AFTER THESE last two weeks," Martin O'Malley said at the funeral of Carnell Dawson, the man of the house that was firebombed on Preston Street, "it's as if Baltimore is all cried out."

But here we are, less than a month later, in tears again, this time for a police officer, Detective Thomas G. Newman, believed to have been gunned down execution-style for doing his job. O'Malley will have to prepare another eulogy for another hero and civic martyr.

And not lose all hope.

And not let the last of the Baltimore Believers lose theirs.

About a week ago, I heard a woman remark that, as much as she admired O'Malley, she believed the mayor of Baltimore had to broaden his horizons now, to speak of things beyond the horrors of the inner city -- the drug epidemic and attendant violence -- and that in the extravagantly flattering article about O'Malley in December's Esquire he was too much an accomplice in that magazine's depiction of our city as hell on Earth.

A mayor must be more of a booster of Baltimore, the argument went, and not allow every interloping journalist to hold this city up as a symbol of urban ruin.

Then we had a city councilwoman calling for contrived, happy-face portraits of Baltimore in the media -- to counter not only the fictionalized crime dramas that appear on national television, but the ridiculing commentary and frequent news reports of violence, social disease and widespread drug addiction. Mixed in with all that are cynical commentators and talk-radio hosts who with smug glee point out Baltimore's problems while offering neither the slightest whisper of good nor a solution to anything bad.

I understand the cries for positive speaking. I have heard them many times. We reach points in the life of this city -- we're in one now -- where the gloom hits a critical mass and, in desperation, the calls go out for sunshine.

Sorry, not in the mood today.

I found the comments about O'Malley particularly ironic. Time was when the mayor of Baltimore, from 1971 until 1986, was nothing but a civic booster, a man who in the extreme championed the city at the expense of focusing public attention on profound problems. And many of the problems festered and spread. Then we had a mayor who, while well aware of the city's problems, seemed unable to do anything about them. And the problems festered and spread even more.

We wanted action. We wanted anger and outrage.

Along came O'Malley, with a plan to attack crime and drug addiction at its roots, and pinning the success of almost every new urban initiative to the success of his police and the city's better-funded network of drug counseling.

O'Malley has been too quick to shoot from the lip and blame others for systemic problems.

But, in the main, he has done what he was elected to do. He has spoken up repeatedly for a Baltimore that can't become better than it is without a real attack on problems that have festered and spread for years -- the poisonous chemistry of guns, drugs and dysfunctional lives in broken neighborhoods among broken families.

O'Malley brought to the mayor's office a conviction that life here can change. He has restocked a well of anger and outrage that, all through the homicidal 1990s, had gone dry. He asks those of us at the last thin edge of hope to "believe."

So he is a one-theme mayor. But he has no choice.

This is Baltimore, where, last month, we had the firebombing of a house full of children because, the police told us, their mother dared to speak out against the drug dealers and no-goods loitering on the corner. Angela Dawson, her husband, Carnell, and five of their children died.

Early Saturday morning, Baltimore police say, one of their colleagues, Detective Newman, was gunned down in cold blood outside Joe's Tavern, his death said to be apparent retaliation for Newman's testimony against two men convicted of wounding him during an ambush last year.

In light of these acts -- and too many others to mention -- can anyone really complain about O'Malley's focus on breaking Baltimore's twin cycles of drug addiction and violent crime?

Is there anyone who does not see that as the single mission of the mayor of Baltimore in 2002 and for the foreseeable future?

We don't want a mayor who takes balloon rides over the Inner Harbor or one who sits on his hands and shrugs.

We want a mayor who speaks with anger and outrage -- even if it must be in eulogy to heroes and civic martyrs.