Why must everything in Baltimore have a direct or immediate (versus indirect) monetary result? My wife and I recently spent several days in Manhattan. In addition to Broadway shows, we had a wonderful time visiting Central Park, a significant New York City attraction available free of charge. This attracts visitors who support local businesses. Imagine the value of this property located in the midst of skyscrapers. Baltimore would love to develop this! Why must we have additional office space. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m under the impression current office space is underutilized. Not only that, but I’m sure downtown hotels would enjoy the increase in traffic. I recently read a significant hotel near Camden Yards is losing money.

Why not make the entire region, including the Inner Harbor, Baltimore’s Central Park? Imagine dining in Little Italy or other local restaurants, walking across the pedestrian bridge for a concert, then a visit to the aquarium, a walk through Baltimore’s Inner Harbor park (without an obstructed view), culminating with a visit to the Maryland Science Center. By now we’re hungry again and looking for a restaurant near Federal Hill. After a hotel stay, a visit to Fort McHenry is ideal for day two.

This is the golden opportunity Baltimore would waste simply for the sake of a direct and immediate monetary result. A gorgeous park-like setting with multiple attractions would put Baltimore back on the map long-term while bolstering local business. If developed as proposed, would I want to visit and spend my money? No.

— Richard Piniecki, Perry Hall

Add your voice: Respond to this piece or other Sun content by submitting your own letter.

In 2020, Harris supported a ban on plastic straws. She now says if you like your plastic straws, you can keep them! I am so overwhelmed with joy.

— Michael Ernest, Catonsville

Add your voice: Respond to this piece or other Sun content by submitting your own letter.

Raising land-based salmon using Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS) has proven to be far less predictable and profitable than initially projected. Atlantic Sapphire, the largest such operation in the world, lost $56 for every pound of salmon (sold at less than $5 a pound) they produced on their main farm in Florida in 2020. System failures and operational errors resulted in multiple and complete die-offs of its salmon in 2021 and 2022. RAS are highly complex and costly to maintain, requiring constant monitoring of water filtration, oxygenation, and many other factors needed to raise fish on land. When a company experiences pressures on its financial performance, it starts cutting corners on sustainability initiatives.

I am also concerned about how AquaCon will dispose of its waste product beyond selling it as ingredients in nutritional supplements and pet foods, according to its website. The amount of waste that results from salmon farms is considerable.

For example, Chile, which has a population of more than 19 million people, must resolve the daily amount of nitrogen released by its salmon farms, an amount akin to the waste of 9 million people.

I reject the corporate-controlled, industrial model of salmon land farms for these reasons. It prioritizes profit over the ecological health of people and wildlife. AquaCon will be no different.

— Sue Mi Ko, Gaithersburg

Add your voice: Respond to this piece or other Sun content by submitting your own letter.

From the moment I stepped foot on my future college campus on a rainy Saturday in March, I dreamt of my future there. I imagined my large but tight-knit friend group, academic success and a thriving social life. The moment I found out I was accepted remains one of the happiest moments of my life. Every time I was asked about my plans after high school, it was hard not to smile as I shared where I would be attending college.

However, as my late-August move-in date approached, this excitement was replaced by anxiety. How would I make friends? Would I still be a strong student? How will I manage living alone in a new city? The worries were relentless. Older friends and family lovingly encouraged me, “College is the best four years of your life,” they said repeatedly. “You will be fine,” I attempted to reassure myself, “everyone loves college.”

Except not everyone loves college — at least I certainly didn’t. My college experience was incredibly difficult. I struggled socially and with mental health, making it hard for me to make friends and succeed academically. The COVID-19 pandemic struck halfway through my junior year, increasing the sense of isolation I already felt. Though there were glimpses of the perfect college experience society had promised, for me, college was not perfect — it was hard.

Yet when people would ask me how I liked school, “I love it” was always my response, hoping that maybe if I said it enough times, it might magically become true. Admitting that I was unhappy or struggling seemed like the ultimate failure. If “everyone loves college,” what was wrong with me?

What I know now is that nothing was wrong with me, and I was far less alone in my experience than I thought.

The data do not lie: College is hard for most students. Most college students in the United States meet the criteria for a mental health condition, with rates of depression, anxiety and suicidality among college students higher than ever. A Gallup poll in 2023 found that 66% percent of college students reported feeling stressed and 39% reported feeling lonely “during a lot of the day.”

These mental health struggles are compounded by the widespread substance use and abuse present on college campuses.

