Today we look at a few problems - and offer a few solutions. It's only right. You can't just sit around and gripe about stuff, and groan that things will never change. You have to flick on your brain and come up with solutions. That's what Einstein did, and if Einstein could do it, trust me, anyone can.
Problem: Blue crabs have been in decline in the Chesapeake Bay to such an extent that the governor of Maryland asked the U.S. commerce secretary to declare the bay fishery a federal disaster.
Solution I: Do exactly what the state plans to do: shorten the harvest season and reduce the harvest of female crabs.
Solution II: Go above and beyond what scientists say is necessary and impose a complete moratorium on the harvest of all crabs for a year, just to see what happens.
Solution III: Hatch baby crabs at the University of Maryland's Biotechnology Institute and figure out how to grow them to harvest size in ponds on farms. Train watermen in crab aquaculture. They can harvest wild crabs for part of the year, tend to farm-raised another.
Solution IV: Drop the crab cake as Maryland's signature dish and replace it with spaghetti alla carbonara.
Problem: Thomas V. Mike Miller III, son of the president-for-life of the Maryland Senate, says people question his qualifications to be a Maryland District Court judge and complain of nepotism because of his dad. "It's happened with everything I have tried to do in life," he said the other day as a controversy swirled about his judicial nomination. "It's always because I'm Mike Miller's son."
Solution I: Younger Miller moves to another state and applies for a judgeship.
Solution II: Elder Miller, who's been Senate president for 22 years, retires, giving the kid a chance to be a judge without all the snarky political questions.
Solution III: Younger Miller opens a crab farm.
Problem: A panel of international climate experts says global sea levels will rise up to 27 inches by the year 2100 and, based on that, the National Wildlife Federation predicts that more than half of the beaches on Maryland's Eastern Shore will be destroyed in the next 100 years.
Solution I: Congress bans gas-powered lawn mowers and requires every property owner in the United States to plant enough trees to offset their carbon footprint by 2012.
Solution II: Have the Army Corps of Engineers move Ocean City to Frostburg.
