Letter from the Editor (All)

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 10/14/10

Fascination: That’s What Bay Weekly Promises Every...

What fascinates us comes to define us

What fascinates you? I’ve built a career of getting people to tell me their answer to that question. Over the years, I’ve learned that people are fascinated by many things, often things you or I might call odd. Like stretch-and-sew sewing. That was the short-term fascination of one dear old friend whose obsessions, I’m glad to say, changed frequently. I’m glad because I’d hate to sum up Sue’s life by saying she hand-made T-shirts. Because what...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 10/7/10

From Clay Street to the Sailboat Show

Telling the stories of a city at work

“Oh my Lord, thank you. I never thought I’d live to see this day,” gushed Mrs. Beatrice P. Smith, 89, of Annapolis, after throwing her arms around former President Jimmy Carter on Pleasant Street, just around the corner from — but out of sight of — downtown Annapolis. October 5 was the kind of day that evokes enthusiasm. The 86-year-old former president and his wife Rosalynn Carter were not only visiting the Clay Street neighborhood. They were also bringing...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 9/30/10

Diet for a Healthy Bay

U.S. EPA says Stop spoiling the Chesapeake on junk food!

If pollutants were calories, our Chesapeake would be obese, short of breath and diabetic. So it’s good news that the Environmental Protection Agency’s new plan to require other states to follow Maryland’s lead in counting — and limiting — the junk they’re feeding the Chesapeake. In an historic front-page announcement, the EPA flunked the long-awaited plans of four states — Virginia, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Delaware and New York — on improving...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 9/23/10

Candidates Need Newspapers

If they want to win

Bay Weekly Primary Primer helped you get to know the candidates crowding this year’s race to the general election. Even more important, it helped you cast your vote. Or would-be vote, if you were locked out of primary voting because of your political independence or residence. That’s what you’ve told me, by letter, phone, email and in person. Even Virginians — many of them weekend boaters who pick up Bay Weekly at the businesses around their marinas —...

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 —...

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

Read It Now

Or weep when you see who you’ve hired

It’s downright terrifying how much control we give away on Election Day. Scarier still is how few of us bother with these decisions. What we’re really doing when we go out to vote is hiring people for a job with vast responsibility over our public and private lives. Everybody we hire to work for us in both county boards and councils and the Maryland General Assembly will be deciding how to spend our money. We give our county hires huge control over how we’ll live: how...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 9/2/10

Farewell Summer Vacation

It’s back to work we go

A holiday is always welcome, no matter when it falls. But many of them seem to fall as randomly as the leaves that will soon illustrate for us the meaning of deciduous. New Year’s Day, for example. What business does it have falling in the middle of winter, when nothing is new? And if in winter it must be, why not on the equinox, when the new year really does begin with sunlight’s slow enlargement? Christmas, too. Midwinter seems an unlikely time for the birth of the redeemer of...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 8/26/10

Why Do We Love Them So?

Despite embarrassment, indignity and mess, animals are our family

The animals in our lives can get us in trouble. There’s a story circulating through the Bay Weekly office, and possible beyond, about Nipper’s appearance at a family picnic. It wasn’t Nipper’s family picnic. Alerted at distance by the aromas of food, he broke away from his walk with his own family and made for the party. So fast did he run that no one had seen him before he bounded onto a picnic bench, stretched giraffe-like up to the table and stuck his nose into a bowl...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 8/19/10

Summer’s Not Over Yet

So don’t quit trying to have too much fun

On Tuesday, August 24, school resumes in both Anne Arundel and Calvert counties, and it’s back to work for not only those tens of thousands of students but also for principals, teachers, counselors, librarians, cafeteria workers, custodians and school bus drivers. For as long as my soon-to-be 10-year-old grandson Jack Knoll lives in Anne Arundel County, where he was born — or at least until he graduates high school — he’s likely to celebrate his August 25 birthday in the...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 8/12/10

Extra, Extra! Read all about it!

Bay Weekly’s new and improved online edition gives you a voice

I’m writing these words on a screen, and it’s more likely than ever that’s where you’ll be reading them. Not that newspaper readers have abandoned print pages in their run to e-journalism. Millions are still print readers: 385 million people buy a newspaper each week, meaning we print-makers have, conservatively, one billion weekly readers. Count me among them. It’s no doubt conditioning, but I love reading a newspaper. Having the known world delivered each day to me in five or six sections...