Traditional Values

For Michael Medved, the film that broke the critic's back was "The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover," a Peter Greenaway movie he screened in the spring of 1990.It wasn't just the variety of disgusting actions that appear in the film -- all cataloged in Mr. Medved's book "Hollywood vs. America: Popular Culture and the War on Traditional Values" (HarperCollins, 1992) -- it was that his fellow critics lauded it with words like "splendid" and "profound."Mr. Medved, who gives his critiques on PBS' "Sneak Previews," thought it was time to say that the emperor had no clothes.

I was disheartened to hear that this very controversial issue (legalizing gay marriage) has passed the House of Delegates. An issue like this that is to the core of many people's values and beliefs should be left up to the people to decide, as was the case with gambling in our state. I was opposed to gambling but the people voted. I believe in the sanctity of marriage and the traditional values we have stood by for centuries that marriage is between a man and a woman. I understand that everyone has a right to live the way they want but a marriage union goes much further beyond just what is someone's :right.

Washington.-- What Vice President Quayle complacently mocks as ''indulgence and self-gratification,'' the founders of this nation referred to as ''the pursuit of happiness.'' They were for it. And they believed the government's job was to provide the conditions for that pursuit, not to dictate its terms.Mr. Quayle's own pursuit of happiness has been conventional and easy; for most others, the pursuit is a struggle. That sound you hear across the land is millions of hands slapping on foreheads as deserted wives, gays and lesbians, men and women (and children)

I just finished reading an article in a local publication that went as far to name various fishing communities such as "Tangier Island, Smith Island, Crisfield, Cambridge, St. Michaels, Oxford, Kent Island, Rock Hall and others in Bay Country" as being in " the middle of a poaching epidemic of unreal proportions. " The article goes on to describe this problem as being linked to illegal drug use. While some of what the author describes may be true to a much lesser extent, I have grown angered and frustrated by some, but not all, of these so-called journalists leaving the general public with such a negative impression of the watermen community.

OF THE MANY reasons to admire Peter Agre of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, let's begin with this one: Dr. Agre has long been a proponent of the idea that you can be a successful scientist and have a fulfilling family life at the same time. He's an active father of four who lives in Stoneleigh, with a day job in East Baltimore. He's self-effacing, popular among his colleagues, and, oh yes, he's one of two winners of the 2003 Nobel Prize for chemistry. Dr. Agre first appeared in The Sun in 1995 with a letter to the editor praising the performance of Mandy Patinkin in Evita, and going on to commend the actor for his decision to take a break from a television series in which he was appearing to spend more time with his family.

Parents: Think twice if your child wants to watch "M.A.N.T.I.S.," "Melrose Place" or "The Simpsons."At least that's the advice from the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group, which unveiled a guide yesterday Washington to prime-time television shows based on how the programs portray "traditional values."Shows were faulted if they appeared to condone premarital sex, parental disrespect and gun control.The group watched more than 8,500 hours of prime-time TV, more than 70 shows, and rated each.

I was disheartened to hear that this very controversial issue (legalizing gay marriage) has passed the House of Delegates. An issue like this that is to the core of many people's values and beliefs should be left up to the people to decide, as was the case with gambling in our state. I was opposed to gambling but the people voted. I believe in the sanctity of marriage and the traditional values we have stood by for centuries that marriage is between a man and a woman. I understand that everyone has a right to live the way they want but a marriage union goes much further beyond just what is someone's :right.

THE WORLD Summit for Children ended last week with a whimper. Limos lined up outside the United Nations to take home kings and presidents who left armed with little more than platitudes and cheap sentiment. For a moment, though, the attention of the American public was diverted from the gulf, the gas pump and the rising price of beer to the plight of 40,000 children under 5 who are dying every day from diarrhea, measles and malnutrition. For a moment we shook our heads and collectively sighed about what a pity it was that so many kids have to suffer this way.But the real pity is that it is not just Third World children who are abused, denied medical care, going hungry or living in squalid conditions.

Palo Alto, Calif. -President Barack Obama has encouraged Americans to start laying a new foundation for the country - on a number of fronts. He has stressed that we'll need to have the courage to make some hard choices. One of those hard choices is how to handle immigration. The U.S. must get serious about the tide of legal and illegal immigrants, above all from Latin America. It's not just a short-run issue of immigrants competing with citizens for jobs as unemployment approaches 10 percent, or the number of uninsured straining the quality of healthcare.

ON THURSDAY a score of leaders from evangelical and family values groups are scheduled to gather in Dallas for a day of intense talks and planning for this year's elections. The expected guests include such prominent veterans of the evangelical movement -- the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who has just started a campaign called People of Faith 2000; Mike Farris, who runs the Madison Project; Donald Hodel, a former top official of the Christian Coalition; James Kennedy, a prominent Florida evangelical; Tim LaHaye, who heads Family Life Seminars; and the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, the leader of the Traditional Values Coalition.

