Features (All)

Article - People; by Aries Matheos - 3/10/11

Gone to the Dogs

For her 10th birthday, Maggie Strandquist asked her guests to help her help animals in need

For the big One-Oh, Maggie Strandquist of Arnold said no to presents for herself and yes to presents for the animals at the SPCA of Anne Arundel County. “I didn’t think I needed anything, so I thought who else needed things,” Maggie reports. “I love animals and really wanted to help them, so I thought of the SPCA.” Maggie was quick to think of the SPCA because she and a friend had already organized a Girl Scout walkathon at...

Article - News; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 3/10/11

The Magician

Anne Arundel County Public Library’s
new administrator, Skip Auld,
is learning to pull dollars
out of thin air

Skip Auld will have to be a magician to pull all he wants out of Anne Arundel County Public Library’s incredible shrinking budget. Anne Arundel was a big step up for Auld, who came here in early November from running the Durham County public library system, about half the size of Anne Arundel County, in North Carolina. Auld’s big promotion came with a bigger problem. Total library funding has fallen 16 percent since 2007,...

Article - News; by Dennis Doyle - 3/3/11

A Grass Roots Petition to Ban Gill Nets

With Chesapeake Bay the striped bass nursery of the Atlantic, our actions have an impact far beyond Maryland shores

Jerome Collier of Severna Park has initiated an online petition (http://www.petitiononline.com/yrrejmaj) to halt the use of gill nets. Collier says his goal is not to stop commercial fishing but to urge Maryland Department of Natural Resources to shift this rockfish allocation to a more manageable method of harvesting. Gill nets have been prone to abuse, and hence outlawed, almost everywhere they have been used commercially. One remarkable thing about this petition, other...

Article - People; by Sandra Lee Anderson - 3/3/11

Citizens of the World

Six Chesapeake volunteers tell how the 50-year-old Peace Corps changed their lives

Walking through Gaziantep, Turkey, meant keeping an eye on any young man walking toward me. At the instant he was about to bump me, I did a quick sidestep. In that conservative eastern country 45 years ago, this was nothing to worry about: just a young man’s trick. My sidestep was one small adjustment Peace Corps volunteers make to live by the rules of a foreign culture. I’m one of 200,000 Americans who has volunteered in 139 countries since the Peace Corps...

Article - Creature Feature; by Diana Beechener - 2/24/11

This Week’s Creature Feature: Wild Birthday...

DC Cupcakes gives you a sweet reason to Go Bananas

Eleven-year-old Kwame and 9-year-old Kojo celebrated their birthdays with cupcakes. As part of Georgetown Cupcakes’ reality show on TLC, DC Cupcakes, the sister-owned business, delivered a giant gorilla sculpture, comprised of cupcakes, to the National Zoo where the two male western lowland gorillas were celebrating their big days. Sadly, gorillas can’t get the real sweet treat, so zookeepers gave them an approximation of Georgetown Cupcakes’ red velvet...

Article - Places; by Diana Beechener - 2/24/11

Black History On a Street Where You Live

A neighborhood walk can be a history lesson

In honor of Black History Month, Bay Weekly tracks down unsung African Americans behind some street signs. In our capital, many streets are footprints for the African American communities that developed in the late 1800s. In Annapolis, King’s Apostle Holiness Church sits at the mouth of Kirby Lane, watching over a sleepy street dotted with residences. No more than 500 feet in length, the small stretch of pavement is named after a country teacher....

Article - Places; by Matt Driscoll - 2/24/11

Morsels of Sustenance

In lean times, two Annapolis black history memorials win much-needed state support

In these times of withered wallets and skeletal budgets, African-American history has scored in state money. Two Annapolis landmarks — the Alex Haley-Kunta Kinte Memorial at City Dock and the Maynard-Burgess House on Duke of Gloucester Street — are slated for money toward renovations and repairs. Their $36,000 and $100,000 respectively are fractions of fractions of the state’s $425 million budget proposal for Anne Arundel County. But in a time when most state money is...

Article - People; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 2/24/11

Chronicler of Presidents

In his fifth book, Family of Freedom, Chesapeake Neighbor Ken Walsh introduces us to Presidents and their African American servants in the White House

To keep up with presidents, you have to share their drive and stamina. Understand that, and you are getting to know Ken Walsh, one of the shrinking corps of reporters whose job is telling the rest of us about the plans, plots and policies of the occupants of the White House. Walsh has so much drive and stamina that, after a full day writing about presidents for US News & World Report, he comes home to what he calls “my second full-time job,” writing books...

Article - Creature Feature; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 2/17/11

Love is in the Water

Oyster babies abound

Chesapeake Bay oysters were amorous last summer, and the seed they sent forth willy-nilly into the water has set into abundant spat. Natural Resources researches examining the intimate lives of 53 key oyster bars last fall found spat — or oyster babies — about five times higher than the 25-year median. Instead of 16, spat count per bushel was nearly 80, the overall highest since 1997. Oyster babies were most plentiful in saltier waters of the...

Article - Things; by Diana Beechener - 2/17/11

Goosey, Goosey Gander, Where Do You Wander?

One reader’s quest to gander a gaggle sent us to the experts

On a recent trip down to my pier, I found a gaggle of interlopers monopolizing the planks and moorings. Geese. Loud, messy and surprisingly aggressive long-necked Canadas were using my pier like a roadside rest area. I was happy they’d be on their way north in a few weeks. Reader Bill Seabrook doesn’t share my uncharitable attitude toward these migrating fowl. He wrote in to find out why his recent birding walks in Anne Arundel and Calvert...