Bad

I found Julie Bykowicz's March 28 article about the Ehrlichs quite interesting up until the moment I saw one of the pictures that was chosen by the editors to accompany the article ("Ehrlich misses being in the arena"). Others in my family independently had the same reaction after seeing this picture. I would like to know how many other pictures taken of Kendel Ehrlich at work behind the microphone at the radio station were discarded before the editors chose the most unflattering one of all?

The Orioles have been, for the past season and a half, one of the most opportunistic teams in baseball, so it would not be fair for them to curse the fates for letting one promising opportunity slip away in a 5-4 loss to the Boston Red Sox. They can curse home plate umpire Jeff Nelson if they want, as he blew a call that led to a pair of Red Sox runs in a three-run fourth inning on Saturday. They can curse their own inability to put the hammer down on Boston pitcher John Lackey when they had a chance to get more out of a first-inning rally that might have made things a lot more comfortable for starting pitcher Freddy Garcia.

Off the top of his head, Herscheld Cooper can recall only one other storm - which he believes was in 1958 - that could rival what the state has seen the past five days. Back then, work crews didn't have the equipment to move the snow as they do now, and the 69-year-old Baltimore native remembers the event less for its intensity and more for how it crippled the city. "It wasn't real coordinated," Cooper reminisced as he smoked a cigar outside his senior apartment building.

Even as the Senate takes up the issue of immigration reform this week, Republicans are increasingly giving indications that the effort isn't likely to go very far. First, it was Sen. Marco Rubio's dance around the issue - repeatedly speaking out against the very bill he helped craft - and then it was the defection of another key Latino GOP member, Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho, who removed himself from the bipartisan group that was writing the House's version...

BAD: Or the Dumbing of America. By Paul Fussell. Summit Books. 201 pages. $19. WHAT is it that unnerves us in an expensive restaurant when a blow-dried person in an apron presumes intimacy by saying: "My name is Sandy and I'll be your server tonight"? Why does the recitation of the "specials" -- bloated with adjectives about the sauce slathered on them and the sensuous pliability of their fibers -- make us worry we're being taken?Finally, Paul Fussell explains this experience, and many others like it, in his new book, "BAD: Or the Dumbing of America."

It has been a busy few weeks for those of us in the Glass House Club who keep track of the bad behavior of others. Almost before we finished shaking our heads and tsk-tsking at Al Gore's purported bad massage table behavior, we had Lindsay Lohan's bad nail polish behavior and Mel Gibson's bad telephone behavior. Anyone concerned about the coarsening of the cultural conversation has got to admit that that horse has left the barn. We are now hip-deep in I-can't-believe-anyone-would-actually- do -that.

On the surface, it seems as if the stewards at Laurel Park received an unmistakably harsh message from their employer -- the Maryland Racing Commission -- last week:Wake up, and stop making bad calls.No one spoke those words publicly, but it seemed the board gave a pretty strong indication of how it felt about some of the stewards' recent decisions when it overturned three of their judgement calls.But that's not so, said Allan Levey, a member of the commission, who added that the other board members also felt that what happened was "an anomaly.

LOU DEPAZZO'S quietness has been very loud lately, which, if you haven't actually seen him, might make you wonder if the 63-year-old Democratic councilman from Dundalk is all right.Lou DePazzo -- he of the hair-trigger temper, the ill-advised quote, the crude aside and the firebrand speech -- hasn't said or done anything controversial in months.Last spring the Lou we thought we knew showed up at that big community meeting about the ACLU's lawsuit on behalf of Baltimore public-housing families, but even there he was pretty restrained, offering no repeat of his embarrassing 1994 performance at meetings on the Moving to Opportunity program.

GOOD ROGER SAT AT HIS WRITING TABLE early in the morning of New Year's Eve. He was dressed in white silk pajamas and a plum smoking jacket."Let me guess," Bad Roger said to him. "You're entering a Hugh Hefner look-alike contest."Good Roger didn't say a thing. Good Roger believes that if you can't say something nice about a person, you shouldn't say anything at all.That is only one reason Good Roger is such a pill."I suppose," Good Roger said, turning from the writing table and looking at Bad Roger, "that your garb is supposed to reflect your keen sense of savoir-faire?"

