Pulling together the threads of our past

November 20, 2008

In near darkness, it appears almost as an apparition. Like reliquary, the tattered flag is displayed behind glass in a new temperature- and light-controlled chamber, the bones not of a saint but of a nation.

Recent columns

• Economic slowdown, weekly trash pickup: We'll live

  November 16, 2008

  Ah, twice-a-week garbage collection. It was nice while it lasted - 55 years, apparently - but it's time to give up this municipal luxury. It's time to hold our noses and pry this one out of our cold, Hefty Cinch Sak'd fingers.

• Political cartography has strange consequences

  November 13, 2008

  After a lengthy labor, we can slap that 1st Congressional District baby on the bottom and declare: It's a Democrat.

• New first family, new community

  November 12, 2008

  This new president didn't promise to bring a new puppy along when his family moves into the official residence, and his overall message was more of continuity than change.

• Unlikely neighbors take first step in turning community around

  November 9, 2008

  Of all the things the rowhouse on East Oliver Street had been over the course of its lifetime, the most recent was what some locals delicately called a gentlemen's social club.

• Don't look for change. It's already arrived

  November 6, 2008

  So this is what "change" looks like.

• In Carney, diverse neighbors eager to vote

  November 5, 2008

  Not that I have a thing for CNN's John King, but I long to feel his touch.

• A campaign junkie shows signs of impending withdrawal

  November 2, 2008

  Look, over there, you can see it from here!

• School vote was victory for equal expectations

  October 30, 2008

  Lelia T. Allen choked up during the state school board meeting this week when she remembered how, as a child growing up in North Carolina in the 1940s, the school buses would pass her by. So she walked - three miles, as the occupants of those buses threw things at her - determined not to be denied an education.

• Early voting? Sure. Last-minute voting? That's for me!

  October 26, 2008

  I'm the person you see at the store on Christmas Eve, buying that last present, or five. Dinner at my house? The starting time, if not the cuisine, is decidedly Continental. And, as my editors will attest, there is no deadline late enough that I can't blow it. So, when I hear "early voting," I think: getting to the polling place while it's still light out.

• In this case, clothes may make the candidate

  October 23, 2008

  So now we have the answer to the eternal question that arises as you peruse the doll section at Toys 'R' Us: Just how much more does Vice Presidential Barbie cost than Caribou Barbie?

• Yes, they're paper cuts, but they can go deep

  October 16, 2008

  Maybe it's because we're already accustomed to talking about hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars as casually as if it were pocket change. A $250 billion outlay to prop up the country's biggest banks? Big deal, when we're already committed to spend a total of $700 billion to bail out the markets.

• Visitation-rights ruling breaks new ground for gay couples

  October 12, 2008

  In all but one way, the visitation-rights case that was decided in Baltimore County Circuit Court last week was typical of the legal wrangling that follows many a divorce - a couple splits up, the custodial parent doesn't want the ex to see the kid.

• Gone — just when we needed it the most

  October 9, 2008

  One designer jacket: $5.

• Checking in with the folks on that oft-cited Main Street

  October 5, 2008

  Under a crisp and clear sky, their street finally restored after nearly two years of noise, dust and construction, the shopkeepers of Bel Air's Main Street seemed pretty happy Friday afternoon. Baristas steamed espresso drinks at Shamrock Coffee, friends dropped in to check out the just-opened Lavalier jewelry store, and customers and sales reps were downright festive in the newly expanded and very pink digs of the Tiger Lily boutique.

• Rounding up the unusual suspects

  October 2, 2008

  Maybe while the four undercover state troopers - identified in a report released yesterday only as "T1" through "T4" - were wasting their time spying on a few peaceniks, other members of their unit were gathering intel on the kinds of people who actually have some power and influence over our lives.

• Owning up to the Great Bailout of 2008

  September 25, 2008

  WASHINGTON

• Teaching students about dollars makes a lot of sense

  September 21, 2008

  The young business associates were sitting around a conference table last week, telling me about the philosophy and strategy of someone they greatly admire in their field, an investor who doesn't gamble wildly and knows exactly what he's buying.

• Welcome to Md., the Wallflower State

  September 18, 2008

  There we are, the wallflowers at the party. We pretend to be vitally interested in the books on the host's shelf or our very own shoes, anything to avoid interacting with - eek! - other people. Maybe they're boring anyway, maybe they'll talk about us after we leave. Better to go home right now and just deal with the people we already know if not necessarily love.

• All aboard: Green Line, Red Line, Yellow Line, home

  September 14, 2008

  It's not just because yesterday was my birthday - thank you, yes, being another year older does beat the alternative - that I've been imagining my future self lately.

