Protest

Your article states that Social Security worker Celisa Ford is "losing sleep and is stressed," fearful that she will have to pull her daughter out of college, because she has had a two-year pay freeze ("On the brink of the fiscal cliff," Dec. 6). I work in the private sector and have not had a pay raise in five years. I have a daughter who just left college and got married, a second in college, and one about to go next year. I am stressed too. Unlike Ms. Ford, I don't have time to take off work and whine in a picket line on North Greene Street.

The images shown on the news media are startling: violence rages on the streets of Cairo while a divided government continues to sow seeds of discord. I have spent some time in Tahrir Square this past week and have seen a very different perspective. I saw no violence, I saw no despair. Instead, I saw a people reclaiming their unique voice for democracy. The situation in Egypt is tense, but the future is bright. What started as a political power grab by President Mohamed Morsi in the shadow of his success ending the Gaza conflict turned into chaos on the streets as rival protesters from opposition groups and government supporters voiced their differing visions for the future of Egypt.

I couldn't agree more with Dan Rodricks ' recent column on marijuana policy ("The nonsense of marijuana busts shown," Nov. 11). It should be apparent to all except those with a vested interest in keeping marijuana banned that our entire "war on drugs," and especially the nation's marijuana policy, has utterly failed. It has failed for the same reason the ban on alcohol failed during Prohibition - there simply is so much demand for marijuana that no amount of tax dollars can stop the supply.

The owner of a Baltimore substance abuse center led a protest of more than 120 people Thursday morning at the doors of Johns Hopkins Hospital, saying the medical giant owes his organization more than $100,000 in Medicaid payments. The Rev. Milton E. Williams, who operates the Turning Point Substance Abuse Clinic in East Baltimore, said his organization had provided hundreds of patients with free care because a Hopkins affiliate has not reimbursed it for treating Medicaid patients.

Dozens of Baltimore teens and young adults packed a state Senate hearing Wednesday, urging lawmakers not to build a new Baltimore jail for juvenile offenders charged as adults and instead shift efforts to keeping youths from being locked up in the first place. The comments came as the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee met to take testimony on the $70 million, 120-bed proposal being pushed by the state as a way to improve conditions for youthful prisoners in the city. Opponents, such as 21-year-old activist Nicole Cheatom, told senators that the state should repurpose a women's prerelease unit closed three years ago instead of building a new facility.

A week after Malala Yousafzai was shot and gravely wounded by Taliban militants for insisting on the right of girls to get an education, the 14-year-old blogger and Internet activist has become a worldwide symbol of resistance to the extremist views of her attackers. Over the weekend, mass demonstrations in Karachi and elsewhere in Pakistan were called to demand the government crack down on Taliban operating in the Swat Valley near the border with Afghanistan, where Ms. Yousafzai lived.

Following the Sept. 11 assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, Obama administration officials repeatedly denied that the deaths of four American diplomats there were the result of a planned terrorist attack ("Investigation of Libya attack challenged by circumstances," Oct. 6). For more than a week, UN Ambassador Susan Rice, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and President Obama himself repeatedly claimed that a "spontaneous protest" sparked by an anti-Islamic movie trailer had led to the attack.

Maryland's Public Service Commission objected Wednesday to "clandestine" negotiations over a possible change in electricity bidding rules in the region, saying states and consumer advocates had been left out of discussions on a proposal that could drive up prices and hurt reliability. Commission Chairman Douglas R.M. Nazarian sent a letter of complaint to PJM Interconnection - which runs the regional grid - and the grid's independent market monitor. He said PJM facilitated, and both parties participated in, "a secret and exclusionary negotiation" over electricity auctions.

A day after hundreds of Baltimore residents voiced strong opposition to a preliminary plan to add more parking spaces and an access road to Patterson Park, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Tuesday that she was creating a “working group” to study the park's future. “Today, I've ordered the Department of Recreation and Parks and the Health Department to work with Councilman [James] Kraft and community stakeholders to create a Patterson Park Master Plan Working Group,” Rawlings-Blake wrote in a letter sent to citizens.

One may wonder what role God plays in the eyes of those proportionally few extremists among the Christians as well as the Muslims if everyone considers himself both judge and executioner and feels impelled to predate the Day of Judgment. It is those very violent extremists, associating themselves with the religion of Islam, who through their actions insult their prophet most. Because the Quran does not imply any worldly punishment for blasphemy, let alone condone vigilantism. Quite the contrary, the Quran states repeatedly "Bear patiently what they say" and also "And when thou seest those who engage in vain discourse concerning Our Signs, then turn thou away from them until they engage in a discourse other than that.