Matter

The last man to take a horse to Belmont with a chance to snag the elusive final gem in the Triple Crown has some advice for Doug O'Neill. Stay true to the horse. "I think trainers going around asking other people what they should do, looking for how to handle it, that's stupid," Rick Dutrow, trainer of Big Brown in 2008, said in a phone interview Sunday. "It's got to be about your horse. Whatever anybody else did doesn't matter. You know your horse. " O'Neill, trainer of Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner I'll Have Another, has already disregarded common wisdom over the past three weeks.

For the first time in some 5,000 years of Egyptian civilization, voters went to the polls this week to select a leader in a contest where the outcome was uncertain. Given Egypt's crucial role in maintaining order and stability in the Middle East and the wide range of candidates, from secular to military to Islamist, that fact is unnerving to some in the United States, Israel and elsewhere. But it has been a cause of unbridled jubilation throughout Egypt, where millions of ordinary people lined up to cast ballots and determine their national destiny.

It would help readers of The Baltimore Sun to have The Sun investigate more deeply the problems of Brian Roberts ("Roberts likely to miss FanFest," Jan 12). We all know there is something wrong here, but no one wants to talk about it. What are we hiding? What are we covering up? To continue to pass this problem off as a result of a concussion seems odd to some of us - I say this gingerly because I am a big fan of Brian - but I think that he may be hurting. To read in today's paper that he will not be able to attend FanFest because "doctors had advised him that the event could cause further stress" and have this followed by the comments of General Manager Dan Duquette just shows the confusion in discussing the Brian Roberts issue.

In regard to the issue of same-sex marriage, there are really only two defining aspects to the core discussion, and which of these two you choose to focus upon will ultimately determine your final position, regardless of religious or political affiliation. Religion holds far less significance in this debate than is popularly portrayed by the media. The essence of this controversy is philosophical, not religious. The first consideration is that, in accepting same-sex marriage, we must of necessity be willing to re-define something that has a long tradition in many human cultures.

I'm baffled. What motivated Jean Marbella in her Sunday column ("John le Carre meets 'Desperate Housewives,'" July 4) to so trivialize the news that Richard and Cindy Murphy were accused of spying for the Russians? The charge involves our national security, but she treated it as if it was something to joke about. Richard T. Seymour

I was born a Democrat but I am a card carrying Republican by choice. I was born Jewish, but am a Jew by choice. And I cannot support our president, not because he is a Democrat but because of what he is doing to our country. But neither can I support the majority of Republican candidates because they are saying nothing about what they would do for our country. They have, especially Mr. Santorum, brought religion into a place it does not belong. I do not care if Mr. Santorum feels he is a better Christian than the president; the question is whether he is a better man and would he make a better president.

Johns Hopkins' 11-10 overtime win against Virginia vaulted the Blue Jays to the top of many polls and rankings. But being No. 1 is not something that is weighs on the players or coaches, according to coach Dave Pietramala. “It doesn't matter,” he said Wednesday. “You could pick a lot of teams for No. 1. UMass is 8-0, Loyola is 8-0. Part of that is just where you were ranked originally. I would tell you that being No. 1 doesn't mean anything right now.” Johns Hopkins (8-0)

You think he's on the cusp of greatness or you think he stinks. You point out that he has led the Ravens to the playoffs for three straight years. Or you point out that he keeps coming up small against the hated Pittsburgh Steelers. You love how he keeps his emotions in check, stays in that whole sleepy-eyed, Joe Cool persona no matter how tense the situation. Or you want to see more fire in his belly, more yelling and fist-pumping and getting in teammates' faces. This is what it's like for Joe Flacco these days.

The letter from Maryland Budget Secretary T. Eloise Foster regarding the column by Marta Mossburg about Maryland's pension liabilities reminds me of the argument about rearranging the chairs on the Titanic. No matter whose numbers are closest to the facts, the extent of the pension problem is huge, no doubt about it. It would be refreshing if we could get an unbiased view of the extent of the problem, though I thought that was what we got from Ms. Mossburg. Is Ms. Foster still using 7.75 percent rates of return in her valuations of current and future liabilities?

CLEVELAND -- The best baseball moment of 1995 came late in Game 5 of the divisional playoff series between the Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees, when Randy Johnson and Jack McDowell pitched in desperate relief despite having thrown thousands of pitches since May."Those were two warriors out there," Yankees manager Buck Showalter said after the Mariners had won. "One with the best stuff in the league and one with a big heart."Johnson was the one with the best stuff in the league, of course, and he appreciated the compliment.