When we tell students that college will be the best four years of their lives, we ignore all these realities. Teenagers enter college under the pretense that they are kicking off what will be four utopic years. Inevitably, they’re disappointed to realize that what lies ahead of them is simply four years of life. The ups and downs inherent to the human experience don’t pause the moment you step foot in your dorm room (which is not nearly big enough for two people).

It’s only years after graduating that I can see my college experience for exactly what it was: a difficult few years, a place where I met some of my best friends and received an incredible education, and a time fraught with loneliness — all at once. I also know now that my experience was not unique.

Had I known this then, maybe I would have felt more comfortable asking for help or put less pressure on myself to have an idyllic college experience. By attempting to foster excitement among those heading off to college, we’re adding to the pressure cooker in which adolescents already live. It’s time we make space in the conversation for the truth that college is a great time in life — and it’s also a challenging one.

I wish my college self knew that now, at the age of 25, I am the happiest and healthiest I’ve ever been. I wouldn’t change anything about my college experience, but I would tell my younger self (and all soon-to-be college students) that whether you love college or hate it, there is so much more life ahead of you.

Caroline Boucher (carolineboucher9@gmail.com) is a clinical research coordinator in New York City with a B.A. from Georgetown University and a Master of Science in Social Work from Columbia University. 

Americans, whether for or against Israel, face the question: How can you defend such carnage?

You can’t. There’s no good way to defend the killing of innocents, but we should consider the context when condemning Israel.

Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel killed about 1140 Israelis, and Hamas took some 250 hostages back to Gaza.

Oct. 7 has been called Israel’s 9/11, but that grossly understates the scale of the attack.

Israel has roughly 10 million people. The United States, 335,000,000. On 9/11, we lost about 3,000 people. For the United States to suffer a comparable attack to Oct. 7, nearly 40,000 Americans would need to die, with another 8,000 taken hostage.

Imagine if Mexican militants were to pour across our border, murder some 40,000 people and take 8,000 hostages.

How would Americans react to such slaughter? It beggars the imagination. Nothing would be off the table. No number of Mexican dead would be considered excessive. And we wouldn’t care if other countries disagreed.

Look at our past wars.

Death counts vary widely, but during the Vietnam War, we killed tens of thousands of civilians. We dropped 388,000 tons of napalm.

Yet Vietnam neither attacked us nor presented a threat. Our reason was essentially an abstraction — that if North Vietnam won, communism would spread throughout Asia and beyond. In the half-century since our withdrawal, that hasn’t come to pass.

The United States launched two wars after 9/11. We understand the rationale for Afghanistan, however badly the war was managed. We were attacked by al-Qaida, an extremist group based in that country.

Iraq is another story. Twenty years on, we’re still debating why we even went to war. That tells you a lot. It’s clear that much of the rationale for that war rested on falsehoods.

But if the reasons remain murky, the results are not. According to the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, somewhere between 280,000 and 315,000 civilians “died from direct war-related violence caused by the U.S., its allies, the Iraqi military and police, and opposition forces.”

Yet neither the Vietnam nor Iraq wars, unlike Israel’s assault in Gaza, were responses to existential threats to the United States. Or any threat beyond the theoretical.

Consider another perspective. Imagine Ukraine murdered thousands of Russian civilians and took hostages. Russia, of course, would respond.

Imagine further Ukraine taking losses on the level of the Palestinians in Gaza. President Vladimir Zelensky, however, refuses to surrender. Let’s add that Zelensky is making these decisions living out of harm’s way, as are current leaders of Hamas.

Could Zelensky count on support from Americans?

Not likely. Zelensky would face enormous international pressure — in the name of humanity — to surrender and return the hostages. There would be little sympathy. The reaction would be, “You poked the bear. You’re on your own.”

Much of the Gaza coverage suggests that Palestinians are powerless to end Israel’s attacks. That’s not quite true. They have the power to surrender. They have the power to return the hostages. They have the power to renounce their stated goal of destroying Israel.

Which leaves Israel in a quandary. How do you make peace with an opponent whose ultimate goal is the elimination of your country and your people? How do you force an opponent to the negotiating table when they count every life and battle lost as another victory?

As a story in The Atlantic on Hamas’ strategy was headlined, “For Hamas, Everything is Going According to Plan.” They figure they’re winning.

Israel and its government are not above criticism. But critics need to consider: In a similar situation, what would the United States do? In far less serious situations, what has the United States done?

Don Flood (don.g.flood@gmail.com) is a retired editor and columnist for the Dover Post and Cape Gazette in Delaware. He lives in Delaware and spent much of his life on the Eastern Shore. 

Only 47% of Black fourth-graders in the state can read at a basic level, and that drops to 36% for Hispanics.

