Legacy

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday will be commemorated on Monday, and the mainstream media will depict King as a benign figure who might have stepped out of a Hallmark card. What is emphasized is King's fight for racial equality — certainly laudable and worthy of celebration. What is downplayed, often ignored, is King's challenge to this country to recognize and correct an economic inequality that has deleterious effects on both black and white Americans. In addition to his opposition to the Vietnam War, King warned us that, "a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

The General Assembly's speedy embrace of Gov. Martin O'Malley's income tax increases this week cleaned up a political mess in Annapolis, but the rate hikes could come back to haunt the Democrat if he seeks national office when his time in the governor's mansion is up. O'Malley's tax package, which won final approval from the Democratic legislature on Wednesday, will give Maryland's top earners the seventh-highest income tax rate in the country....

The individual accounts presented in your retrospective of the gasoline spill fail to adequately encapsulate the unremitting heartache wrought by the over 26,000 gallons of gasoline that leaked undetected for a month below the Jacksonville Exxon in early 2006 ("Five years later, Jacksonville still grapples with gas spill," April 6). I have spent much of the last five years visiting with friends and neighbors in the community, haggling with ExxonMobil and the Maryland Department of the Environment over well testing and an array of remediation efforts.

They pass through the tiny row home at a steady clip, 50,000 pilgrims a year on a mission to visit their mecca. Here, in a second-floor bedroom of a narrow little residence on Emory Street, on a bitter cold day in 1895, George Herman Ruth was born. Humble digs, indeed, for one who'd grow up to be larger than life. But as Lorie Vaughan toured Babe Ruth's birthplace on Tuesday, she said the locale wasn't as important as the aura around it. "I've been to Monticello (Thomas Jefferson's home)

Your editorial ( "START treaty test," Dec. 21) briefly notes that the first START was a signature diplomatic achievement of President Reagan. It is worth remembering that START was part of a broader agenda of disarmament that President Reagan pursued throughout his two terms of office. Despite their professed admiration for the Reagan administration, Republicans in Congress now call President Obama's similar disarmament goals unrealistic and impossible. It is worth recalling how President Reagan responded to that line of criticism after signing of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty on December 8, 1987: "For the first time in history, the language of "arms control" was replaced by "arms reduction" — in this case, the complete elimination of an entire class of U.S. and Soviet nuclear missiles.

Your editorial, "Unfinished business" (March 10) about Deputy Mayor Andy Frank's departure from City Hall stated that his legacy will be his efforts to bring slots to Baltimore, and if successful at some point in the future, to reduce the property tax rate in Baltimore City. In fact, the legacy of Mr. Frank and the Dixon Administration are the massive public subsidies the city provided to a few politically connected developers for the Harbor East and Westport Developments. Regrettably, those investments came at the expense of city taxpayers and the existing businesses and growing number of residents downtown.

America suffered a horrible tragedy on 9/11, but our actions in the aftermath also inflicted terrible tragedies on the people of Iraq andAfghanistan Thanks to Dan Rodricks for his thoughtful column on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks ("In anger and pain, little sympathy for 'the deaths of others,'" Sept. 11). Yes, America suffered a horrible tragedy on Sept. 11 that is indelibly etched into our nation's memory. But we must also acknowledge that our actions in the aftermath of Sept.

I enjoyed reading your recent article, "Baltimore County Executive Smith reflects on past, future" (Dec. 3). Looking back over the past eight years, there is a great legacy of accomplishments that Jim Smith will leave behind. In particular, Mr. Smith's stalwart support of the Baltimore County Public Library system deserves special attention. I can think of no other local government leader who has done so much to advance the cause of libraries. Thanks to Mr. Smith's leadership, Baltimore County has new branch libraries in Perry Hall and Arbutus, expanded and improved facilities in Cockeysville and Randallstown, and two new branch locations on the way, in Turner's Station and Owings Mills.

I just finished reading Paul Lewis' tongue-in-cheek letter to the editor of The Sun ( "Maybe the Toaster finally figured out where Poe was born," Jan. 23), in which he comments on Edgar Allan Poe's mysterious toaster presumably resurfacing in Boston. I at first took umbrage at the tone of the letter, taking Mr. Lewis' comment "...when Poe died there during what was supposed to be a brief stopover... " as an insult to Baltimore, implying that Baltimore has little, if any, claim to Poe's legacy.

As Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake embarks on a full four-year term after Tuesday's election victory, she faces the challenge of forging a legacy in a city grappling with decades of decline and years of financial shortfalls. Some political analysts and civic leaders said Rawlings-Blake, 41, should set an ambitious agenda focusing on one of the city's persistent problems, such as blight caused by vacant houses, while others said she should focus on fiscal stewardship and management of basic city services.