• It's high time Pratt Street gets a little love

  September 11, 2008

  Pity poor Pratt Street.

• Let's make sure officials' ethics aren't on the auction block

  September 7, 2008

  It sounded like just another father-son bonding experience. They could have gone down to the corner bar for a couple of cold ones, or fired up the flat-screen and watched a game. Instead, the Foxxes headed down Pulaski Highway to go ... shopping.

• Pregnancy issue isn't black/white — or Brown

  September 4, 2008

  I miss Murphy Brown.

• From the town, wearing the gown

  August 31, 2008

  During move-in weekend at Hopkins, she was the girl to see - for new students wondering where to get their IDs, for parents trudging around with huge Bed Bath & Beyond bags, for the hundreds of upperclassmen helping to unpack the SUVs and minivans ferrying the class of 2012 to campus.

• Can Hillary save the Democratic Party from her supporters?

  August 28, 2008

  The good news after Hillary Clinton's stemwinder of a convention speech is that at least one Hillary voter has been persuaded to shift her support to Obama.

• As Americans forget about a war, a veteran campaigns to help its victims

  August 24, 2008

  In the end, Stephen Verges collected hundreds of pairs of shoes, even if some were high-heeled or otherwise inappropriate for the intended recipients: needy Afghans in their dusty, rocky, war-torn country.

• Holes in anthrax case not novel

  August 8, 2008

  In case I ever turn up dead while being investigated by the Feds, and they release all the suspicious stuff they've uncovered about me, let me explain right now why I recently Googled "novel kill scientist poisoned strawberry."

• Why did What's-his-name decide to come to our city?

  August 5, 2008

  Looks like the Fauxfeller picked the wrong town to disappear in.

• What do you get for a mink?

  June 27, 2008

  You know how you get a song stuck in your head? Ever since the fur started flying in the state prosecutor's investigation of Mayor Sheila Dixon, I keep hearing that song from Guys and Dolls, the one sung by a doll who was shocked, just shocked, at what a guy expected in return for his gifts:

• The elephant in the room

  June 20, 2008

  I'd like to take the opportunity of all those microphones that have been shoved in my face these past couple of days since my house was raided, and speak directly to you, the citizens of Baltimore.

• Multiple missteps in life of inmate

  May 23, 2008

  You probably shouldn't take his word on it, but a fellow inmate diagnosed Kevin Johns thusly: "He was zapped out."

• Horse racing is beauty, tragedy

  May 6, 2008

  This time, it happened off-camera, and post-race.

• Bus case points to sad truth about us

  April 25, 2008

  Many words have been spilled on the bus beating case in which a group of middle school students attacked a fellow passenger and nearly blinded her, and Circuit Judge David W. Young has heard just about all of them - in the courtroom as he presided over it, of course, but also in e-mails, on the phone and even on the street, where passers-by would accost him.

• Fielding the setup for papal event

  April 18, 2008

  Even though he's planned events for presidential inaugurations and managed rock tours for the likes of the B-52s, and even though his company is known for staging hooplas like official election night parties and museum anniversaries, there are still some things beyond Ajay Patil's considerable multitasking, detail-wrangling skills.

• Children casualties in divorce warfare

  April 1, 2008

  Lynn Shiner heard the news as she drifted off to sleep Sunday night, and when she awoke yesterday morning, she thought maybe she had dreamed it. A few taps on the keyboard, though, confirmed that the crime, however nightmarish, was no dream.

• Md. views the final act before the voting

  February 12, 2008

  One candidate lauded those serving in Iraq because they "did everything they were asked to do."

• Primary spotlight for Md.? Imagine

  February 8, 2008

  Call it Sorta Significant Tuesday.

• Nikki's death stands out amid blur of statistics

  November 14, 2006

  The tributes flowed, from intimates and strangers alike, and some were read at Nicole Edmonds' funeral this weekend. Appreciative murmurs rippled through the mourners at the east-side church when a particularly famous name followed the "sincerely," like Martin O'Malley, the newly elected governor, or Ben Cardin, the just-minted U.S. senator.

• A modest people, a respectful distance

  October 4, 2006

  The customer awkwardly approached the young Amish woman, as many of us have done these past couple of days.

• Evil can lurk in even the smallest, most remote communities

  October 3, 2006

  Night had already cloaked the valley by the time I arrived, and snow had started falling, gently as it does in the mountains in springtime. Under the twin covers of darkness and snowfall, I didn't realize until the next morning just how beautiful and idyllic Littleton, Col., was.