Low literacy skills also contribute to the growing U.S. wealth gap. And it’s a disadvantage for those seeking higher-paying jobs.

The gap is even more pronounced in communities of color, particularly Black households. Black families are twice as likely as whites to have no wealth.

These kinds of disparities are not new to Baltimore City. I see them every day. I work for The Literacy Lab’s Leading Men Fellowship, a program that aims to improve literacy skills in underserved communities and create pathways to careers in education for young men of color.

The work we’re doing in the classroom makes an impactful difference. Just look at the data.

Only 29% of the Maryland pre-K students tutored by The Literacy Lab were reading at grade level at the start of last school year. The number more than doubled to 72% by year’s end.

The Literacy Lab uses evidence-based strategies rooted in the Science of Reading framework to improve student reading skills. A majority of the gains are made by Black and Hispanic students, the demographic most at risk for poor literacy skills.

Improving literacy rates and uplifting families can be achieved by expanding access to culturally responsive literacy instruction, yielding long-term education and career success.

Students perform better academically when they have a teacher who looks like them, particularly Black youths. Black students who had just one Black teacher by third grade were 13% more likely to enroll in college.

Policymakers in Maryland have taken note of the grim reality of what’s to come if they don’t address our state’s reading crisis.

The State Board of Education now mandates all public schools in Maryland use early literacy instruction built around the Science of Reading. They are also establishing partnerships with colleges and universities to improve alignment of teacher preparation and professional development to the Science of Reading.

But more can be done, like placing greater emphasis on hiring teachers of color, particularly Black and Brown men.

The vast majority, 70%, of Maryland’s pre-K-12 teachers are White. Less than 19% of teachers in Maryland are Black, with even fewer Hispanic teachers. We can’t ignore the shortage of diverse teachers in our public schools any longer.

Black and Brown men in the classroom make a profound difference in the lives of students of color. We need to come up with real solutions to diversify our state’s teacher workforce.

Those solutions should include collaborations with community organizations, educators, policymakers, colleges and universities, and other institutions. The racial makeup of classrooms won’t change without a collaborative strategy.

Financial incentives for a career in education also need to be part of the solution. Increasing access to resources such as scholarships to defray, or cover entirely, the cost of a teaching degree is a great place to start.

We need to create more pathways to teaching. They’re a catalyst to changing the racial makeup of our state’s classroom teachers.

Black and Hispanic men also need to step up to help diversify the teacher workforce. But no one can force them to answer the call for more male teachers of color. It’s a personal decision only they can make.

Having a diverse teacher workforce is key to improving the low literacy skills that keep feeding the growing U.S. wealth gap and eliminating barriers to higher-paying jobs. Increasing household wealth in communities of color will remain a fictional story without it.

Evan Singleton (esingleton@theliteracylab.org) is the program manager for The Literacy Lab’s Leading Men Fellowship in Baltimore. Before, he served as the dean of students and athletic director at Baltimore Collegiate School for Boys.

Had the BPD gone too far? Not far enough? Are recent reductions in gun violence sustainable? And here’s the big question: How can the department adequately maintain its uniformed and civilian staffing levels to meet demand?

Part of the answer may turn out to be child care.

Last week, the Baltimore Police Department received approval from the Board of Estimates to move forward with a much-anticipated pilot program to provide child care benefits to 100 employees. The program is both modest and simple. Eligible workers will receive stipends of up to $250 per month (and $3,000 yearly) to help defray the cost of child care for kids from birth to age 12 or with special needs. The thinking here is that police officers and others who work nontraditional schedules will likely need such assistance. It’s not difficult to imagine, for example, an officer called in to unexpectedly work a second shift who suddenly needs help keeping tabs on a son or daughter with primary school homework to do.

We like this idea for several reasons. First, raising police pay and benefits is necessary, particularly to recruit quality employees. Second, investing specifically in child care would seem worthwhile because that is a glaring need of 20- and 30-somethings raising families, surely the target demographic for police recruitment. And third, we like the idea of police officers being encouraged (albeit modestly) to have children. There’s something to be said for officers acquiring firsthand knowledge of dealing with youngsters and working on such skills as communication and patience with preteens. They can use all the credibility they can get when walking the beat.

The BPD could, of course, raise pay for everyone and let those with children spend their wages on child care. But this specific outreach — available only in a limited number of police departments nationwide — comes with the benefit of attracting and retaining parents specifically. Might it not then encourage them to put down roots in the city? Having more mothers and fathers on the force is somehow comforting. And please spare us any suggestion that traditional families (presumably with the male head-of-household working and his spouse staying home) don’t need outside assistance and should instead rely on grandparents (as U.S. Sen. JD Vance, the GOP’s vice presidential nominee, recently suggested). That’s an assumption that is a few decades or so out of date.

