Dysfunctional

The corruption scandal unfolding in Anne Arundel County in which the chief executive is accused of using his police protection detail to perform menial errands, steal campaign signs and run background checks on political opponents, hit a new lot Monday night. The Sun's Nicole Fuller reports that Deputy Police Chief Lt. Col. Emerson C. Davis testified to the county council: "Right now we are dysfunctional as a Police Department. Based on the circumstances that we find ourselves in today, it's awful suspect to say we're following our organizational values.

Karl Marx is credited with saying that religion is "the opium of the people. " But here in the nation's capital, baseball is the drug of choice that rescues political junkies from the unpleasant realities around them. Currently providing relief from the congressional stalemate over the deficit that has produced the "sequester" of spending cuts, job furloughs and general fiscal paralysis is the return of last year's Cinderella baseball team, the Washington Nationals. After rising from traditional doormat to champion of the National League's East Division, the Nats heart-breakingly collapsed in the final game of their first playoff series.

Our governor and the legislative leadership have given new meaning to the word "dysfunctional" as a description of the state's legislative process. The ineptitude that was exhibited during the 90-day legislative session and the dishonest dialogue coming from our state leaders in the special session is astounding. The governor proposed $1.2 billion in increased spending, then called it a "doomsday budget" when that amount was reduced by $500 million. The result - $700 million in new, increased spending and a tax increase to pay for it. How in the devil is this a cut in spending?

Economist John Kenneth Galbraith once observed that there are two kinds of market forecasters, those who don't know and those who don't know they don't know. That is well illustrated by the current disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street, as the market's leading indicator, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, continues to surge forward while the overall outlook for the U.S. economy appears mixed at best. The Dow closed Tuesday at an all-time peak of 14,253.77, and many believe that the bullish trend will continue even if there is some profit-taking in the short term.

ONE NIGHT this week, while reading the newsmagazines to the tune of "Inside Edition," I discovered yet another -- ba-boom, ba-boom -- danger of life in the '90s. I'm getting co-dependent on stories about dysfunctional families.I don't know what that means, but I'm sure it's happening.That particular night, my eyes were pressed to an item in New York magazine, the one that asked the epoch-defining question: "Which family is more dysfunctional? The Barrs, the Addamses or the Jacksons?"Before I could process my options, much less make a commitment to one celebrity malfunction over the others, I was distracted by someone on TV announcing that three dancers from "Madonna's dysfunctional 'Truth or Dare' family" are accusing her of being "obnoxious, selfish, loud" and they're suing her for not paying them.

It's time to call a moratorium on the dysfunctional-family flick. Narcissistic, adulterous or conflicted moms, distant dads, drug-riddled youngsters - don't we get enough of them on "cutting-edge" TV series these days? Ryan Murphy, who created one of those series, Nip/Tuck, seized on Running With Scissors, Augusten Burroughs' acclaimed memoir of a loony adolescence, for the comedy-drama opening today. But all he does with this prized dysfunctional-family property is turn it into a crazed Carter-era comic strip: For Better or for Worse on acid.

"Birdland," ABC's new one-hour drama starring Brian Dennehy, is a celebration of the dysfunctional, the semi-functional, the unhappily functioning and the just-plain screwed-up. It's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" sanitized and sweetened for prime-time.If you love seeing exhibitions of things that don't work, tune in the premiere at 10 tonight on WJZ (Channel 13).Dennehy plays the chief of a psychiatric unit in an Oakland hospital. He treats the dysfunctional for a living.Tonight's case involves a boy who can't sleep and who recently put his arm through his bedroom window.

The Ravens are struggling through an eight-game losing streak, but it could be worse - a lot worse. How? Two words. Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons are probably the worst-positioned franchise in the NFL, maybe in all of major pro sports. Think about it. Michael Vick's situation leaves an enormous talent vacuum. The coach they started the season with just ran out on them. The owner, Arthur Blank, has indicated he has lost confidence in the guy who was running the franchise, Rich McKay. Bill Parcells, the guy who was going to plot their football future, spurned them.

"A Day Late and a Dollar Short," by Terry McMillan. Viking. 432 pages. 25.95. Dear Ms. McMillan: Girlfriend, you must be running out of material. You done wore out the mama thang and the sister thang already. So now you up in everybody's family business: outside children, aunties hooked on prescription pills, stepfathers with dirty minds. But what's up with all this forgiveness stuff? Chile, you in love -- or therapy? I predict that "A Day Late and a Dollar Short" will be a best seller and a made-for-TV movie.

If it weren't so good, it would be glib fun to dismiss "Olivier Olivier" as a fractured fairy tale for recondite adult tastes; it's about a little boy on his way to grandmother's house with a food basket who is set upon by a wolf.Yet that symbolic overlay is never intrusive or self-conscious; it's part of the quiet, clammy art of the film which advances through horror one intimate detail after another. Directed by the legendary Agnieszka Holland ("Europa, Europa"), the film is an existential thriller as chilly and dislocating as anything by Chabrol or Sluizer or Hitchcock, other masters of the art."

