Moonlighting, anyone?
Annapolis Alderman George O. Kelley Sr. showed up at the last city council meeting in his security guard uniform, cutting quite a large figure.
Kelley, a recently converted Republican who is challenging Democratic Mayor Ellen O. Moyer in this fall's mayoral election, is an ex-police officer who owns and operates a security firm with his son.
Business must be too brisk to change clothes for a part-time City Hall night gig.
-- Jamie Stiehm
City's version of bloody Scotland?
When Baltimore City Council members Helen L. Holton and Kenneth N. Harris Sr. decided to fully support the publicly financed convention center hotel proposed by Mayor Martin O'Malley, Councilman Keiffer J. Mitchell Jr. said he felt like Mel Gibson in the movie Braveheart.
Say what?
Bear with us.
In the movie, the 13th-century Scottish rebel, William Wallace, leads a rebellion against English rulers. But Wallace is betrayed by his own people and winds up being disemboweled on a rack in an English castle. His last word, which he famously screamed, was "Freedom!"
OK, back to Mitchell. Harris, like Mitchell, had been an opponent of the $305 million hotel. Holton had offered only tentative support.
So, when he learned from a reporter of their shifts to full support, Mitchell said he felt as though he had been splayed on a rack outside City Hall, screaming: "No publicly financed hotel!"
-- Doug Donovan
Fluid Movement doused by storm
A recent performance of Postcards from the Deep End: The Flurry Family Vacation, a water ballet by the Baltimore art group Fluid Movement, ended earlier than expected because of a common holiday problem: inclement weather.
The show chronicled the Flurry family's memories of escapes past, present and imaginary. On Aug. 5, however, a group of synchronized swimmers gamely portrayed Niagara Falls in the outdoor pool in South Baltimore's Riverside Park under threatening storm clouds.
The audience grew noticeably nervous when the still-swimming team pulled out the props -- large black umbrellas -- as the first bolts of lightning flashed behind them.
However, the swimmers finished their number before the first drops started to fall. The group then announced a rain delay (and later cancellation) before injury or electrocution could occur.
-- Liz F. Kay
Circular reasoning in Essex
