Intervention

In reference to Andrea Siegel 's article "Grieving mom works to help other youths" (May 30), it is sad and disturbing to witness or hear about teenage gangs who are involved in unacceptable behavior in their conflicts with other gangs or innocent bystanders. While I'm sure our justice system strives to controls this problem, in my opinion society has a responsibility to initiate a more effective rehabilitation program to salvage the lives of these troubled teenagers before they graduate into full fledged adult criminals, hence becoming a heavy liability to our communities, not only as a danger to others, but also as a burden to our justice system through their arrests, court trials, and prisons terms where they will associate with hardened criminals and upon their release start the cycle all over again.

The hawks are squawking. Congressional conservatives and the right-wing media are blasting President Barack Obama for going soft on the Syrians. The president insists there is a "game-changing" red line the Syrian government will have crossed if it is found to have used chemical weapons against its people, but he has bent the red line so far, the hawks say, that not only the Syrians, but the Iranians and North Koreans will conclude Mr. Obama is a...

As I see it, the real tragedy in the death of 58-year-old Robert C. Richardson Jr. isn't only that a young boy killed his father ("16-year-old killed father, police say," Jan. 11). It's that an entire community - neighbors, law enforcers, school teachers and administrators - witnessed or saw evidence of the dysfunction, isolation, and neglect that this boy suffered for years and yet it continued, unabated, probably until the boy could no longer bear it alone. Other than calling the police on occasion, there appeared to be no intervention on behalf of the boy. One neighbor was quoted as having observed the family for 13 years.

Anyone who wants to know why health care costs continue to soar need look no further than the recent recommendation by the American Cancer Society that current and former heavy smokers discuss lung cancer screening with their doctors. The guidelines were based on the National Lung Screening Trial, which found that three spiral CT scans given over three years reduced lung cancer deaths by 20 percent. The New York Times called the finding "an enormous advance in cancer detection. " A 20 percent reduction in deaths sounds pretty good.

AMERICANS are appalled by the spectacle of Iraqi forces slaughtering Kurds and Shiites. And Americans instinctively favor giving these people their own homelands. But before skewering President Bush for not throwing U.S. military power into Iraq's civil war, let's be clear and honest about a few matters.First, stopping Saddam Hussein's forces is not a simple question of shooting down Iraqi aircraft and helicopters. It would require U.S. military intervention -- probably on a large scale and for a long time, with uncertain results.

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett and I would agree on very few political issues. But he is correct to sue over the war in Libya ("Bartlett, others sue over Libya," June 16). While I have great empathy for the people of Libya who have lived for decades under a tyrant's rule, I have to question the U.S. government's role in Libya. There is a claim that this is a humanitarian intervention. However, President Obama is ignoring the use of diplomacy. And tyrants are spilling blood in Syria, Bahrain and Yemen, yet the Obama administration, as far as I know, is not doing humanitarian intervention in these countries.

A leader of a broad coalition fighting state intervention at Frederick Douglass High School last night denounced a measure targeting the troubled Douglass and Patterson high schools in Baltimore as "mean-spirited arrogance."The Rev. Daki Napata, one of three co-chairs of the "Save Our School Douglass Coalition," charged that city school system officials had ignored coalition members' concern that the state measure left inadequate time to devise a plan to improve the school.Speaking before the city school board, Mr. Napata also said the state "academic bankruptcy" measure did not consider funding inequities that left poor schools with little money for improvements.

Paris. -- There are two kinds of foreign intervention, and President Clinton and his team had better get the distinction straight.There is an intervention intended to impose order in a country where civil struggle or revolutionary uprising has taken place, or where structures of government have broken down. This was the case in Vietnam. It is the case now in Somalia and Haiti. The outside power intervenes with the intention of restoring order, in the belief that with its help the people of the country will regain control of their own affairs.

About 25 demonstrators took a protest of U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf to downtown's evening rush hour yesterday.The demonstrators, part of the newly formed Baltimore Area Coalition to Stop U.S. Intervention in the Middle East, gathered on the corner of Baltimore and St. Paul streets at 5:30 p.m.Chanting "Bush, Bush, we won't go, we won't fight for Texaco," they held up signs for rush-hour traffic and handed out a brochure promoting another demonstration...

A few floors below the soaring atrium lobby, you will find - if you are a skilled navigator of large institutional buildings - the University of Maryland Hospital's Violence Intervention Program. Location may be a symbolic statement. The community may not wish to contemplate who goes down there. But VIP probably would not be going on at all without caring commitment from the hospital. So it's time for the city and state to look hard at what's being learned at VIP to see if any of it can be expanded.