Palo Alto, Calif. -President Barack Obama has encouraged Americans to start laying a new foundation for the country - on a number of fronts. He has stressed that we'll need to have the courage to make some hard choices. One of those hard choices is how to handle immigration. The U.S. must get serious about the tide of legal and illegal immigrants, above all from Latin America. It's not just a short-run issue of immigrants competing with citizens for jobs as unemployment approaches 10 percent, or the number of uninsured straining the quality of healthcare.

VALENCIA, Spain -- Maria Pilar Hervas, a teacher, remembers the insults hurled her way when she walked through the streets with her five children. Large families were out of fashion in fast-modernizing Spain. "People treated me as though I had committed a crime" by producing such a large brood, Hervas said yesterday as she listened to Pope Benedict XVI extol the virtues of the traditional family, and of marriage between man and woman, to a gigantic gathering of faithful. The pope was concluding a visit of scarcely more than 24 hours to lend his support to an international meeting of families, and to drive home what he considers to be a central tenet of his papacy: There are basic truths that must not be marred by fads and the "dictatorship of relativism."

FOR MUCH of the 20th century, African-Americans left the South in huge numbers. Millions migrated to cities in the North in search of better economic opportunities and social acceptance. But, in the past 30 years, there has been a radical turn in black migration back to the rural South. Maryland has played roles in all of this. It has been a place to which blacks migrated - primarily Baltimore but also some of Maryland's suburban counties, particularly Prince George's, the first majority-black suburban county in the United States.

VALENTINE'S DAY will undoubtedly bring the usual paeans to love and marriage that warm commentators' hearts. But although Americans are into love, they are surprisingly ambivalent about marriage. And that ambivalence is on display in, of all places, Arkansas. Tonight, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and his wife will convert their marriage to a "covenant marriage" in front of an arena full of couples in North Little Rock. Spouses who choose Arkansas's covenant marriage option must agree to limit the grounds for a quick divorce to transgressions such as infidelity or abuse and to seek counseling before the divorce is granted.

I RECENTLY PICKED up a copy of Boston Magazine while sitting in the green room at the Fox News studios in Watertown, Mass. Leafing through the publication, I came across an article titled "Confessions of an Ivy League Callgirl," written by Jeannette Angell, a university lecturer with a master's degree from Yale. The fact that she was a Yalie caught my eye - as a Harvard Law student, I've already adopted our communal animosities - and so I read the piece. Apparently, Ms. Angell began trading sex for cash after receiving her doctorate in social anthropology.

OF THE MANY reasons to admire Peter Agre of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, let's begin with this one: Dr. Agre has long been a proponent of the idea that you can be a successful scientist and have a fulfilling family life at the same time. He's an active father of four who lives in Stoneleigh, with a day job in East Baltimore. He's self-effacing, popular among his colleagues, and, oh yes, he's one of two winners of the 2003 Nobel Prize for chemistry. Dr. Agre first appeared in The Sun in 1995 with a letter to the editor praising the performance of Mandy Patinkin in Evita, and going on to commend the actor for his decision to take a break from a television series in which he was appearing to spend more time with his family.

I just finished reading an article in a local publication that went as far to name various fishing communities such as "Tangier Island, Smith Island, Crisfield, Cambridge, St. Michaels, Oxford, Kent Island, Rock Hall and others in Bay Country" as being in " the middle of a poaching epidemic of unreal proportions. " The article goes on to describe this problem as being linked to illegal drug use. While some of what the author describes may be true to a much lesser extent, I have grown angered and frustrated by some, but not all, of these so-called journalists leaving the general public with such a negative impression of the watermen community.

VALENTINE'S DAY will undoubtedly bring the usual paeans to love and marriage that warm commentators' hearts. But although Americans are into love, they are surprisingly ambivalent about marriage. And that ambivalence is on display in, of all places, Arkansas. Tonight, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and his wife will convert their marriage to a "covenant marriage" in front of an arena full of couples in North Little Rock. Spouses who choose Arkansas's covenant marriage option must agree to limit the grounds for a quick divorce to transgressions such as infidelity or abuse and to seek counseling before the divorce is granted.

On the year's hottest day so far, boys with rolled-up sleeves and girls with rolled-down knee socks trekked across the campus of Trinity School, taking in during one walking tour -- simultaneously -- the past, present and future of Howard County's oldest private school. Trinity, in Ellicott City, celebrated its 60th anniversary yesterday, but there has been a school on the property since 1912. And if those who love it have anything to say about it, the school will have an even longer future.

HAVANA-Cuba's first Jew, Luis de Torres, arrived on the island in 1492, as Christopher Columbus' translator. Centuries later, Jewish pirates prowled the blue Caribbean waters off Cuba. In 1898, thousands of U.S. Jews volunteered for the Spanish-American War effort, many opting to stay in Havana afterward. Several of the founders of Cuba's Communist Party were Jewish. "We've had Jews in Cuba since the beginning," says Maritza Corrales, a historian in Cuba's Ministry of Culture. For all their long history, though, Cuba's Jews are struggling today to keep their once-flourishing community alive.