What’s valuable about sports starts with sportsmanship
First, let me say I don’t have firsthand knowledge of what occurred at the North Carroll youth football game on Sunday, Sept. 26, nor have I ever attended any games of the league. But I don’t think you need to be a sports fan to know that something is wrong when police need to be called to a children’s sporting event.
Regardless of the outcome on any criminal charges, the officials for the Carroll County Youth Football and Cheer League should consider requiring community service as a stipulation for the lifting of bans or suspension. An appropriate and constructive activity for the younger players in the league might be reading a book about good sportsmanship, such as “You’re a Good Sport, Miss Malarkey” by Judy Finchler and Kevin O’Malley, or “A Feel Better Book for Little Sports” by Holly Brochmann and Leah Bowen.
Hopefully, interacting with kids just starting out on a team will remind older players and adults what is truly valuable about sports and teamwork.
Frances Cincotta, Westminster
[ Submit a letter for the editor ]
Schools tops in quarantine, bottom in masking
According to data released by the Maryland State Department of Education on Sept. 28, Carroll County leads the state percentage-wise in quarantined students. Stats show that we have 1,221 of our 124,000 mandated to stay at home. That is a little more than 5%. Our neighbor, Baltimore County, has 1,163 quarantined out of 115,000 students. That is just over 1%.
We don’t need to wonder why. Our Board of Education – well, four of the board members – voted that students did not need to wear masks. We are the only county in the state to have not masked our students from the beginning of the school year, so we get to lead the quarantine statistics.
But it is more than a statistic. It is lost education for our students. Our board turned a health issue into a political issue.
“No,” they say, “it is not politics. It is infringement of our personal liberty.” I ask, “Does personal liberty overrule your responsibility as an elected official to ensure that Carroll County students are safe and able to learn? Does your responsibility to the students of Carroll County permit you to ignore science and the recommendations of all of our health professionals?”
I don’t believe so. What can we do about it? Nothing except vote. So let’s turn them out to pasture next November.
Dale Piper, Westminster
Democrats own the fiasco at the border
According to Webster’s Dictionary, invasion is to enter forcibly, intrude upon, violate, spread through with harmful effects, etc. We have an ongoing invasion at our border with projections for over 2 million people by years end. The latest crisis is approximately 30,000 Haitians (almost the population of Del Rio, Texas) that came into our country, just like all the others, not through the legal process. Consequently we no longer live in a republic.
Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution states “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion: and on Application of Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.” Joe Biden won’t stop the invasion, ignores our 232 year-old Constitution, violates his oath to protect our citizens, violates Title 42 of the Public Health and Service Act, refuses to send sufficient resources to protect our border, and vilifies his people trying to control the border. Why?
The answer is Joe Biden and the Democrats have a new Constitution of Social Justice and Identity Politics. They are using nonstop, mass immigration to change the demography and thereby the constituency of this country. Biden is protected by the self-righteous aristocracy of the Democratic Party like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and his border czar, Vice Presidewnt Kamala Harris, who is still looking for the root cause – when it’s them.
The mostly Hispanic U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback in Del Rio enforcing the law should be applauded; instead the sanctimonious Democrats try to deflect from Biden’s constant failures by demonizing them. U.S. Reps. Maxine Waters and Ilhan Omar called them racist and claimed their actions were worse than slavery. The Congressional Black Caucus pressured White House officials to suspend the agents. Jen Psaki said the border patrol using horses to block Haitians from entering our country is horrible and horrific. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said its actions horrified the nation and was proof of systemic racism. Then Biden piled on saying it was horrible seeing horses running over people and whipping them. There will be consquences. They will pay.
These Democrats have nothing but contempt for the working men and women protecting this country, and no one will pay for Joe Biden’s Afghanistan fiasco that killed 13 U.S. soldiers, three aid workers, seven children and abandoned hundreds of Americans to the Taliban. I call them pompous hypocrites.
Carl Burdette, Westminster
Angry political signs corrosive to Carroll
During my 47 years living in Maryland, I have spent time as a substitute teacher in Carroll County and I am raising five children. In all that time, I have never seen anything as childish and callow as the behavior on display by some residents of this county.
I’m speaking, of course, about the various uncensored flags, banners, and signs that are prominently displayed along the streets and roads of Carroll County. Some are nailed to trees right along Rt. 32. Some take up fully half of the front of a family home.
Sure, you have the right to fly a flag or banner with any slogan of your choice, but can we all just step back for a few minutes and think about how this affects the people who see it? Since it’s on public display, these things are seen daily by schoolchildren of all ages, sometimes multiple times a day as their bus passes them on the way to and from school.
I, personally, don’t care who you support or despise in the political arena, but there are much better ways to get your point across that do not make a mockery of the democratic process in this country. And there are better ways to establish family discussions than by triggering ones where parents have to explain to their children that certain people never managed to grow up and learn that they don’t always get their way.
I really thought we were better than this, Carroll County.
Ryan Adam, Westminster