Rick Dempsey and Deanna Bogart Release Christmas CD

Rick Dempsey and the Deanna Bogart Band have teamed up to make a new Christmas CD, “Home Run Holiday.”
Rick Dempsey is the former Baltimore Orioles catcher and 1983 World Series MVP,  and Deanna Bogart is a multi-talented saxophone and piano player. Her band has performed at Maryland dances and concerts for years. I don’t know [...]

Corruption, Greed, Incompetence — And Here Comes Election 2010

Remember “Sex, Drugs, Rock ‘n’ Roll?”  How about “Fear And Loathing?”  A few choice words  have power to evoke an ethos or a zeitgeist! Forget about complete sentences. I’m talking poetry, headlines, book titles, songs.
“Hot, Flat, and Crowded” is the best recent entry in the field. (Thank you Tom Friedman).
“Corruption, Greed, and Incompetence” will be [...]

Blob’s Park Has Reopened

Blob’s Park, the venerable and beloved Bavarian bier garten and polka-waltz dancehall south of Baltimore, is open again on Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons. The Rhinelanders band is back, along with the “Beer Barrel Polka” and the Chicken dance. And everything else, from fast, turning Viennese Waltzes to country ballads and swing.
Talk about [...]

Health Care Public Option Is Not An Option, It’s A Necessity

Congress and health insurance companies are mired in dysfunction and denial
Polls show decisive majorities of Americans favor the “public option” health care reform proposed by President Barack Obama.
If U.S. democracy were working properly, the debate would be over, and Congress would be ironing out the details.
But entrenched powers resist change fiercely, and the dysfunctional U.S. [...]

WYPR: Slot Machines And Gangs, Monday

Two issues on the front burner, far as for Maryland on My Mind is concerned, are slot machines in Maryland and gang activity in Maryland.
WYPR radio will be covering both of these issues on Monday, June 8, from noon to 2 p.m. Sitting in for Dan Rodricks, The Baltimore Sun’s Karen Hosler will bring us [...]

Boys in Danger: The End of Civilization in Maryland?

Item: A funeral was held this morning (Wednesday) for Christopher David Jones, age 14, who died after an attack by five to seven youths on a tree-lined street of townhouses in Crofton, Anne Arundel County. Two minors have been charged in the incident. A community meeting will be held at 7 this evening in Crofton.
Item: [...]

“Age of the Unthinkable” — General Motors in Bankruptcy

See the USA in your Chevrolet. Dinah Shore could never have imagined what’s happened to the U.S. economy. If someone had predicted, five years ago, that General Motors and Chrysler would go bankrupt, I’d have said they were nuts.
“Chevrolet” was the first word I learned to spell. It was on the minimalist dashboard of my [...]

Best Things In Life Are Free, In Ocean City

Is it beach art? Or is it playground equipment on the beach? Is it interactive and educational?
Like so much in life, it all depends on your perspective. A bench is nearby, so that parents can relax and watch their children play, and ponder the meaning of it all.
In this season of stress and uncertainty, [...]

Arnold Schwarzenegger on Marijuana

Now comes Arnold, prince of California, opening a debate about the merits (or not) of decriminalizing marijuana. (And taxing it, of course!)
In 2009, Arnold Schwarzenegger dares to say what former California Gov. Jerry Brown could not have said in 1979. It takes a conservative leader to legitimize a previously radical idea. Arnold Schwarzenegger [...]

WBAL’s Ron Smith and PBS’ Bill Moyers Singing From The Same Hymnal?

“Talk-show Man” Ron Smith devoted a good portion of his WBAL show (am 1090) yesterday to the theme, “It’s Fraud, Not Incompetence.”
Mr. Smith played extensive excerpts from Bill Moyers’ Apr. 3 interview on PBS with William K. Black, a senior regulator in the 1980’s Savings and Loan investigation. Mr. Black is an expert on [...]