muslim woman. " Moreover, the education of women is emphasized in his teaching that "if a man brings up his daughter, gives her a good education and trains her in the arts of life, I would stand between him and hellfire.

One of Elizabeth Catlett's linotypes could horrify viewers by depicting the aftermath of a lynching, the rope around the victim's neck held taut by the murderers' boots. And in the next room, a statue by Catlett of a mother and child would flood viewers with the memories of a maternal embrace. Catlett's sculptures and prints became symbols of the civil rights movement while championing the dignity and humanity of ordinary people. At the time of her death Monday at age 96 in her home in Cuernavaca, Mexico, she was widely considered one of the most important African-American artists of the 20th century.

Shame on The Sun throwing away its credibility on editorials such as "License to kill" (March 23). The Sun seems to have jumped on the bandwagon of emotion and hype regarding Florida's gun laws. Like most anti-gun media, you use certain phrases and words to generate emotional responses while ignoring the facts because the facts refute your views. Unfortunately, most liberal anti-gun advocates refuse to use hard facts and data and will revert to the most emotional issues every time.

Montgomery, Ala. -- The Rev. Solomon Seay Sr., one of Montgomery's many famous pastors, said only God could have made this droopy city famous."God picked Montgomery to make it an international image of injustice to black people in America," the late Rev. Seay once said. "I love my city, but my city has come a long way, and my city still has some ways to go."The last several years have not been kind to Montgomery. Except for the state Capitol complex, downtown is mostly a wasteland, with long blocks of abandoned storefronts and empty sidewalks.

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- Some things have changed as Turkey has moved from Third World country to the makings of a powerful industrial economy, banging on the gates of Europe as surely as did the armies of the Ottomans 300 years ago.The last time I was here you'd sit in a restaurant by the Bosporus and as you finished them off you'd throw your empty wine bottles out the open window into the fast-moving current. Things are tidier now.Tidier, too, is the child-labor situation. There are health and welfare safeguards that did not exist on my last visit.

I have great respect for Jay Hancock and in the words of an old country western song was almost persuaded by his reasoning on why a living wage hourly salary for 3,000 Baltimoreans laboring at big box retailers is counterproductive to the local economy ("Risk to city outweighs benefits of living wage," July 25). Just when I'd reached the same conclusion I noted in the same business section that the heirs of George Steinbrenner are exempt from estate tax of over $500 million due to the happenstance that the Boss expired in 2010, having survived several of the managers he consigned to unemployment, such as Billy Martin and Bob Lemon.

I would like to thank Faheem Younus for his poignant commentary on the issue of blasphemy laws in Pakistan ("Blasphemy laws: the root of Pakistani extremism," May 10). Though it is encouraging that the State Department has placed Pakistan on the list of "countries of particular concern," more concerted effort has to be made by both countries to get to the root of terrorism. The writer made a very pertinent point that though "few Pakistanis actually terrorize minorities and non-Muslims, many others have cheered or remained silent."