Articles by Sandra Olivetti Martin

Article - Books; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 2/14/13

Feathers or Love on the Wing

In the literary economy, poetry is an art more in supply than demand. Nearly everybody writes poetry, or so it seems. But who reads it? Little kids love its melody and meaning, but by high school it’s force-fed. Most of the rest of us take it, often in the form of Hallmark verse, to help us express emotions for which we seem to have no words of our own. It takes a clever poet to sneak in under our defenses. When a poem catches...

Article - News; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 2/14/13

A Composting Hero

Bay Gardener helped found an industry on nature’s fertilizer

For every job, there’s an association. Every association has heroes lauded for having discovered how to do the job better. The Bay Gardener, Dr. Francis Gouin, has just been enrolled as a hero of the U.S. Composting Council. This month, Gouin received Hi Kellogg Award in recognition of his outstanding service to the composting industry in research, teaching and promoting the use of compost by nursery and greenhouse growers and by home gardeners. ...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 2/7/13

Movies to Inspire Your Hibernation

With Black History Month, remember that the Civil Rights movement swept America on television

With only 28 days, February has to hurry. Even more so on the Bay Weekly calendar, where our shortest month gets a late start this year. With January packed full of five Thursdays, our first paper of the month comes to you on February 7. So we’re already late for Groundhog’s Day, when Punxsutawney Phil and Chesapeake Chuck pop up to predict spring. Not too late for our annual Groundhog’s Movie Guide, however, as hibernating with a good...

Article - Creature Feature; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 2/7/13

Animals Take on New Roles

Chimps Go for Ravens, 49ers eat crow

The wise guys and gals of the world of sports gave Super Bowl XLVII to the San Francisco 49ers. The chimpanzee tribe of the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, however, got it right. On Purple Friday, February 1, the zoo’s 11 chimps emerged from their night quarters into a dayroom decked out with footballs and two team banners: a red one for the 49ers and a purple one for the Ravens. Zookeepers had set the stage for prognostication. ...

Article - Creature Feature; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 2/7/13

Howling for Your Love

Love finds its match with Critter Cupids

This Valentine’s Day, woo your love with chocolate, flowers and a critter cupid. That’s the advice of the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, D.C., whose animals are lending their images to a loveable fundraising campaign. Playing cupid this year are cuddling pandas, kissing seals, a Sumatran tiger, a red panda and a whole family of otters. Choose your Critter Cupid for $10 at www.subscribe.smithsonianmag.com/zoo. On February 14, your...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 1/24/13

1,000 Issues and Counting

Looking back by the hundreds that lead to Bay Weekly’s big K

In the culture of Polar Bear Plungers — about whom we write this week — our 1,000th issue puts us in the league of Super Plungers like Michelina Scotto, who return to the Bay’s chilling waters (about 41 degrees this time of year) every hour on the hour 24 times. One thousand issues means we’ve done the same thing often enough to have gotten good at it. If the 10,000-hour rule Malcolm Gladwell offers in his book Outliers is a true measure of mastery,...

Article - People; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 1/24/13

Stretching Your Comfort Zone ... Joining the Super...

For Michelina Scotto, raising $10,000 is easy. It’s the 24 hours of cold water that has her worried

For Michelina Scotto of Stevensville, the easy part is raising the $10,000 qualification fee for joining the Super Plunge Team of the 17th Annual MSP Polar Bear Plunge benefitting Special Olympics Maryland. So what if fundraising — including a Fire and Ice Party January 19 — cost the restaurateur, co-owner of Luna Blu in Annapolis and Rustico in Stevensville, more than she expects to raise? Raising money is what Scotto knows. Cold is what she...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 1/17/13

Embrace the New Year’s Spirit

Feeling energized and confident? Good thing. We’ve got work to do.

It seems to be working, and aren’t we glad. The great old stories of rising from darkness into light, all synched to the winter solstice of our northern hemisphere, held the day. The battle of myths was lost by the doomsayers who predicted time’s termination on the ancient Mayan calendar’s last day. Now 12/21/12 joins Y2K in the museum of failed prophecies. In and on earth, we’re all energized and confident, behaving as if we have...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 1/10/13

Which Way the Wind Blows

Forecasting this General Assembly’s environmental future

When your well runs dry — as Michelle Steel’s did, as you’ll read in this week’s feature story — you’re an outlier. In our part of the country, rural living is a luxury. Suddenly you’re paying for that luxury. When you live on county or city water, you’re part of a collective that shares the hidden cost of bringing this precious resource into your home in the country. When your well runs dry, you’re on your own. ...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 1/3/13

It’s a New Year

In 2013, anything is possible

Welcome back to the future! Don’t you love going though the tunnel and coming out on the other side? I find the exhilaration habit-forming. Fortunately, it’s annual. I go into the tunnel of year’s end gleefully, but I leave it dragging my feet against the re-emergence. By Thanksgiving, I’ve got the knack of the fast-aging year that still seems new to me. My three-month-at-a...