Doctors are breathing a collective sigh of relief because we again escaped a cut in Medicare payments. But this whole recurrent charade underscores, once again, the unresolved issue of how to pay doctors. The fiscal cliff rescue included the usual "doc fix" - an override of the 27 percent Medicare reimbursement cut required by the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) law this year. That law has dictated annual cuts in Medicare reimbursement, which have been overridden by Congress annually. Nevertheless, this escape only postponed the crisis for older patients for another year.

Only a few days into the new year, the Grand Old Party has a huge political hangover from the events that rang in the tidings of 2013. First came the escape from the fiscal cliff that saw its speaker of the House, John Boehner, embarrassed by his flock's failure to back his 11th-hour Plan B to avert it. Passing the ball to the Democratic-controlled Senate was an abdication of responsibility. Then Mr. Boehner was hit with surrender of the GOP's never-new-taxes pledge. Worse, the abandonment came with a violation of the party leadership's so-called Hastert rule allowing bills to pass only with a majority of Republican members of the House voting in favor.

Teen-age letter-writer Emma Zyriek's take on the "fiscal cliff" negotiations could not have been more to the point ("On eve of fiscal cliff, Congress acts like squabbling children," Dec. 29). It would be a great thing if this letter could be printed in large, bold type and sent to all the politicians in Washington who think they know what is best for the people who put them there. Maybe we should send our high school students to Washington if we want to get anything accomplished.

The announcement last week that South Carolina's Jim DeMint is leaving his Senate seat to run the Heritage Foundation caused some in Washington to wishfully think that perhaps the move might usher in a more congenial, if not cooperative, outlook in the U.S. Senate. But while Mr. DeMint set the gold standard for ideological purity (denouncing his own party's candidates from time to time when they failed to measure up to his tea party, ultraconservative viewpoint), there are still plenty in the GOP with the flexibility of a ramrod.

"Nostalgia for the age of statesmen" (Oct. 23) properly asks for the return of mature compromising legislators who place the interests of country over political party and reelection. But what was missing is mention of one of the driving forces behind the uncivil and partisan nature of today's politics - the pervasive and corrupting influence of political contributions by anonymous wealthy and corporate contributors. These contributors tend to represent extreme elements and force candidates to take uncompromising positions to avoid well-financed campaigns by more extreme candidates beholden to these fat cat contributors.

Boston drama never ends Paul Doyle Hartford Courant This one's not even close — the Red Sox are beyond dysfunctional. Once considered baseball's model franchise after winning two titles in four years, the Red Sox are a mess. The team experienced an epic meltdown in 2011, and management responded by dumping manager Terry Francona before GM Theo Epstein bolted for the Cubs. The answer? Hire Bobby Valentine, a guy whose skin is too thin for Boston. Valentine accurately said the season has been miserable, as players revolted against their manager and the remnants of last year's "chicken-and-beer" collapse still lingered at Fenway Park.

Nothing can top what happened at Camden Yards this season, but it's nice to know the Orioles haven't cornered the market on dysfunctional families. Here's a brief rundown of an ugly month in Miami: The Florida Marlins were leading the wild-card race Sept. 12 and then dropped 12 of 15 to fall into last place in the National League East. Pitcher A.J. Burnett blew up in the clubhouse last Sunday, criticizing the coaching staff for its contagious negativity. The next day, Burnett, who helped carry the Marlins after the All-Star break but slumped down the stretch, was booted from the team by manager Jack McKeon.

The Chesapeake Arts Center continues its tradition of presenting plays that are part of the annual Baltimore Playwrights Festival, now in its 27th year of showcasing local writing talent. For the second consecutive year, CAC is offering a work by Mark Scharf, one of this area's foremost playwrights with over 40 plays produced and a former three-term chairman of the festival. Keeping Faith is his first attempt at writing a full-length comedy, an endeavor he succeeds in by creating overly protective, anger-driven parents bungling an attempt to abduct their 18-year-old daughter on the eve of her wedding to a man more than twice her age. Scharf has expert assistance from CAC veteran comedy director C.J. Crowe and her four-person cast, each skilled at projecting human frailties to coax our chuckles of recognition.

Most Americans probably haven't given much thought to the botched gun trafficking investigation by theBureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosivesknown as "Fast and Furious. " What they do know are probably the most embarrassing details - agents lost track of 2,000 guns that were allowed to "walk" in order to investigate higher-ups in a drug cartel, and two ATF weapons were found at the scene of a 2010 shootout in which a U.S. Border Patrol agent was killed. But this week, the matter is threatening to evolve into something much larger.

For those who missed it, there was a relatively brief protest conducted early this week by several dozen people employed by the Baltimore City Circuit Court. They were upset by the deplorable conditions in both the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse and the Courthouse East building and marched in front of City Hall, waving signs and threatening to sue. If it all looked a bit familiar, that's because it was. Courthouse workers have been unhappy with the miserable conditions and have been staging similar rallies for years, if not decades.