Bad Roger took a final glance at his notes, cleared his throat and looked directly into the TV camera."Attention!" he said. "Under the new rules of Republican America, you will stand up when I am speaking to you!"All over the country, Americans stood up.Good Roger remained flat on his back in bed, moaning softly to himself, something he has been doing ever since Tuesday night."Woe is us," he kept saying, "woe is us. The Bad Rogers everywhere have taken over the country."Good Roger is the decent, honest, compassionate side of me, the side that cares about the poor, the tired, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

A report late Wednesday that a top-secret court authorized the National Security Agency to collect the telephone records of millions of Verizon customers should raise serious concerns about the scope of the Obama administration's domestic surveillance program and the threat it poses to citizens' privacy. The fact that the government can secretly order communications firms to turn over massive amounts of potentially sensitive information about customers without their knowledge calls into question the administration's commitment to transparency and the ability of the special court charged with overseeing such requests to protect citizens' rights.

Anne Arundel County police say a prank that turned serious on Thursday resulted in one man being sent to the hospital for a gunshot wound - and another charged with second-degree assault. Police said they were called around 3:50 a.m. to a home in the 1300 block of Burton River Road in the Lothian area, where they found a man suffering from a gunshot wound to the lower torso. He did not have life-threatening injuries and was taken to Prince George's Hospital, police said. Police said that after collecting evidence and interviewing witnesses they determined that several people at the house all knew each other, and the victim, a 21-year-old man from Edgewater, was asleep when another man, apparently attempting to pull a prank, grabbed a .40 caliber handgun, which police said he believed to be a BB gun, and fired one round at the victim while he slept, striking him in the buttocks area.

On May 24, my wife and I embarked on our first cruise aboard the Royal Caribbean ship Grandeur of the Seas to celebrate our sixth wedding anniversary. Having deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as a member of the Maryland Army National Guard, I had been overseas for our fifth anniversary, and this year I booked a cruise out of Baltimore to help make up for it. I was a little hesitant to do so. Last year, while deployed to Afghanistan, I booked a cruise for my two weeks' leave. I planned to meet my wife in Barcelona, Spain, and we would embark on our first cruise aboard the Costa Concordia for a one-week tour of the Mediterranean.

Syrian President Bashar Assad's brutal war against his domestic opponents has taken some 70,000 lives so far and reduced much of the country to rubble, yet there's no sign either side has gained a decisive advantage in the two-year-old conflict. The European Union's decision this week to lift its ban against arming the Syrian rebels is ostensibly aimed at prodding the combatants into a negotiated settlement, but the effect could be just the opposite if it encourages both sides to dig in their heels even deeper.

Many predicted the 1980s crack epidemic would create a generation of children with major developmental and behavioral problems, but a new study found much of that hype hasn't panned out. Researchers from the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine found that the effects of crack cocaine in utero had only small effects on adolescent behavior, cognition and school performance. Crack is a more addictive, crystalized form of cocaine that is smoked for a intense high.

Whether you're barbecuing in Baltimore, in Bel Air or on the bay this Memorial Day, you will pay more for staple foods because our federal government continues to pit food versus fuel. Thanks to an unworkable federal energy policy, prices for animal feed have soared, burdening those farmers and ranchers that raise livestock and poultry, along with the companies that process them, with rising production costs. In addition to forcing farms and food producers to cut jobs or close their doors, the increased costs are reflected in the expanding grocery bills of every American.

Bad Roger pulled on his St. Louis Stallions helmet and began warbling his new song:"Meet me in St. Louie, Louie, meet me at the fair!"I'll be watching local football, while Baltimore tears its hair!"

Good Roger threw down his newspaper in disgust."This is an outrage to journalism!" he shouted."Pipe down!" Bad Roger said from deep in his Barcalounger. "I'm trying to watch women's weight lifting on the Olympics Triplecast.""Since when did we get the Triplecast?" Good Roger asked."Since I found your credit card in the couch cushions," Bad Roger replied.Good Roger is the decent side of me, the side that went into journalism to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.Bad Roger went into journalism for the free felt tip pens.

Two people were seriously injured after a fire was intentionally set in a Family Dollar store in East Baltimore on Wednesday morning, Baltimore fire officials said. The people were taken to a hospital after suffering from smoke inhalation and minor burns, fire Capt. Roman Clark said. The fire was reported in a Family Dollar store at 2020 Harford Road at about 11:40 a.m. A suspect has not yet been apprehended for the suspected arson, Clark said. The building suffered at least $10,000 in damage, in addition to the loss of $6,000 worth of the store's contents, Clark said.

Years ago it was unthinkable that smart, ambitious and college-educated young people would have trouble finding entry level work ("Slow start," May 12). Today, this youthful demographic has been simultaneously dumped on a shrinking employment market and also burdened with horrendous student loans. To me, it's just another example of our country's war on the middle class. Considering this glut of a highly trained, highly motivated generation, why is there a need to add immigration reform to the mix as it will only increase competition?