Solutions

What, pray tell, is the definition of "affordable housing" for people who don't work ("The long journey home," March 11)? Many of our seemingly intractable social problems defy their ostensible solutions. Does anyone really think that homelessness has anything to do with houses; that poverty is simply a lack of money; that hunger in America has much to do with food; or that substandard education has anything to do with a lack of schools and qualified teachers? Indolence and irresponsibility quite often lie at the heart of all these problems, and while I don't know what the real solutions are, I know what they are not. Dave Reich, Perry Hall Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

Learn from past for answers to overcrowding We have all heard, "If you don't learn from history, you are destined to repeat it. " We must learn from events 18 years ago when citizens wanted the (County Executive Dutch) Ruppersberger Administration to commit to the voters' approval to reopen Bloomsbury as a middle school. Instead, the county executive transferred the approved monies to other school projects. Citizens of Catonsville united and appeared before the Baltimore County Board of Education, the County Council, county executive and even held hands around Bloomsbury to no avail.

It looks like this election will be close, but not because two centrist parties are both making persuasive arguments about how to best lead our nation toward peace and prosperity. Referring to the great recession and two unfunded wars, the pitch of the party out of the White House seems to be: "President Obama failed to clean up our mess fast enough, so put us back in. " The fact that the obstructionist party was more determined to defeat the incumbent president than to do what was best for the country is rarely mentioned.

In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings, we heard strong proclamations from the president that "justice will be served. " It should be. Our spirit of justice is based on the principle that punishment should outweigh any benefit derived from perpetrating crime - a premise that has guided our nation since its earliest days. However, we expect more. The punishment should be harsh enough to send a strong message to others that they, too, will suffer if they attempt to hurt the American people.

WASHINGTON -- Instead of airing a half-hour campaign commercial tonight that offers his austere solutions to the country's economic woes, independent presidential candidate Ross Perot is rebroadcasting an ad that aired earlier this week and merely outlines the nation's problems.The second ad, which has already been produced and is expected to showcase Mr. Perot's painful plan for steep tax hikes and deep spending cuts, will be aired some time next week, campaign officials said yesterday."Since the program aired on Tuesday night our offices around the country have been overwhelmed with calls from people who wanted to see it but were not able to do so," the Texas billionaire said in a statement yesterday.

In the wake of the recent spate of shootings at U.S. schools, a Wisconsin state legislator has proposed a novel solution: Let's arm the teachers. You can hardly be surprised at Republican Rep. Frank G. Lasee's interest in this issue: One of those shootings took place in his state. There, on Oct. 1, a 15-year-old boy shot and killed Weston High School Principal John Klang. Still, Mr. Lasee's proposed solution has raised eyebrows. As others debate solutions ranging from heightened security to increased vigilance against bullying, Mr. Lasee has cut through the namby and the pamby.

Expanding MARC train schedules is not as simple as it sounds. MTA Administrator Paul J. Wiedefeld can't just pick up the phone and tell officials at CSX Corp. and Amtrak how to run their railroads. The agency's growing MARC commuter rail service is a victim of its own success, and what's needed are short- and long-term solutions to overcrowding and delays. Long-term solutions the Maryland Transit Administration has (at least on the drawing board) - a proposal to invest several billions of dollars to add track and other infrastructure over the next two decades or more.

For most people, the sound of the furnace coming on is a comforting one. It means the furnace is working and warmth is on the way.However, for one reader in Maryland, the furnace is announcing it's on the job a little too noisily."

Awards *Manekin LLC received three awards of excellence from the Maryland Chapter of the National Association of Industrial and Office Properties. The awards were Best Office Build-to-Suit for its headquarters building in Columbia; Best New Retail for McGaw Plaza in Columbia, and Best Office, mid-rise/low rise for a five-story office building at the Water's Edge Corporate Campus in Belcamp. *Mullin/Ashley Associates Inc., a communications, public relations and marketing firm, won two Alfred Knight Awards from the Maryland Society for Healthcare Strategy & Market Development.

In the coming weeks, Maryland's Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services will seek the technology industry's solutions to the very real threat that illegal cell phones pose to the state's prison system. However, from my understanding, Secretary Gary D. Maynard will focus exclusively on a single technology solution — cell phone blocking — rather than leaving the door open to all the possible technologies. Inmates' cell phone access is not a new problem to Maryland, but in the past few years, the problem has exploded.

