Elected President

Donald I. Dell was elected president of the Board of County Commissioners at the first official meeting Monday.Elmer C. Lippy Jr. was elected vice president and Julia W. Gouge, the only returning board member, was elected secretary.Dell said the commissioners discussed officer nominations among themselves before the Monday meeting. He said they decided to elect as president the top vote-getter in the November election and the runner-up as vice president. Dell placed first and Lippy second in the November election.

Marietta English, longtime leader of the Baltimore Teachers Union, was re-elected to another term, the organization announced in a release Wednesday.  According to the release, English was re-elected president by teachers, paraprofessionals, and school-related personnel. It will be her seventh term--one she served as president of the teacher's chapter--which lasts three years. “I'm proud to have received the support of Baltimore's paraprofessionals, school-related personnel and teachers,” English said in a statement.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - After 18 months of uncertainty and political drama, Argentina bore witness to something refreshing yesterday - an elected president, taking the oath of office amid great pomp and ceremony before an assembly of international leaders. Unlike the four men who preceded him, Nestor Kirchner did not become president in the middle of the night, or as part of a national emergency, or with chunks of this cosmopolitan city occupied by riot police. "Our past is full of failures, pain, confrontations, [and]

Two recent letters to the editor caught my attention. One was the contention of a writer who thought that the reason so many "front line" journalists are left-leaning is because they live in close touch with "the real world" ("The GOP lost because it's out of touch with the reality facing a majority of Americans today," Nov. 28). I would refer him to the book "The Amateur" by Edward Klein, a former editor at the New York Times, and to a commentary in the Washington Post by Matt Patterson in which he states that "years from now historians may regard the 2008 election of Barack Obama as an inscrutable and disturbing phenomenon.

Celia Rogers, president of CFR Inc., recently purchased Jerry's Subs and Pizza of Ellicott City, 9380 Baltimore National Pike. Rogers, a resident of Howard County for 18 years, is a certified public accountant and has been employed by several local accounting firms and the Maryland Insurance Group. She was also the owner/operator of A Choice Nanny in Towson for five years until its sale last year.Mauricio Velasquez, president of the Diversity Training Group, was recently elected president of the board of the Foreign-Born Information and Referral Network of Howard County (FIRN)

GOV. DOUGLAS WILDER made his last last official public appearance at his alma mater in Richmond on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday.There the only black ever popularly elected governor in America was saluted with, "Thank you for living the dream." He certainly proved that Dr. King's dream of Southern blacks and whites unshackled from centuries of racism could come true.Governor Wilder left office not only having accomplished a historic breakthrough in electability, but also with a record of solid accomplishment.

50 Years Ago (week of Nov. 9 - Nov. 15, 1941):* The Women's Civic Club reported at a meeting held this week that they would be sending a $50 check to the USO Fund. The money represented the proceeds of a recent fund-raising dance held by the organization.* Dr. Walter L. Keister was elected president of the Ellicott City Kiwanis Club this week. His term will begin in January 1942. Dr. Keister, who will succeed the Rev. John Van der Horst as president, hadserved as the club's vice president during 1941.

It is a breakthrough. All indications are that on Jan. 14, an elected president will succeed an elected president for the first time in Guatemala's history. That is more important than the not-very-inspiring choice that will be put to voters in a run-off on Jan. 6 of the 12-way first round election for president held on Sunday.The top two are Jorge Carpio Nicolle, a newspaper publisher who has been campaigning nonstop since he came in second in the 1985 election, and Jorge Serrano Elias, an economist who served a dictator.

Clerk becomes lawyer at Hyatt & PetersLindsay Barranco has joined the Annapolis law offices of Hyatt & Peters in the practice of law.Before passing the Maryland State Bar examination, Ms. Barranco, a resident of the St. Margarets area, was a law clerk with Hyatt & Peters.She will specialize in domestic relations and will be involved with criminal defense and juvenile and general practice work.Consultant hired as account executiveCrosby Communications Inc. has hired Beth Loden Shepherd, a marketing communications consultant and past community director for the county March of Dimes, as an account executive.

The two leading Democrats for the 2008 presidential nomination are, according to recent polls, Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois. This month the latter received a very warm reception in his first visit to New Hampshire, where presidential primaries begin, and he said he thought his new-found popularity showed the nation was "looking for something different - we want something new." The next day Clinton said she was talking to people about her plans, and said she would decide whether to seek the presidential nomination next month.

