"Frank's steady employment on Monday is not going to happen anymore, but he'll still be a part of the WBAL radio team," Kiernan said. "We'll be using Frank in different ways. ... We haven't cut his head off. We still love the guy."
Kiernan said the station is trying to "shake it up a little bit." Eliminating DeFilippo's fixed slot will give WBAL "more flexibility on Mondays to do different things"
Executive rodent watch
Somebody has been sneaking into John Leopold's office and sniffing around for ... Scandal? Dirt?
No, cheese.
A mouse appeared recently in the Anne Arundel County exec's office. Not just in the executive suite, mind you, but right in Leopold's personal space.
Later, there were sightings down the hall.
"We're not sure if it's the same mouse or his buddies," spokesman David Abrams said.
"Rabbie the Cat (short for Francois Rabelais) may be called in to take care of this," Abrams e-mailed me last week. "Or Dora the Dog, who would probably play with the mouse to death."
Rabbie, if you're wondering, is named for a French Renaissance writer known for bawdy works of fiction. Dora is no cultural slouch, either. The black Lab hails from Wild Goose Kennels in Federalsburg, the same place President Clinton got Buddy.
Despite those highfalutin connections, Leopold's pets would work for free and, therefore, not violate the county's hiring freeze.
But it seems their services might not be needed. At last report, the trap in Leopold's office was empty, but two mice had been caught elsewhere in the building.
"[N]o sightings since," Abrams said. "He told Rabbie to stand down."
$5,000 up, 8 pounds down
Back in mid-November, I wrote how Anthony McCarthy had launched a hunger strike, vowing that he'd consume nothing but water until the drug recovery program I Can't We Can had raised $50,000.
Is he still starving?
"I fasted for 14 days and only drank water," the WEAA radio host and I Can't We Can staffer said. "Every now and then a soda was slipped in."
Over those two weeks, the organization raised a little over $5,000, far short of McCarthy's goal. But the diabetic said he was too dizzy and too much of "a mess" to go on.
Even so, McCarthy said he was pleased that many people stepped up to donate to the organization, which remains in tough financial shape but is determined to keep its doors open.
There was another upside.
"I lost 8 pounds," McCarthy said.
That's it?
After two weeks without food?
"My fat is nice and entrenched and was in no hurry to go anywhere."