A Mississippi infant born with HIV has become the first child cured of the deadly virus, leaving hope that the disease can be eliminated in the youngest patients, scientists from Johns Hopkins Children's Center and other institutions said Sunday. The infant, who was born to an HIV-infected mother, was given antiretroviral treatment beginning 30 hours after birth. Scientists believe the early intervention may have proven key to curing the child, who is now 2 1/2 years old. The infant has been determined “functionally cured,” said the scientists, some of whom are from the University of Mississippi Medical Center and the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Every year, some 400,000 Americans die from smoking-related illnesses, the vast majority of them caused by cigarettes. As many as 40,000 more die from the effects of inhaling secondhand smoke, making cigarettes one of the leading causes of premature death in this country. It's hardly an exaggeration to say that any other product that presented such a clear and present danger to public health would be illegal. That's why a coalition of public health advocates has proposed a $1-per-pack increase in Maryland's cigarette tax to encourage longtime smokers to finally kick the habit and to dissuade younger people, particularly teenagers, from taking it up. Every time Maryland has raised its cigarette tax, which now stands at $2 a pack, smoking has gone down and lives have been saved.

Cascelia S. "Cici" Burgess, the Baltimore school system's director of early intervention programs and services, who was an educator in the city for 38 years, died Sept. 20 of a heart attack at her Northeast Baltimore home. She was 61. "The one thing that everybody knows is that she had an undying love for children. And as a special early ed teacher, Cici did all she could to help with resources and whatever else was needed," said Sandra A. "Sam" Means, an administrator at Maritime Industries Academy High School.

WESTMINSTER - Advance tickers are on sale for the 13th annual "A Culinary Experience," scheduled for Monday, Oct. 8, 6 to 9 p.m., at Martin's Westminster in the 140 Village Shopping Center. The event is a fundraiser for the Rape Crisis Intervention Service of Carroll County. The evening will showcase local restaurants, caterers and bakeries with samplings of their menus. Attendees have the opportunity to vote for awards for the restaurants. Entertainment will be provided by the Eric Byrd Trio, and silent and live auctions will be led by guest auctioneer, Galen Roop.

Maryland is exaggerating the value of collecting DNA samples before suspects are convicted, the state's top public defender argued in a filing Friday before the U.S. Supreme Court. The state asked the nation's highest court to decide whether collecting DNA samples to tie suspects to other crimes is a violation of their constitutional rights or a viable crime-fighting tool. In response to a temporary stay issued by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., Maryland Public Defender Paul DeWolfe urged the high court to uphold an April decision by the state Court of Appeals to block the collection of DNA samples after a suspect is arrested but not convicted in a violent crime, burglary or an attempt to commit such crimes.

Last week's episode was all about shock and awe: Brooks said something that made sense and Tamra did something admirable. Tonight's episode is filled with mock and "Awww, no she didn't!" We open with Tamra fessing up to Her Highness Heather (HHH) and her hubby Terry admitting that she threw Terry (and by association, Heather) under the bus with Alexis last week. If Tamra had any kind of track record of behaving like a normal person, I would give her mad props for her honesty, but it's not that kind of party.

Seriously, now is the time for a real intervention. Those close to President Bush, people whose faith and loyalty he cannot doubt - first lady Laura Bush, his parents, perhaps an elder statesman or two, his preacher - need to assemble in his White House quarters one night soon, lock the door and sit the president down for a serious, forever-secret talk. Unlike the YouTube "intervention" parody on the Internet, the subject would not be the Iraq war, at least not primarily. The focus needs to be on Vice President Dick Cheney.

Opening my door, I was surprised to find several of my friends assembled on the front porch. My nostrils twitched, assaulted by an overpowering aroma of lemon, ammonia and pine."

Baltimore County school leaders are reconsidering discipline policies that have led to one of the highest suspension rates in the state, saying they want to reduce the number of times students are sent home for minor infractions. A revamped discipline code, made public for the first time this week, would encourage staff and teachers to intervene with students before they are suspended and would give principals more flexibility in how they deal with bad behavior. The school board will consider the new policy over the next month and will vote on it in April.

George Huguely V was getting drunk four nights a week in his final month of college, and his lacrosse teammates at the University of Virginia were considering some kind of intervention at the close of the 2010 season, a friend testified Thursday in Charlottesville Circuit Court. But the intervention never happened. Huguely was arrested on murder charges May 3 that year, more than three weeks before the Cavaliers would play their final game in the NCAA semifinals. He is accused of beating to death Cockeysville native Yeardley Love, his on-and-off girlfriend of two years, in a drunken fury.