Closure

The latest in a string of reports describing serious problems at Owings Mills' Rosewood Center may lead the state to close the long-troubled institution for the developmentally disabled, key lawmakers said yesterday. A report released this month by the state's Office of Health Care Quality detailed numerous findings of neglectful and potentially dangerous treatment of some of the facility's 165 mentally retarded residents and a general failure to comply with federal and state standards of appropriate care.

Preston Trucking Co. Inc., a 67-year-old regional hauler based on the Eastern Shore that employs about 5,000 people nationwide, abruptly announced yesterday that it will shut down and lay off all its employees, after lenders said they would no longer finance the company's operating losses.Employees were told yesterday that all of them will be laid off within three weeks, many of them immediately.Preston plans to deliver the cargo still in its system, then permanently close its doors."We had no warning; it's been a shock to everyone here," said Ed Oldenburg, a 10-year employee working at the company's yard off Ordnance Road in Glen Burnie.

BOSTON -- I don't remember when the words first began to echo in the hollow aftermath of loss. But now it seems that every public or private death, every moment of mourning is followed by a call for ''healing,'' a cry for ''closure.''In November, driving home in my car just 24 hours after three Kentucky students were shot to death in a school prayer meeting, I heard a Paducah minister talk about ''healing.'' The three teen-agers had yet to be buried, and he said it was time to begin the healing process, as if there were an antibiotic to be applied at the first sign of pain among the survivors.

AMERICA'S support for capital punishment slips significantly when people are asked whether a killer should, instead of death, receive a sentence of life without parole.People want justice to the extent that is possible, and the death penalty accomplishes nothing more for society than a certain life sentence does.Even proponents concede that capital punishment fails miserably as a deterrent to would-be killers. Only the executed person is really prevented from killing again. Life without parole is just as effective.

The county liquor board has fined a popular Westminster restaurant for serving a bottle of beer to an underage police cadet in June.In a written decision issued this week, the Board of License Commissioners fined the owners of Johansson's $250. In issuing the fine, the board noted that David E. Johansson, the licensee, has had an exemplary record in policing his establishment on West Main Street.During an Aug. 11 hearing, Carrie Ann Wright, a 20-year-old police cadet, said she walked into Johansson's on June 19 and went to a downstairs pub, where she was served without being asked for proof of her age.According to testimony, a crowd at the door surrounded doormen who were checking ages of patrons.

Closure? Yeah, right. Folks sitting in the family section at the TWA Flight 800 hearings in Baltimore hear the word all the time. On television, in newspapers, from reporters and sometimes friends and colleagues. One fellow said his doctor even asked him: Had he found this elusive thing, this thing we Americans call "closure"? The word comes up often when relatives of the 230 people killed in the crash meet. The word "closure" lands on their ears like fingernails scraping a blackboard."As far as I'm concerned, let's eliminate that from the American vocabulary," says Judy Teller, whose 39-year-old twin brother, Joseph Lychner, lost his wife and two daughters when the Boeing 747 crashed in the Atlantic Ocean off Long Island on July 17, 1996.

I have always been fascinated by animals. I know it sounds a bit crazy, but my favorite pastime is to guess which animal a person resembles.My ex-husband hated it when I described people this way -- but that could be because he looked like a lizard. As for me, I've always believed that I look like a cat or maybe even a tiger.I am looking for a dress to wear to a benefit for a local pet shelter. My ex-husband still sits on the board, and he'll be there. I would love to find a dress that really accentuates my sexy feline qualities.

I WAS THREE YEARS OLD when Eva Peron died, and I can't say I remember too much of the event. I have a vague memory of rain and long lines of people around the Plaza del Congreso waiting to go in and catch a glimpse of her casket. Ah, and my father muttering under his breath something like: ''. . . about time!''What I do remember is three years later, in 1955, when Juan (''El Pocho'') Peron, his regime under attack on several fronts for corruption and scandal (he was accused, among other things, of being a pedophile)

GAZA -- The Palestinians call this the "siege," evoking a medieval image of a desperate people cut off and surrounded, watching their supplies dwindle.The Israeli closure of the Gaza Strip has brought a modern update of that scene. Palestinians cannot get out, few supplies can come in, food is short, money is scarce. For lack of medical care, people have died.Israeli officials say it will not end soon."Israel will put constant pressure on Arafat until he sobers up and fights terror seriously," Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres said last week, referring to Yasser Arafat, the president of the Palestinian authority.