It's no mystery that the crossroads of Routes 1 and 24 in Bel Air is a traffic tangle, so it's perfectly reasonable that the Bel Air town government would want to spend at least a portion of an unexpected $200,000 highway windfall on a study of the intersection. When it comes down to doing the study, though, figuring out what's wrong isn't really the issue. Figuring out how to disperse traffic at busy times of day is going to be the part that, if someone can figure out, is worth spending a fair amount of money on. There's no reason, however, to expect a good resolution to the difficult problem at hand.

The Ravens still have holes. They need to find a starting left tackle, and they could use a No. 2 receiver and add depth at the linebacker and offensive line positions as well. But as the NFL draft ended Saturday night and the Ravens walked out of the auditorium at the team's training complex in Owings Mills, the defending Super Bowl champions appeared to be potentially as good as last year. Because of retirement and free agency, which led to the exodus of several important veterans, the Ravens are lighter on experience but bigger, stronger and faster than a year ago on defense.

One of the driving principles in the live and late-breaking world of TV news is to just keep moving on. Don't dwell too long on yesterday's mistakes, or you'll miss today's big story. But the mistakes made by social media and cable TV after the Boston Marathon bombings have continued reverberating - culminating, perhaps, in the discovery last week of the body of a young man falsely accused of being a suspect. We saw similar patterns after the Newtown shooting, and we need to look at this trend before the media get any further out of control.

Most weekday mornings, late spring through late summer, Terry Weller and George Foster climb into a bright yellow truck and fire up lasers, high-definition cameras and a bank of digital recorders before hitting the road. Weller and Foster are two of the state's pothole detectives. Their laboratory on wheels is a $1.3 million truthmobile from which asphalt cannot hide its faults. Cracks, bumps and ruts lose their anonymity to ARAN - the Automatic Road Analyzer - a tool that finds trouble before it finds motorists' front tires and suspensions.

Human nature frequently disproves theories. Conventional wisdom, for example, says that open office space plans with workers grouped like cattle encourage creativity and collaboration. But study after study shows that people are more inventive, productive and healthy with more privacy. Susan Cain writes about this eloquently in "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. " But examples are legion of experience trumping ideology. Would that legislators, like state Sen. Jamie Raskin, keep this in mind when trying to help people.

Robert Reich's op-ed ("Obama should not compromise on Social Security and Medicare" April 3) prompts me to write. Mr. Reich's prescription for these programs isn't completely off the mark. But there is a much more comprehensive solution to each. Social Security: eliminate the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes. Then lower the rate dramatically. There is no rationale for having any cap on earned income subject to taxes in the first place. This change would dramatically increase revenue into the system without changing benefit formulas.

Sun columnist Marta Mossburg, relatively new to Maryland, has a solution for all of our problems ("Baltimore: the view from 2021," March 16). Cut taxes and all will be well. Sure, the taxes in Baltimore are high. Baltimore is the home of many non-profits that don't pay property taxes. They are institutions that benefit the whole state. How do you solve that problem? Texas and Florida don't have income taxes and have far greater financial problems than Maryland. Maryland is number one in education while Florida and Texas are near the bottom.

Friends of Buddy Roogow may think he makes enemies in his work. But if he does, they're not talking.As Howard County administrator, as director of operations for then-Gov. William Donald Schaefer and now as a $92,912-a-year deputy chief of staff to Gov. Parris N. Glendening, the 45-year-old Ellicott City resident has doled out more than his share of pink slips.If his style were different, he would be called a "hatchet man" when dealing with staff reductions -- an important part of his job as a personnel specialist over the years.

Optimism might seem out of place after the Waterkeeper Alliance's bitter loss in a recent lawsuit to hold Perdue Farms and its grower Alan Hudson responsible for polluting waterways with poultry manure. But it's possible to at least be hopeful of solutions, perhaps within the current decade, to this widespread bay pollution. Reasons for hope were less likely when the lawsuit was filed three years ago. Witness a survey recently presented by University of Maryland ag scientist Kenneth Staver.