On Thursday afternoon, Ravens safety Ed Reed told Sirius/XM NFL Radio that he wasn't 100 percent committed to the 2012 season and that he has considered retirement this offseason and the two previous. He quickly backtracked, releasing a statement later in the day that said he wasn't referring to retirement. Throughout this offseason, Reed has made conflicting statements about his playing status -- heck, he has made conflicting statements in some individual interviews -- but team officials expect him to play in 2012.

They did what they had to do, and they went home. That's the best that can be said of the special session of the Maryland General Assembly that concluded today. The tax increases, spending cuts, fund transfers and other measures lawmakers approved in 21/2 days this week protect public education, health and public safety and put the state on a path to fiscal sustainability, all while requiring a relatively minimal additional contribution from taxpayers. After a chaotic end to the regular General Assembly session, order has been restored.

I say the following as someone who supports the pro-life position. Harassing individuals who are pro-choice and particularly their children is outrageous. It is unequivocally wrong to target Todd Stave through fliers comparing him to Nazis; advertising his private phone number; and doing so where he lives and where his daughter goes to school. Pro-life organizations who are unwilling to vociferously denounce these tactics are an embarrassment to the pro-life cause. On the other hand, The Sun didn't report how Mr. Stave is fighting back.

Teens learn on YouTube to make the "bombs" with a few cheap, household items, then travel in groups late at night — eager to hear the boom, laugh with friends and gauge whatever damage they've wrought. According to Lt. Carlton Saunders of Howard County's office of the fire marshal, teenagers consider it a prank when they experiment with "bottle bombs," which have been found over the years in counties all across the Baltimore region. The explosions are rarely associated with damage greater than a busted mailbox, and are even more rarely associated with injuries, Saunders said.

If you're aiming to be upwardly mobile, living in Maryland might help. The state is one of the best in the country for moving on up, what the study calls positive economic mobility, a new study by the Pew Charitable Trusts concludes. States doing better than average are largely in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, while those doing worse are in the South, according to the report, released Wednesday. Researchers at Pew's ongoing Economic Mobility Project say they're trying to answer a big question: Is the American dream alive and well?

A group of animal activists is asking Gov. Martin O'Malley to quickly introduce legislation that would override a Maryland Court of Appeals decision deeming all pit bulls dangerous. Maryland Votes for Animals and similar organizations are urging residents to call the governor's office Tuesday to lobby him to act during the special General Assembly session scheduled to begin Monday. "We feel this is terribly important," said Carolyn Kilborn, chair and founder of Maryland Votes for Animals.

In a lab in Colorado, inside a jar cooled to the lowest temperature ever reached on Earth or anywhere else, scientists have created a form of matter that has never existed before anywhere in the universe -- something they have dubbed a "superatom."In their creation, Carl Weiman and Eric Cornell of the University of Colorado at Boulder cooled a few thousand atoms of rubidium gas to a temperature so low that they lost their individual identities and acted as if they were a single atom."It's a spectacular discovery," said Daniel Kleppner, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who had been trying for years to create this new form of matter, technically called a Bose-Einstein condensate.

I wish we would stop acting as if these Tampa Bay Rays-Boston Red Sox games are all-important. Both teams are going to make the playoffs, and that's what matters. I don't want to hear any of this nonsense about symbolism. I'm sure the New York Yankees enjoyed caressing their American League East flags for comfort after the wild-card Red Sox eliminated them in 2004. Those division titles probably soothed the Bronx Bombers even more as they were knocked out of the playoffs in the first round each of the next two years.

There has been a lot of speculation that Ravens Pro Bowl outside linebacker Terrell Suggs injured his Achilles tendon while playing basketball. Suggs has denied that it happened that way, but who cares? If that tendon was tight and going to tear, it made no difference if he was playing basketball, wrestling, practicing karate or running sprints. I've known a lot of men who have ruptured their Achilles tendon, and some were just walking and it popped. I've been covering pro sports since 1987 and don't know of many 29-year-olds like Suggs who suffered the injury at such an early age. Former Ravens center-guard Wally Williams suffered the same injury, and he was simply stretching and doing some light jogging over at the training complex during an offseason.

Dave DuGoff gives reasoned plea for dollar coins ("Sensible change: Switch to $1 coins," April 26). I am all for it, but for some reason, the U.S. has made dollar coins almost like quarters, and as a result, no one will use them. Has anyone ever thought of looking at how other countries do this? For example, a similar coin in the United Kingdom is much smaller and thicker than other coins and can easily be differentiated by feel or vision. What's the matter with us? Judy Rhoades, Catonsville