Reality

The most interesting aspect of Bristol Palin's new reality show on Lifetime is how much padding the producers had to do to fill the time between an hour's worth of commercials Tuesday night. The padding was so bad that they showed the one scene with any energy and conflict four times during the hour. And that's a scene that anyone who still has any interest in this sorry Alaskan clan has already seen for months on YouTube. You know, it's the one in which Bristol Palin and two of her friends (and a posse of reality TV producers and technicians)

Much of what has been written about President Barack Obama's announcement last week that the federal government will no longer deport illegal immigrants under the age of 30 who came to this country as youngsters concerns the politics of it. As one might expect, the decision helped the incumbent's standing with Latino voters and could prove a factor in certain swing states such as Florida and Colorado where minority voters may hold sway. But that shouldn't overshadow what remains at the heart of the decision - the fate of those young people who may have grown up in this country, attended school here and in every way (aside from legal presence)

Whether they live in Baltimore or its suburbs, whether they're here every day, once in a blue moon or never at all, everyone has an opinion, everyone has prejudices, everyone constructs their own reality about the city. For some, it's a dangerous urban "hell hole" with a deserving "Third World profile. " No talk-radio bigot used those cruel and racially charged terms. Two college professors, one from Johns Hopkins and one from Loyola, did - and in a 2008 essay that affirmed in a national publication what television viewers had seen for years in the prime-time entertainment that exploited Baltimore's complex human problems: poverty, ignorance, violent crime, drug addiction.

As I read the editorial, "Rejecting austerity" (May 9), I couldn't help but think of how well it echoes the left-wing agenda. I disagree with almost every point made, as it only showcases conservatives as the problem. It is all parties and the incessant games they play to keep all of us at each other's throats. There are no lessons to learn from France nor the European Union. They are free to choose their path. They want to be coddled by their government from cradle to grave, then so be it. The United States of America had always been a beacon of hope and prosperity to immigrants, legal ones, from all around the globe.

Your recent editorial ("Money that slipped away," May 1) is ridiculously naive in its conclusion that "someone in the state agency screwed up" and "that the owners of those two prestigious developments appear to bear little or no responsibility for this circumstance. " Please understand that this "circumstance" occurs on every condo project every day and has for recent decades. The city is well aware that certificates of occupancy have been issued on finished units. Experienced developers are well aware of the major cash cow of avoiding property taxes on unsold units.

There's been a lot of conversation about bullying lately and a big push to stop bullying of children in schools and on-line. I find all this outrage at bullying hypocritical on the part of the adults, school system, pundits, etc. Children learn by the examples set by the adults in their lives. If adults didn't reward bullying behavior, our children would not bully. You say you abhor bullies and would never reward them? How many reality TV shows do you watch where you root for the obnoxious person that insults, slaps, "takes down," or votes off a lesser, weaker individual?

The Maryland Stadium Authority has dumped a bucket of ice-cold water on the tennis enthusiasts who want to build a world-class tennis facility in Howard County, in the form of a rather sobering and discouraging analysis of the proposal. And while the prospect of such a facility is beguiling, the authority's analysis was a welcome dose of reality. The suggested facility, a nearly decade-old dream of tennis-lovers here, would be built at a county-owned site at the intersection of Route 100 and Interstate 95. The Troy Park Tennis Center, as originally envisioned, would include some 30 tennis courts, an 8,000-seat stadium (one of the largest tennis-specific venues in the country)

For the second straight year, Navy will meet Johns Hopkins with little to play for. That's because the Midshipmen have been eliminated from Patriot League tournament and therefore the NCAA tournament. So Saturday's noon contest against the No. 9 Blue Jays at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium will be Navy's last until 2013. The upcoming finality of the season was a sobering reality for coach Rick Sowell. “I wish we were playing another couple weeks,” he said Tuesday.

Ravens safety Ed Reed's comments last night about his future to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, one of The Sun's sister papers, reminded me of something team owner Steve Bisciotti said last month. Asked whether he had gotten a definitive indication from Reed that he planned to return for the 2012 season, Bisciotti said Feb. 1 at the State of the Ravens address: “Ed doesn't give definitive answers.” Bisciotti then chuckled, but the point remains. Trying to predict what the always-interesting safety is going to say or do next is an exercise in futility.

The new ABC reality TV series "Ball Boys" opens with the motto: "Every great moment in sports leaves something behind. " This network series set in a Baltimore sports memorabilia shop tells the stories of what happens to some of the stuff left behind. That's not a bad premise. Think of it as a jock lover's version of "History Detectives. " But that's not all that's happening in the series, which takes viewers inside Robbie's First Base in Lutherville, where they will meet owners Robbie Davis Sr. and Robbie Davis Jr., as well as workers Lou "Sweet Lou" Brown and Robbie "Shaggy" Reier.