Door

Members of Baltimore's historic preservation commission have been summoned to a closed-door meeting Monday at which, some preservationists say, the board members will be asked to oust the commission's director. Board members and preservationists say efforts are under way to remove Kathleen Kotarba, who has served for decades as the executive director of the Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation. "We heard from multiple folks that the closed session was going to be to take a vote to fire Kathleen Kotarba," said Eli Pousson, field officer for Baltimore Heritage, a nonprofit group that closely monitors the commission.

Michele Salcedo, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, is taking some heat from a decision yesterday to forbid live tweeting of the organization's board meeting . As one commenter at JimRomenesko.com writes, "We are a journalism organization. We should be committed to openness. " I'm not entirely sure. For several years I was a member of the board of the American Copy Editors Society, four of them as president. In our board meetings we tried out ideas, most of which came to nothing.

Bryant McKinnie's continued absence due to personal reasons may have forced the Ravens offense to shift Michael Oher from right to left tackle and rotate rookies Kelechi Osemele and Jack Cornell and Cord Howard at right tackle, but offensive coordinator Cam Cameron said he's not worried about not having McKinnie in camp. In fact, Cameron said McKinnie's absence has opened the door for others along the offensive line to get reps in training camp that they might not have gotten. “You just let it play out,” Cameron said.

Gov. Martin O'Malley, House Speaker Michael E. Busch and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake met behind closed doors with Baltimore's House delegation Wednesday to ask the lawmakers to support having another casino in Maryland. After the meeting at City Hall, the chairman of the 18-member delegation said the group remains concerned that a proposal to allow a sixth casino in the state would hurt business at the planned gambling parlor in Baltimore. "All 18 of us are in favor of expanding to table games, but not in favor of the sixth site," said Del. Curt Anderson, the delegation chairman.

Improved technology is changing the spy game, merging once-disparate roles in the intelligence field and favoring an increased download of traditional spy roles to the private sector. This week, Canada's Postmedia News cited a speech by Richard Fadden, the head of Canada's spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, in which he acknowledged this new reality. "In today's information universe of WikiLeaks, the Internet and social media, there are fewer and fewer meaningful secrets for the James Bonds of the world to steal," Mr. Fadden said.

House leaders met behind closed doors in Annapolis Monday afternoon to discuss gambling and the possibility of a special session. No decisions were made, said House Speaker Michael E. Busch afterward. He called Democratic leaders to Annapolis "to listen to their views and opinions" on expanding a sixth casino, table games and the work group that dissolved last month. Some of the House members of that work group attended to explain why talks fell apart. "There was not consensus in that group," Busch said.

Was the season premiere of "Snooki And JWOWW" everything you thought it would be? It was all worth it to see Jenni "JWOWW" Farley's "O-face," wouldn't you say? There is nothing quite like the shocked/horrified/speechless reaction of your best gal pal when you tell her that you are officially knocked up, and your party days are over. Or, as Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi explained her predicament simply, "Instead of life throwing me a curve ball, it threw me a sperm ball. " Obviously this wasn't a shock to the rest of the world, because Twitter, Facebook, daily news, tabloids, and hell, probably even the five people still on MySpace were buzzing the day Snooki announced she was pregnant with a little guido or guidette.

House Speaker Michael E. Busch left the door open Thursday to continued efforts to reach an agreement on expanded gambling in time to call a special legislative session this summer, saying he expects to talk with the governor and Senate president to try to resolve the remaining issues. The speaker's conciliatory message came as Gov. Martin O'Malley was releasing a statement in which he blamed the House leadership for the failure of a state work group to reach an accord on a new casino in Prince George's County.

To an extent, I agree with the stance of "if you don't want to hear the music, don't live next door to Merriweather. " The fact is, however, that we don't live next door to Merriweather and we still hear the music. We live in Owen Brown, and our house is about 1.5 miles from Merriweather as the crow (or bass percussion) flies. For the entire concert season, we are definitely hearing the Merriweather merriment. We don't hear the crowds or the people, and the lyrics are definitely not distinguishable; we hear the bass and some of the music.

This boxed wine, made in California for a Baltimore-based startup company and distributed in the mid-Atlantic region, fills a useful niche. In quality terms, it's a cut above most boxed red wines, though the price is correspondingly higher. And the 1.5-liter box — equivalent to two standard bottles at $11 each — fills a useful niche that that's been left vacant by most competitors. The company also makes a merlot and a chardonnay, each of which is equally worthy of a recommendation.