Letter from the Editor (All)

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 5/10/12

Ask the Right Question

And you hit the jackpot

Imagining a question that works like a Rorschach test is the secret of success for stories like this week’s feature, Mothers at Work. You know you’ve got it when you and your test subjects spill out answers the way Maryland gamblers are hoping slot machines spit out quarters. We hit the jackpot this time. Here’s how it happened. Mothering choices have been topics in more than one presidential campaign. This time...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 5/3/12

The Hound Dogs of Journalism

We’re happiest when we’re following a scent

Writing for newspapers is one of the best jobs in the world. If routine, long hours and butt in the chair, fingers on the keyboard — who wouldn’t rather be out fishing, or boating or gardening? — lull me into forgetting how lucky I am, I don’t forget for long. Every week proves that truth anew, and this week has stepped to the head of the proof class. Mine is a job that lets — no, demands — me to follow my curiosity...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 4/26/12

The Locally Grown Movement Sprouts Feathers

Annapolis’ new chicken ordinance is part of a bigger trend

The census of creatures in our neighborhoods is adding new categories. Annapolitan chickens are the latest, as this week Mayor Josh Cohen signed an ordinance welcoming small flocks of hens, but no roosters, on a three-year trial. Of course there are conditions, thoughtfully debated by the City Council. You’ll need permission from all homeowners whose property abuts yours; if you’re a renter, your own property owner must agree. If that goes...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 4/19/12

Many Hands Make Light Work

Hundreds have helped us keep Bay Weekly in your hands these 958 issues

Nine-hundred fifty-eight issues in 19 years would be heavy lifting, were it not for all the people who’ve carried part of the load of Bay Weekly since our birth as New Bay Times on Earth Day, April 22, 1993. Each year at this time, I page back through our 19 leather-bound volume books. Each one of them making heavy lifting — not only for all the newsprint pressed in them, nor for all the words typed on that yellowing paper. The memories are heavier still, revived...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 4/12/12

Who Needs More Bad News?

There’s more to April than National Anxiety Month

I could tell you that the General Assembly, which adjourned this week, managed to spin straw into gold and everybody’s happy. But you wouldn’t believe me, because you know that even in fairy tales there’s a heavy price levied on too much cleverness. Truth is that nobody’s very happy with the results. In this Assembly, one diner’s meat has been another’s poison. If you were blown over by the prospect...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 4/5/12

Litter Bugs: It’s Time to Catch ’em, Ticket ’em and...

April is Potomac Watershed Litter Enforcement Month

The results of my Fairhaven neighbors’ trudgery lined the roads: piles of tires, rusted bed springs and auto parts, heavy old televisions and fat black sacks stuffed with litter. Anne Arundel County hauled the loot away, and our roads and fields were blessedly clean — for about 24 hours. Then the litter showers resumed, starting with a sprinkling of fast-food trash and stepping up, within the week, to more tires. They, like the mattress and television and couch...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 3/29/12

I need Home and Garden helpers

Mother Nature’s Got the Jump on Me
You and I will find them in this Bay Weekly

“I’m in energy,” said the woman seated to my right at the long table where she and I, strangers heretofore, made conversation. “Ah, so you’re following in Mother Nature’s footsteps,” I replied. Magnetic energy — and no, not the kind new age healers use — was my table companion’s current favorite energy source, followed by geothermal. Wood, coal, hydrokinetic, atomic, nuclear,...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 3/22/12

Maryland Day: I Wouldn’t Miss It

Here’s why you shouldn’t either

In a state as old as Maryland — 378 years — historic tourism is big business. It’s like shows and shopping in New York, architecture in Chicago and monuments in D.C. Unless history is your hobby, however, you’re likely to leave Maryland’s many historic sites to the kids, who do them at school. Or save them for visiting friends and family. Maryland Day — the subject of this week’s special issue — gives you...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 3/8/12

The Circles of Our Lives

Where we share ourselves is where we make ourselves

BGE has been wielding the grim reaper’s scythe in our neighborhood. Not only limbs aspiring to electric lines but whole trees have fallen. The wounds are still fresh. You can read the story of many a tree’s life in the map of concentric rings exposed on the raw stump. The Fairhaven communities will be walking the roads this Saturday on their annual litter pick-up. Those activist neighbors are one of my near circles. Like a...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 3/1/12

Readers Reply

Your say on taxes and the money problem

Where’s the money going to come from? If you say no new taxes, what are you willing to give up? To those questions, posed in my Editor’s Letter of February 23, readers had lots to say. Here are your replies, edited for succinctness. Don’t Forget the Teachers Steve Fletcher, Severna Park When you talk about police officers and firefighters scraping by while risking their lives, please include teachers. Whenever I write...