Sabotage

Even before Sunday's fatal accident in which two teenage boys were hit by a Maryland Transit Administration light rail train in Lutherville, a serious crime apparently took place a short distance away. According to the MTA, someone - whose identity is not yet known to the public - placed a large section of highway guardrail across the northbound tracks just south of the station. That act of vandalism - if not outright sabotage - has been overshadowed by the tragedy that occurred about an hour later, but it set in motion the chain of events that led to the deaths of Kyle Patrick Wankmiller and Connor Peterson, both 17. According to MTA spokeswoman Jawauna Greene, the boys were struck by a northbound train as they walked on southbound tracks that had been put into two-way operation because the roughly 10-foot-long guardrail had damaged an earlier train.

TO THINK the threat of women baring their breasts would shame an oil conglomerate into behaving like a good corporate citizen. The mothers, wives, grandmothers and granddaughters who stormed a ChevronTexaco oil terminal in southeast Nigeria recently evoked the traditional tribal gesture in their protest to win jobs for their husbands and sons and services for their impoverished villages. After commandeering a ferry, they arrived at the island export facility, babies strapped to their backs, and blockaded the area, leaving several hundred oil company workers (mostly males)

Scapegoats are important. You cannot have a disaster without one. Sometimes that helps, and sometimes hinders, the search for the root causes, the effort to prevent recurrence.Chicago's Mayor Richard M. Daley fired three officials for the April 13 pouring of the Chicago River through a 50-mile tunnel system into downtown basements, knocking Chicago for a loop. He has had the heads of the acting transportation chief, the chief bridge engineer and a project engineer and is seeking removal of two others.

AS THE president of a liberal arts institution, I believe the robust discussion of ideas is essential to the pursuit of truth and the intellectual and moral growth of America's future leaders.There is a time in such debates when one is compelled to say, with word and deed, "This is who I am, this is what I stand for." Recent events at Dartmouth College and the ensuing uproar make this one of those times for me.For the past 10 years the Dartmouth Review -- an off-campus newspaper unassociated with Dartmouth College -- has attracted national attention by its brazen attacks on blacks, women, homosexuals, Native Americans and Jews.

THE LEADERS of our colleges and universities, including Dartmouth, bear a high responsibility to their students and to society. By precept and example, they must inculcate in a future generation an understanding of the principles of truth and justice, which are the essential basis of the liberal community.An explosive controversy at Dartmouth raises troubling questions about how its academic leadership is discharging its moral commitments and obliWilliam E.Simongations to the college's students and to society.

WASHINGTON -- Despite the possibility of a protracted Persian Gulf war with extensive ground action, the Bush administration is ruling out the revival of compulsory military service.However, calls have been flooding Selective Service offices with questions about the prospects for a draft, and anti-war activists and draft resisters are planning an early February session here to review the outlook for a draft."We are getting thousands of calls a week from young men, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers asking whether there is going to be a draft and how it will work," said Barbi Richardson, a spokeswoman for Selective Service.

WASHINGTON -- NATO's provisional approval of an allied evacuation plan for Bosnia puts 25,000 U.S. troops on notice that they could be headed for one of the bloodiest trouble spots on earth.U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization commanders are anxious to avoid the sort of ignominious departure that characterized the final withdrawal from Vietnam and are planning a highly organized, carefully coordinated five-stage evacuation.But they also have plans for an emergency extraction, should one become necessary.

With America now on alert for imminent terrorist attacks, former federal agents acting as consultants to private industry say widespread security lapses have left no shortage of targets. While the Bush administration has sharply focused public attention in recent weeks on airline safety and biological weapons, security specialists say other major hazards have been imperiling U.S. population centers for years. Nationwide, they say, tons of jet fuel, gasoline, liquefied natural gas, munitions and caustic chemicals in tank farms and seaport facilities lie virtually unprotected - accessible to petty thieves, organized criminals and terrorists alike.

A living tribute to area seniors In the past several months, Baltimore has witnessed an almost endless barrage of negative articles and comments against "Stadium Place," the affordable retirement community proposed for the Memorial Stadium site. The community has been told this is no place for subsidized housing. To call Stadium Place just "subsidized housing" is like calling Camden Yards just another grassy field. Stadium Place is not just housing and the housing won't all be subsidized.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller should promptly step down following his outrageous, irresponsible, unprofessional, petulant, self-centered performance during the final days and hours of the just-completed 90-day session of the General Assembly ("Debacle in Annapolis," April 11). He purposely sabotaged the budget compromise for his personal campaign to expand gambling to a sixth site in Maryland. Senator Miller's arrogance and egotism are breathtaking. Mr. Miller then has the audacity to suggest yet another, special session of the General Assembly at an additional cost of $21,000 to $100,000 per day to the already-overburdened Maryland taxpayers.