Frederick H. Bealefeld IIImade Baltimore safer. He ascended to the top job in the city's police department at a time when Baltimore was reeling from violence that threatened a return to the dark days of 300-plus murders a year. He immediately brought stability, focus and a no-nonsense attitude that got results. Crime is down, but so are arrests, and - most crucial for any police commissioner - homicides are at a low the city has not seen in two generations. His sudden announcement that he will retire in August, five years after his elevation to commissioner, is without a doubt a blow to the city.

Despite what you may have heard, the "house museum" is not dead in Baltimore City. The H.L. Mencken House (officially closed since 1997 by the bankruptcy of the City Life Museums) has had more than 100 visitors during two recent weekends. The Johns Hopkins University's Odyssey program arranged three tours of the house led by Marion Rodgers, the Mencken scholar and biographer. There was such pent-up demand to see the "empty" house that an additional tour was added, with another waiting list group that was unable to be accommodated.

Edgar Allan Poe and his legacy will be lost to Baltimore if funding cannot be found to keep Poe's house open and in repair. City officials say that they do not have sufficient funds to pay the salary of the executive director of the Poe association, who is also the custodian of Poe House. The Sun reported a year or so ago that a group of Philadelphians wanted to remove Poe's body from his grave at Westminster Hall and bring him to Philadelphia. Fortunately that did not happen. Annual activities at Westminster Hall are beneficial educational and social events as well as sources of revenue for the city.

A fellow named Joseph contacted me the other day. He's one of Baltimore's many drug addicts, still alive at 33, clean for once, and looking for a job. "I started smoking crack at the age of 14, shooting heroin at the age of 16," he says. "I am on parole and probation, and I can't find a job anywhere ... It seems like every time I get an interview, everything is great until they do a background check. I'm going to [violate my parole] soon due to non-payment of the [parole] supervision fees.

As an entertainment entrepreneur, Earl Monroe is engaged in putting together a reality television show with a woking title of "What If?" As a Hall of Famer who wears a ring he received for being one of the NBA's top-50 all-time players, Monroe asks the same question of himself. What if he had not been traded from the Baltimore Bullets to the New York Knicks early in the 1971-72 season? "I would have been revered as a different type of player, who would have accomplished all the things that I started out to accomplish," Monroe, 67, said this month, sitting at a table at Samos Restaurant in Greektown.

Close to the southeastern fringe of 540 acres of rolling farmland, Martha Anne Clark lives in the Ellicott City farmhouse where she grew up, the same house where her father, state Sen. James Clark Jr., resided for nearly 50 years until his death in 2006. In another house on the property lives her 24-year-old daughter, Nora Crist, who has introduced pigs and chickens to the working farm on Clarksville Pike for the first time in its 214-year history. And just over a grassy knoll or two in the other direction is the petting farm Clark opened 10 years ago with her father's enthusiastic support.

By the time anyone gets around to asking another person how he or she would like to be remembered, the answer is, almost assuredly, destined to be a footnote. The query makes sense only if that man or woman's legacy is already shrouded in nuance and of some particular public interest. And it's not like the answer will tilt the scales; not in the cacophony of chatter that crowds the internet. Yet when they erected a statue of Joe Paterno outside of Beaver Stadium on Nov. 2, 2001, they included the following quote: "They ask me what I'd like written about me when I'm gone.

Isn't the governor supposed to represent the views of the constituents who elected him to office? The governor is opposed to the death penalty, so no murderers have been executed. Does that represent the wishes of the majority of Marylanders? The governor is for in-state tuition for illegals, which the majority of Marylanders are against. UnderMartin O'Malley's administration, we have seen increases in our taxes, tolls and fees. Now this man wants to add more to the already-high cost of gasoline.

Isn't the governor supposed to represent the views of the constituents who elected him to office? The governor is opposed to the death penalty, so no murderers have been executed. Does that represent the wishes of the majority of Marylanders? The governor is for in-state tuition for illegals, which the majority of Marylanders are against. UnderMartin O'Malley's administration, we have seen increases in our taxes, tolls and fees. Now this man wants to add more to the already-high cost of gasoline.

As we approach the 2012 election, the fear that many Americans will be denied their right to vote is increasingly becoming a reality. A growing number of states have enacted voter suppression laws that will require identification to vote, impose stricter voter registration requirements or prevent early voting or same-day voting - tactics that will push out many Americans from the electorate, particularly the elderly, people with disabilities, low-income...