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers from across the nation, including Maryland, lined up yesterday to make last-minute appeals for the survival of military installations the Pentagon wants to close this year.After seeking reprieves for six threatened facilities in Maryland, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski said: "Now, may the force be with us."Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes, who opened the Maryland presentation to the commission on military base closures, said: "We think there is a strong case for each of these facilities."

State hasn't made its case The problem with the proposed closure of the Upper Shore Community Mental Health Center is that Health Secretary John Colmers has failed to make the case that shutting this facility will provide less restrictive care at lower cost. First, the secretary gave the wrong patient profile to the Board of Public Works at the time of the closure vote, leaving the impression the facility was just a processing center rather than an important part of the Eastern Shore community.

A proposal by Gov. Martin O'Malley's administration to shutter a state-run psychiatric hospital as a cost-saving measure has come under increased scrutiny, and a top fiscal officer questioned whether the closure should move forward. The Board of Public Works, a three-member body including O'Malley, Comptroller Peter Franchot and Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp, unanimously approved the closure of the Upper Shore Community Mental Health Center in Chestertown in August as part of several hundred million dollars in state budget cuts.

Jan. 13, 2007. That's when Baltimore's rage over the departure of the Colts to Indianapolis flickered out. If you're wondering why that flame hasn't been relit as today's Ravens game against the Colts in Indianapolis has approached, the events of that evening are why. The silence - about Bob Irsay, Mayflower vans, William Hudnut, betrayal, hatred, vengeance and closure - has been deafening. Granted, it has also been refreshing. Even at the time, it was hardly a unanimous feeling in town that the tale of that snowy March morning in 1984 had to be retold or that it had to be used to whip the city into yet another fury toward the team with the beloved horseshoe.

The city's Department of Transportation has extended the closure of Howard Street between Lombard and Conway Streets until next Thursday. City workers are rebuilding the intersection near where Interstate 395 ends at the Camden Yards baseball stadium. Officials are encouraging motorists to use Sharp Street before the closure of Howard Street or take Lombard Street to southbound Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard as an alternative to I-395.

The latest in a string of reports describing serious problems at Owings Mills' Rosewood Center may lead the state to close the long-troubled institution for the developmentally disabled, key lawmakers said yesterday. A report released this month by the state's Office of Health Care Quality detailed numerous findings of neglectful and potentially dangerous treatment of some of the facility's 165 mentally retarded residents and a general failure to comply with federal and state standards of appropriate care.

Shattered windows of the Domino Sugar plant looked out over South Baltimore last night after an explosion, so powerful that it shook buildings across the Inner Harbor, forced the refinery's evacuation and closure - possibly for days. Fire officials said the blast did not appear to have done any significant damage to structures at the plant, an integral part of the city skyline for 85 years. The explosion and fires, on the sixth and ninth floors of a building where sugar is refined and packaged, were confined to a dust collection system, officials said.

Maryland legislators are moving toward passage of a bill that would require the state's health department to develop a plan for the Rosewood Center, a state-run facility for disabled adults where investigators have documented numerous cases of residents being harmed. The bill, which originally would have forced the closure of Rosewood within three years, has been rewritten to require that the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene review each patient's situation and develop a cost analysis and timetable for transitioning him or her to the community or to other facilities.

Baltimore City Councilman James B. Kraft called yesterday for a federal investigation into the death of Robert Lee Clay, a prominent local businessman and advocate for minority businesses who died of a bullet wound in his Reservoir Hill office last year. Kraft, chairman of the Council's Public Safety Subcommittee, said late last night during a public hearing on the issue that he would formally request the FBI to review the state medical examiner's ruling that Clay committed suicide on May 16, 2005.

Nick Nolte's life has been so tumultuous it seems amazing that the actor isn't seriously debilitated -- or even dead. But despite the multiple marriages and affairs, bouts with alcoholism and time spent in rehab, Nolte, 64, continues to prove that he is one of our finest film actors, a compelling presence no matter what the role or movie. At an interview, he also looked craggily handsome and quite elegant, dressed head-to-toe in a fashionable black outfit, his silver hair and goatee neatly trimmed.

The House Appropriations Committee overwhelmingly voted down a last-ditch effort yesterday to keep open the state's psychiatric hospital in Crownsville. The bill would have required further study of closing Crownsville Hospital Center and delayed its closure -- likely until at least June 1, 2006. The bill by Del. David G. Boschert, a Crownsville Republican, also has been referred to the Health and Government Operations Committee, but its fate likely is sealed, said Del. John R. Leopold, an Anne Arundel County Republican who is a co-sponsor of the bill.