Young People

It would be tempting to call the 2012 election the year of the woman - if only for the record number headed for the U.S. Senate and their instrumental role in re-electing President Barack Obama - but it was also the year of the Latino, the African-American and the young. That's the coalition that helped Mr. Obama, and that's the election result that ought to worry Republicans most. Once the GOP gets past some respectable period of mourning that comes from losing a national election to an incumbent president at a time of persistently high unemployment, they are going to have to do some serious soul-searching.

I agree with Betsy Schindler's contention that we need more open dialogue about child sexual abuse and the need to advocate for help and support for the victims ("Put the victims first," Oct. 19). We all have to be more vigilant of this societal evil and the need to keep pedophiles out of situations where they can do harm to children. Penn State was a good example of how these people can create havoc in the lives of children that can last a lifetime. Evil in any form tends to infect everything around it. Even an outstanding organization like the Boy Scouts of America, which for years has been making a positive contribution in the lives of millions of young people, has had to face the consequences of this same evil surfacing in its midst and is currently dealing with it in a constructive way. There is no doubt in my mind that by facing up to the situation and by taking positive steps to deal with it, the Boy Scouts will continue to attract outstanding leaders who will continue to contribute positively in their communities.

However you read the polls, the 2012 presidential election is turning into a nail-biter. Former Gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama are just about tied among likely voters. The bump Mr. Romney got from the first debate seems to have been matched by the bump the president got from the good jobs report for September. (We won't know the real results of Tuesday night's matchup for another week.) But beware. Polls of "likely voters" are notoriously imprecise because they reflect everyone who says they're likely to vote -- including those who hope to but won't, as well as those who won't but don't want to admit it. The biggest party in America is neither Democrats nor Republicans.

I just wanted to take the time to thank Baltimore City Council President Bernard "Jack" Young for his commitment to Baltimore City youth. It is truly inspiring. His commentary in The Sun ("Programs, not jail cells, for teenagers," Oct. 7) was an important step toward preventing the building of the juvenile jail, and his ongoing support in opposing that project is needed now, more than ever. I look forward to working with him to advocate for Baltimore's young people and create better opportunities for them to thrive.

As a mother of four, I agree with City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young and others that young people today are under tremendous stress in dealing with criticism, peer pressure, physical and emotional abuse and other forces of negativity ("Programs, not jail cells, for teenagers," Oct. 7). Instead of building more jails to put troubled youngsters into, someone should find a way to reach out and allow them to talk through their problems. I once thought like many people that these youth were up to no good.

As is the case in the rest of our great nation, the people of Harford County are getting greater, on average, with each passing day. Unfortunately, greater in this sense of the word isn't a good thing. We're not getting taller on average, but we are getting heavier, which, as the Harford County government has come to realize, means a disturbing percentage of our folks are classified as overweight or outright obese. Nearly two-thirds of us fall into the category of being overweight or obese, and, according to a health department study cited in a story published Friday in The Aegis , the problem starts when we're young and gets worse as we get older.

Had you been sitting near me at the paragraph factory yesterday evening, you might have noticed a clenching of the jaw, a narrowing of the eyes, and a pursing of the lips as I came across the construction "7,000 youth. " A quick look this morning at the Corpus of Contemporary American English confirms my suspicion that I have identified another instance of bureaucratic language bleeding into general usage.* The CCAE shows multiple examples of youth in the sense of youths , individual young people, in professional medical and educational publications, fewer frequencies in general publications.

Last week the Associated Press ran a story about New York City officials dispensing morning after pills to girls at 50 local high schools. In the article, Dr. Cora Breuner, an advocate for teen use of birth control, was quoted as saying that "if you use it in a timely fashion, It provides relief or solace to a young woman or man who has made a mistake but doesn't want to have to live with that mistake for the rest of their lives. " The callous and selfish nature of this statement is unbelievable.

I should have been surprised to read Del. Pat McDonough's letter to the editor in the Sunday, September 30 edition, but sadly, I was not. ("Towson melee not the same as Inner Harbor crime. ") He, like many conservatives, failed to see the hypocrisy in his beliefs. Young people join gangs when they see few other options available to them. They cannot easily find another pathway that will lead them out and beyond this culture. Yet in the same letter in which he blames a single mayor for this worldwide problem (and blames an "event promotion" for the same type of behavior in the county!

Letter writer Thomas F. McDonough recently called for the firing of someone at The Sun for failing to report that the melee among young people in Towson Circle last week was caused by "marauding bands of black youth" ("Why no mention of race in Towson disturbance?" Sept. 27). On the same day, columnist Dan Rodricks took Del. Patrick L. McDonough to task for referring to the young people involved in a similar disturbance at the Inner Harbor on St. Patrick's Day weekend as "roving mobs of black youths.