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The Baltimore Examiner Newspaper
Leave a few behind to save our schools
- One more time: Leave some behind. It is triage time in our public schools.
Tight belt leadership
- Cuts should be the rule, not the exception in these budget times for county governments throughout the state. That’s why Baltimore County Police Chief James Johnson owes county taxpayers a detailed list of areas in his budget ripe for trimming.
Welcome tourists — for their sake and ours
- As we enter the busiest travel season of the year, it is appropriate to assess where we stand as a destination. High gas prices and economic uncertainty will no doubt have an effect on travel habits and spending in cities around the country. Baltimore is no exception.
Hypocrisy in Annapolis
- I’m different than Ehrlich, O’Malley keeps telling us. That guy brazenly plastered his photo all over state tourism ads. I just used a little bitty “official” photo on postcards, billboards and newspaper ads. I did it in the name of One Maryland! To help all those poor people losing their homes! Can’t you tell the difference?
Salvaging the city
- Baltimore City Council Member Jim Kraft, D-1, gets it. He knows the city cannot thrive if the state’s highest property taxes are allowed to stand. He also has guts. Last week he said he planned to introduce legislation to cut the city’s rate by 20 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. His move comes at a time when Mayor Sheila Dixon said property taxes should be frozen.
Let sun shine on city contracts
- Frank Conaway, the self-obsessed Circuit Court clerk of Baltimore City best known for his recent refusal to acknowledge Sheila Dixon as mayor, may turn into an unwitting whistle-blower. His claim that he cannot affirm her being mayor because she did not appear before him to be sworn in may have tenuous constitutional merit. But through his maneuvering, he made public a city-owned corporation whose operations deserve explanation.
Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr.: Will ’08 bring us together at last?
- It has been 40 years since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The year 1968 was a turbulent year not only for the civil rights movement, but it was also the year racial politics became a permanent part of the presidential campaign playbook. During the 2008 presidential election, race has become the “elephant in the room.” However, it is our best opportunity yet to heal the nation’s racial divide.
Spread courage in local schools
- Courage is a rare trait. Few have it or cultivate it. But those who possess it have the power to transform their relationships, their communities, their nation and even the world. Rosa Parks had it. She refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Ala., bus on Dec. 1, 1955, helping to start the civil rights movement. William Wilberforce had it. The British politician relentlessly pushed to end the slave trade in the face of immense opposition and succeeded with the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, making abolition possible.
Remedy worse than the disease
- W hoa. Everyone take a deep breath. The foreclosure situation is bad. Rates are up over the past year throughout the Baltimore region, as is debt. But do we really need the governor’s cure, now being advertised via newspaper, billboard, radio or postcard near you?
More bad gambling news
- Legislators should be kicking themselves for not passing slots in the special session. With each passing day the chances of the state pocketing up to an estimated $800 million per year from them are looking more like those of winning the lottery.
Stats that teachers can prosper by
- A recent attack on a teacher in Baltimore City by a student made national headlines. It also released a stream of anger from teachers, who say, as The Examiner reported more than a year ago, that administrators ignore school violence because they do not want to be labeled “persistently dangerous.” Under 2001’s No Child Left Behind Act, that label could remove students and money from their schools.
Iraq or the NFL
- Think about Roger Staubach while listening to apologists for the U.S. Military Academy explain why it’s OK to let Army officers weasel out of service for fat professional athlete deals and recruiting duties.
More government, less take-home pay
- New employment numbers come out today. If they look anything like the past three months, they won’t inspire optimism.