President Barack Obama is now openly preaching the radical egalitarianism of John Rawls. Sneering at us Americans because we don't and can't produce the circumstances of our own births which is, of course, impossible. Mr. Obama arrogantly asserts that none of us deserve any credit for any distinctions any of us have ever achieved ourselves, whether those distinctions are vocational, familial, sporting, academic, and so on. He arrogantly demands that we believe him over the evidence of our own senses and that we submit to him as faceless, mindless cogs in wheels that he and a few of his own people will push around at their whims.

Mohamed Morsi, the first freely elected president in Egypt's history, is soon to take office under circumstances that are far from ideal. While Egypt's ruling military has conceded his victory over its preferred candidate in the presidential runoff election, Ahmed Shafiq, the generals who have been running the country show no sign of being ready to give up power. Last week they issued a decree stripping the president's office of its authority over the budget, national security and most domestic matters.

Former Ravens cornerback Domonique Foxworth, who played an important role in the negotiations of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and the end of the NFL lockout last year, was elected as the president of the NFL Players Association during the union's Board of Player Representatives meeting today. Foxworth, a former standout at Western Tech and Maryland, had his contract terminated by the Ravens on March 5. He played in just two games for the Ravens the past two seasons after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee during a non-contact drill on the first day of training camp in 2010.

James (Jim) H. Durfee , of Office Movers, Inc., in Elkridge, has been elected president of the Office Moving Alliance at its 2011 Annual Meeting, held Oct. 24-27, in Phoenix. Durfee will serve a two-year term at OMA, an international trade organization that boasts member revenues in excess of $780 million. Durfee will serve as President of OMA in addition to his regular position at Office Movers Inc. Ron Mason , chief operating officer, and chief executive officer Jerry Rader , both of Corridor Mortgage Group, presented a check for $7,500 to Special Olympics Howard County director Bob Baker . Corridor raised the money through a golf tournament held in October.

Howard County State's Attorney Dario J. Broccolino has been elected president of the Maryland State's Attorneys Association. Broccolino was elected June 21 at a meeting of the organization in http://www.baltimoresun.com/travel/beaches/. Broccolino, 66, has worked as a prosecutor in Howard County since 1999 and had served as the state's attorneys' coordinator for the Maryland association for 11 years. He was appointed the county's state's attorney in April 2008 and won election to a four-year term last November.

Marietta English will remain president of the Baltimore Teachers Union after soundly defeating longtime rival Sharon Y. Blake in an election yesterday. English captured about 60 percent of the vote to about 34 percent for Blake, union officials announced. About 1,000 educators cast votes. The union has about 8,000 members, 6,000 of them teachers. "I'm very thankful to the membership for putting their trust in me again for the next two years. We're going to continue to work on their behalf," English said.

I'VE BEEN mulling over what Sen. Bob Dole said about there never having been a president named Bob. I think introducing a new name to the White House is a good idea.Senator Dole also could have said there never has been a president from Kansas. (Dwight Eisenhower grew up there, but he was born in Texas and prepped for high office in Washington, London and Paris.)So after much thought and prayer I have decided to make an early presidential endorsement in favor of that Kansas senator with a given name never before held by a president: Nancy Kassebaum.

IN RESPONSE to a comment that Paul Tsongas "is in theprivate sector," Sen. Bob Kerrey, a businessman, said, "He's a lawyer! I mean, please!" So the mudslinging has begun.Approximately half of all presidents practiced law at one time or another in their lives, but few were in practice when elected. In this century, only one was. That was Richard Nixon in 1968. Like Tsongas, he was a former elected federal official who was paid not for what he knew about the law but for who he knew in government.

After Sen. Barack Obama won the Jan. 3 Democratic caucuses in white-as-snow Iowa, he and his campaign wasted no time trying to put one idea to rest: that white voters would never accept the candidate because of his race. But some African-Americans remain unconvinced, and their doubts could undermine Obama's presidential campaign, a possibility that grew after his defeat in the New Hampshire primary. Don't get black voters wrong - they say he is their pride, their cause for excitement and hope that the future will hold more acceptance and better times.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The Supreme Court cleared the way yesterday for President Pervez Musharraf's election to a new term as president next week, dismissing legal challenges to the Pakistani leader's seeking office while still serving as the nation's military chief. The 6-3 high court decision deals a heavy blow to the country's political opposition, which over the past six months has staged a concerted campaign to oust Musharraf and end military rule in Pakistan. The panel of judges did not include activist Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who, after thwarting an effort by Musharraf to fire him this year, recused himself from the case.