All (All)

Article - Creature Feature; by Diana Beechener - 9/23/10

Sucked into Battle

In the war against the vacuum, Lothian’s Juanky is declared top dog

The war between pets and vacuum cleaners is long-standing and seemingly inexplicable. Maybe it’s the noise. Maybe it’s the aggressive suction coupled with a rolling machine. Maybe pets just don’t like clean carpets. Eureka Vacuums, however, sought an armistice between their cleaners and your furry friends, inviting pet owners around the country to enter Fido’s Fight or Flight contest with videos of their pets reactions to the vacuum. The contest promoted Eureka...

Article - News; by Katie Dodd - 9/23/10

Bonfire of the Politcal Vanities

Discarding the remnants of the race to the polls

Maryland’s September primaries are over, the polls have closed, and — for the most part — the results have been determined. For most winners, the looming general election — where the stakes are all or nothing — leave little time to celebrate. For the losers, there’s plenty of time to rue and wish Maryland had enacted late, rather than early, voting. Plenty of time to pick up — and pack up? — all the signs that proclaimed their hopes and...

Article - News; by Aries Matheos - 9/23/10

Ooh-La-La!

á la mode lingerie wins in European Flair

More pressurized than a mammogram. More daunting than a marathon. Able to break women shoppers in a single trip. That’s my definition of buying a bra. So when my first assignment sent me to cover an award-winning brassiere shop, I felt like the new kid in first grade. Worse, this was a lingerie shop. I imagined the lewd should-be-unmentionables sold in Boardwalk sex shops in Ocean City. If lingerie translates from the French in other ways, I hadn’t learned them yet. Until I...

Article - News; by Margaret Tearman - 9/23/10

Amazing Maize Mazes

Making these marvels is just as much a puzzle as finding your way through them

Well-trod paths lead to dusty dead-ends. Back to the last turn. Go right instead of left, left instead of right. Until, finally, light at the end of the corn row. High fives all around. A corn maze has been successfully navigated. A sure sign of fall, these tricky trails through acres of dried cornstalks are a growing business as agri-tourism blossoms. It’s next to impossible to see on foot, but the maze-trekker has just walked the outline of a giant pirate ship. Or a soldier. Or a...

Article - News; by Sandra Lee Anderson - 9/23/10

Playing the Shell Game

There’s plenty of fun to go around

Growing oysters is about the future of our children — and about the child in us. Watching the squigglies living among the oysters is fascinating fun for all ages. Len Zuza, of Southern Maryland Oyster Conservations Society,left, lifts out an oyster cage for the students. Growing oysters is also about the adult in people of all ages, responsibly working to restore our Bay. So it’s useful to know if our efforts come to anything — beyond the playfulness of...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 9/16/10

Machete

An action film with a message fails to deliver either.

Danny Trejo (Predators) is a badass. His 20-year career is based on the fact that he is the most intimidating man in just about any room. Trejo’s visceral presence inspired filmmaker Robert Rodriguez (Spy Kids) to make his frequent collaborator an action movie star. At 66, however, Trejo is rapidly moving from grizzled action hero to curmudgeon. Machete is an extended version of the fake trailer that Robert Rodriguez added to his half of the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse double feature....

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 9/16/10

Catching the Fall Bite

In the shift to shallow water, tackle makes the difference

Live-lining small Norfolk spot remains the surest bet for a limit of striped bass on the Chesapeake. But light-tackle lure fishing grows more exciting as our waters cools with September’s chillier weather, when striped bass behavior changes. Fish Are Biting The shallow-water rockfish bite is growing more reliable after the warmer-than-usual water temperatures. So live-lining Norfolk spot around the Bay Bridge pilings, off of Podickery Point, Hackett’s and around Thomas Point...

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll - 9/16/10

The Twitch of the Socks

With the autumnal equinox, that footwear comes to life

Labor Day has come and gone, but the celestial clock still reads summer. While our days are still longer than our nights, we have lost two hours 45 minutes of sunlight over the past three months. After this week, the hours of darkness each day will trump those of light. In the late hours Wednesday, as the earth’s equator faces the sun head-on, all across the Bay region, a strange phenomenon takes place. It begins in dust-coated drawers throughout Eastport but then spreads quickly to...

Article - The Bay Gardener by Dr. Francis Gouin; by Dr. Francis Gouin - 9/16/10

Not Sour Enough to Kill Weeds

There’s a big difference between household vinegar and horticultural vinegar

A few years ago, I wrote about using horticultural vinegar to kill weeds. At a recent Deale Farmers’ Market, a customer who bought peaches from me insisted that my recommendation to use vinegar does not kill weeds. She even went to the trouble of boiling the vinegar, thinking she would be concentrating it. What she did not realize is that boiling vinegar dilutes the acetic acid, which is why vinegar gives off a strong odor when heated. Regular cider vinegar or white vinegar contains only...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 9/16/10

Oysters and Oystering

The new era begins now

In a decade or two, we might be hearing this conversation: You know, fat oysters like that one you’re eating used to be hunted in the wild, like the buffalo. Really? Like cowboys, Chesapeake watermen rode out on low-rise boats, even in the worst weather in the middle of winter, and scraped oysters from the bottom of Chesapeake Bay. Like tobacco farming, oyster harvesting has been a way of life in most of the Bay’s recorded history. But mark the year 2010 in the history book —...