Perspective

I read with interest Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin's recent commentary on our appetite for more ("The problem of desire," Dec. 12). She rightly describes desire as "that shape-shifting seducer" which can never be satisfied. She also points out the positive aspects of desire as driving our ambition and our curiosity. Her essay showed the dilemma of desire: It can have a good form and a bad form. As a Christian Scientist, I have grappled with a proper view of desire, but have found answers in the words of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science.

ESPN analyst Mark Dixon was in the network's studio in Charlotte providing his perspective on each of the four games in the NCAA tournament quarterfinals this past weekend, and he will do the same this Saturday before appearing in person at Monday's title game at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. The former Blue Jays midfielder, who can be followed on Twitter @Dixonlacrosse, discussed the most intriguing game of the quarterfinal round, top-seeded Syracuse's 7-6 decision against Yale, and his thoughts on the Final Four.

Nobody wants to hear about perspective at a time like this. It's just too soon. The disappointment is too raw. The Ravens will be watching the New England Patriots represent the AFC in the Super Bowl even though Joe Flacco outplayed Tom Brady and – for a split second – Lee Evans had his arms around the game-winning touchdown. This one's going to hurt for awhile. Just ask Billy Cundiff, who missed a short field goal in the final seconds that would have kept hope alive. There isn't going to be a Super Harbaugh Bowl in the backyard of the evil Indianapolis Colts or a rematch of the 2001 Super Bowl that has been the Ravens' calling card for too many years now. Owner Steve Bisciotti will to have to wait at least another 12 months to light up a big fat cigar and hoist his very own Lombardi Trophy.

The good news is that, in seven years of umpiring amateur baseball games in the Baltimore area, Frank Handley has had to give the thumb to only five adults. The bad news is he had to do it again a couple of weeks ago. But we're going to turn a negative into a positive today. We're going to get the message out - a reminder, really - that parents need to keep the ugly under control and set a good example for children. And parents who see and hear another behaving badly need to speak up. The story comes to us from Nancy Turner, who was so upset at what she saw during a Baltimore County recreational baseball tournament that she wrote me a detailed email about it. The game, on a Sunday morning in May, was for 11- and 12-year-olds.

The Perspective section will not be published in Sunday's editions but will return next week. The Public Editor column will not appear; however, the Sunday crossword puzzles and games will be found in Arts & Society. The Editorial page and Opinion/Commentary page, which will include reader responses to KAL's "What's My Line contest," will be in the A section of the Sunday editions.

As one who came to America from a socialist country at the age of 18, I find it terrifying that elected officials would challenge the legitimacy of rights granted by our Constitution. When I moved here those many years ago, I was promised my freedom by a Bill of Rights unlike any document ever written previously. It was a liberating experience. Yet today, I once again feel threatened and intimidated by my government. I implore our elected officials to put emotion aside and ponder the consequences of restricting people's right to own guns.

The presidential candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama has already inspired several in-depth explorations of race, ranging from CNN's Black in America documentary in July to Ted Koppel's report The Last Lynching, which aired on Discovery Monday. Tonight on Comedy Central comes a new sketch magazine comedy series, Chocolate News. Created by and starring David Alan Grier, it's a no-holds-barred exploration of contemporary life from a distinctly African-American perspective. As Grier himself describes it at the start of the pilot, "Welcome to the Chocolate News, the only source of pure, uncircumcised realness from an Afro-centric perspective."

BEING the editor of the Perspective section of The Sun was the best job I ever had on the paper. Why? Maybe because during the three years I put out the section, I learned something about the truly venerable newspaper I devoted 32 years of my life to, and something about myself. When I returned in 1975 after three years as The Sun's correspondent in Brazil, I wanted to go back to my job on The Evening Sun's editorial page. The managing editor of The Sun, Paul Banker, wanted me in the Washington bureau.

LAST SUNDAY in this section, the page opposite the editorial page was devoted to biographies of the editors and writers and support staff who produce the editorial and op-ed pages. Inasmuch as those two pages appear each Sunday in Perspective, some have wondered why nothing was said about the Perspective staff. Are we hiding? No. This offered an opportunity to explain the difference between the two - why some Sundays the editorial page may praise the governor as a genius while a Perspective piece argues he is an imbecile.

ROSEMONT, Ill. -- Whatever Gary Trost does today at the Rosemont Horizon against Kansas in the second round of the NCAA tournament, whatever the Brigham Young center does for the rest of his basketball career, pales in comparison to what he did on a mountain highway in Idaho last summer.Trost, his wife, Sheri, and her brother were on their way to her family's home near Yellowstone National Park when they came upon a van that had run into a three-ton truck, went off the road and caught fire.

The federal government has an innovation problem — or does it? The answer depends on whom you ask. Federal employees surveyed over the past three years have had a declining view of government innovation. But that doesn't mean Uncle Sam doesn't have pockets of creativity, as highlighted by Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. The bad news first: Less than 40 percent of federal employees felt that creativity and innovation were rewarded in their agency — a 2.5 percentage point drop from 2011.

For full disclosure's sake, I am a 1968 graduate of what is now Towson University (and a 1974 graduate of Morgan State University). I taught high school for 14 years and founded an advertising agency that has a sports specialty. Our company has done sports ticket sales campaigns for 43 university programs in 24 states over a 30 year period - including Towson - as well as several pro teams, including all of the local franchises. To say that specializing in college athletics is not a way to build a big media billing agency is an understatement.

As one who came to America from a socialist country at the age of 18, I find it terrifying that elected officials would challenge the legitimacy of rights granted by our Constitution. When I moved here those many years ago, I was promised my freedom by a Bill of Rights unlike any document ever written previously. It was a liberating experience. Yet today, I once again feel threatened and intimidated by my government. I implore our elected officials to put emotion aside and ponder the consequences of restricting people's right to own guns.

At the time of her brother's arrest and trial, Patricia Booth-Townes supported the death penalty — "an eye for an eye," as she put it. Even after her brother was sentenced to die, she says, she didn't waver. She just didn't believe he'd committed that heinous crime, despite the evidence presented in court. But years later, while studying criminal justice at Coppin State University, she found herself researching capital punishment. She almost couldn't avoid it, she said, because her textbook mentioned her brother's case, which set a constitutional precedent for the use of "victim impact statements" in sentencing.

Unless you suffer from triskaidekaphobia - the irrational fear of the No. 13 - you're probably looking forward to the new year. Most people do, as evidenced by the giant crowds that gather all over the world on New Year's Eve to celebrate its arrival. That's all well and good, but if you're a sports fan in this particular area, it's not quite that simple. There is a lot to look forward to, especially with the NFL playoffs set to feature both the Ravens and Redskins this weekend, but 2012 is going to be a pretty tough act to follow.

Nelson Mandela has endorsed it. The film academy saluted it with an Oscar nomination this year for best foreign film. HBO describes it as the first major international release made in the Zulu language. Yet the movie Yesterday will premiere tonight not in U.S. movie theaters, but on HBO. The premium cable channel bypassed the big screen to reach a wider audience via the small screen. HBO's timing is excellent. This tender drama about a rural South African family will debut just before World AIDS Day on Thursday.