Articles by Sandra Olivetti Martin

Springtime in Maryland

Dress warmly to explore our shared history

With spring and winter still grappling in their annual wrestling match, I’m hoping the gentler season will gain the upper hand with its official arrival at 7:02am March 20. In truth, I’m longing for a nice spell of sunny warmth. For spring is clearly inching into control. Look around and you see the truth: Nature’s palette is brightening with sap greens, lemon yellows and ultramarine violets. Nature’s music is lilting with bird and frog song. ...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin; 3/21/13

Shad: Our Failing Fish

Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s 2012 Grade F (9 on a scale of 70)

Inspired this time of year by the earliest signs of spring to carry on their ancient species, shad don’t know they’re failing the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s survival test. They’re just doing what comes naturally. That’s returning from ocean to Chesapeake to the river headwaters of their birth. To fish used to cold oceanic waters, 40 means spring. When water temperatures top that mark,...

Article - News; by Sandra Olivetti Martin; 3/14/13

What’s the Score?

Grading the Bay’s health and Maryland’s congressional delegation

Sister Ignatius enters her final week at Bay Theatre Company, but Sisters Alphonse, Clotilda and Extrema cast an eternal shadow in my memory. I suspect it’s the image of numbers inked in their neat hands that makes me to this day averse to report cards. My grades were pretty good, in the 90s (except in arithmetic). But what we endured to earn those grades, 50 of us in a single classroom presided over by a nun whose patience had long since ended! ...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin; 3/14/13

Farewell James Hoage

Bay Weekly wasn’t many issues old when the first letter from J.A. Hoage, Severna Park, arrived. It was a duplicate, not an original, for letters from James Hoage fell like rain on every newspaper covering Anne Arundel County and his larger area of interest, state, national and global politics. I’m sure it was photocopied, but in my mind’s eye Hoage’s letters are mimeographed, as his handouts to his Severna Park High School and Severn School students would once have...

Article - People; by Sandra Olivetti Martin; 3/14/13

No New Nukes at Calvert

UniStar Nuclear is too French for Uncle Sam

Local cheering for a third nuclear reactor at Calvert Cliffs has seemed misplaced. The economics of nuclear power are next to impossible these days with the federal government no longer able to provide loan guarantees and cheap natural gas the happening new energy source. Then there’s Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster two years ago that rekindled safety concerns. But the overriding issue here is that UniStar Nuclear, which...

Article - News; by Sandra Olivetti Martin; 3/14/13

A Few Thousand Here, A Few Million There

Many cash streams flow into cleaning up the Bay

Stormwater doesn’t stop running, especially in a Chesapeake season Noah could appreciate. Neither does money stop flowing. Thus Maryland’s Board of Public Works — governor Martin O’Malley, comptroller Peter Franchot and treasurer Nancy K. Kopp — still have money to spend. Last week, they spent $16 million of several continually refilling pools, including the Bay Restoration Fund and the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Nonpoint Source Fund...

Article - News; by Sandra Olivetti Martin; 3/14/13

The Lion and The Lamb Play Tug of War

This week, the lion is winning

I’m stuck here in the middle with you. In this season of uncertainty, the good company is welcome. Supposedly Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan were stuck in the middle of record negotiations when they wrote those lyrics, recorded by their band Stealers Wheel in 1972. They could have been writing about March, the month that bears the double character of lion and lamb. As I write, the lion is roaring. The white lamb-...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin; 3/7/13

Sandra Olivetti Martin

Here’s to Magic Weisner, Laura Neuman and the power of possibility

The Odd Chance In 2002, a Maryland dark horse named Magic Weisner came within a half-length of stealing the Preakness Stakes from front runner War Emblem. Local small-scale trainer Nancy Alberts believed in Magic, who she named for the vet who saved the magically resilient foal’s life. That horse could run. Cheering with the rest of Maryland, I followed the story to Laurel Racetrack, where I interviewed Alberts and Magic. Odd chance has been again...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin; 2/28/13

One Whale of a Puzzle

Crossword creator Ben Tausig wins Orca award for Best Crossword

When your favorite movie wins an Oscar, you can say I was there — virtually. You’ve gotten closer than that in the world of puzzles if you’ve matched wits with Ben Tausig, winner of the Orca for Best Crossword of 2012. Like the Oscars, the Orcas are awarded by insiders, the followers of Sam Donaldson’s blog, Diary of a Crossword Fiend. Tausig’s March 28, 2012 puzzle, published in The Onion A.V. Club, won...

Article - News; by Sandra Olivetti Martin; 2/28/13

How We Think — And Write — About Race

Reflections on black history and a Polish barber

My Monday morning began with the news that loyal reader Chuck Erskine was mad at me, at Bay Weekly and at cruciverbalist Ben Tausig. Please inform Ben Tausig that the pages of the Bay Weekly are no place for his ethnic bigotry. The clue for 10 down in the crossword puzzle in Vol. xxi, No. 6 [Switching Sides] is an outrage. What purpose is served by using the adjective [Polish] before dude? Would Ben use his own ethnicity in an unnecessary and belittling manner?...

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin; 2/21/13