The more reasonable question is, why don’t more employers target child care as an employee benefit? The U.S. continues to suffer from a child care crisis worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimated that 58% of working parents left their jobs because they could not piece together a working child-care plan. The burden tends to fall most heavily on women — about one-third of U.S. women say they can’t return to work because of the burden of caring for a family member, child or adult. The result is, of course, that mothers are often left out of the paid workforce, which has an attendant impact on the economy.

Obviously, being a parent doesn’t necessarily make anyone a good cop (or civilian public safety employee for that matter), but it’s pretty clear that a working parent lacking much-needed child care is going to have to struggle to get his or her act together. The job is tough enough without having to worry about such things. And while $250 is hardly a cure-all, it’s a nice start. And maybe, just maybe, one year from now when the BPD can measure the impact of the program, we’ll find out that it actually made a difference — and perhaps even helped make Baltimore a bit safer, not just for married police officers, but for all of us.

Baltimore Sun editorial writers offer opinions and analysis on news and issues relevant to readers. They operate separately from the newsroom.

Are local, state and federal officials doing enough about gun violence to make sure children are safe at school?

The Baltimore Sun reader poll is an unscientific survey in which website users volunteer their opinions on the subject of the poll.

To read the results of previous reader polls, click here.

Kennedy’s discussions with the Trump campaign about a position in a potential Trump administration were apparently far more fruitful. In commenting on Kennedy’s endorsement, Trump said he “probably would” consider Kennedy for a role in his administration. Now some might think that Kennedy was shamelessly selling his endorsement to the highest bidder in order to get a significant government position. Or perhaps Kennedy thought that any administration agreeing to hire him is by definition better for the country. Either way, his road to the endorsement raises concerns.

The affection and intellectual closeness between Kennedy and Trump are clear. Upon receiving the endorsement, Trump said. “I like him a lot, I respect him a lot … He’s a great guy, respected by everybody.” Apparently not quite everybody. Certainly not by a man who as recently as May called Kennedy a “liberal lunatic” and the “dumbest member of the Kennedy Clan.” Yes, that man was the aforementioned Donald Trump. Trump deserves credit for likely being at least half right in the first comment about Kennedy above, and this exceeds his normal accuracy rate by about 50%.

So let’s look to what position within Trump’s administration would fit a man of Kennedy’s knowledge and talents. As there is no official cabinet position of Secretary for Conspiracy Theories, the obvious best position for Kennedy would be Secretary of Health and Human Services. In that role he would have a louder voice in the battle against vaccines that have proven effective against COVID-19 and ones that had come close to eradicating measles before some people became scared of taking the vaccines. In 2019, Kennedy traveled to Samoa to share with residents his unscientific and anti-scientific warnings about the dangers of the measles vaccine. Use of the vaccine in Samoa then plummeted, and shortly thereafter 3,000 people contracted measles, and 83 children died during a horrific outbreak which the World Health Organization blamed on the anti-vaccine scare created by Kennedy and others. Perhaps the polio vaccine is next on Kennedy’s hit list. In 2023, Kennedy suggested the polio vaccine likely caused cancer. Now, would he not fit perfectly in the administration of a man who suggested that one possible way to cure COVID is to inject bleach into our bodies?

Kennedy is no mere anti-vax extremist, however. He is worse. Trump is considering for his administration a man who was reported by the New York Post to have said in a dinner meeting that “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese. We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not.” That he had absolutely no support for this outrageous antisemitic, anti-Chinese statement is obvious. Kennedy also has a gift for overstatement, which should fit well with his possible future boss. In 2022, he said Anne Frank, who hid from the Nazis for years before eventually being captured and sent to her death in a concentration camp, had more freedom than people living under vaccine mandates. It is hardly surprising that so many members of Kennedy’s own family opposed his candidacy and the statements he has made. What does it say about Trump that he would consider such a man for a position in his government?

The man who told us that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, the 2020 election was stolen from him, the insurrectionist riot on January 6 was peaceable and that the vice president has the power to overturn an election (it would be interesting to see if Trump believes the current veep can do that) has found his intellectual soulmate in the man who left a dead bear cub in Central Park and sees conspiracies whenever he opens his eyes. A marriage made in heaven.

Steven P. Grossman is the Dean Julius Isaacson Professor Emeritus at the University of Baltimore Law School. His email is: sgrossman@ubalt.edu.