Empowerment

It is the institutions that Baltimoreans take for granted that will revive this city.Gov. William Donald Schaefer said as much to a gathering of Sun executives last month as he recounted how, in the years preceding the Inner Harbor triumphs, he had to remind residents that their city held gems like Fort McHenry.Vice President Al Gore repeated that theme in a meeting at The Sun yesterday to discuss the recently designated $100 million empowerment zone. Marylanders may take for granted Johns Hopkins Hospital, but the vice president speaks of the world-renowned institution with the reverence of a father whose child was saved there.

Last night, I took another gander at the episode guide for this season of "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," and realized this isn't the last episode! We've got one more coming up. Plus, I forgot about the reunions, and reality show reunions are like the meat right near the bone - kind of gross, but full of flavor. That comparison works. I promise it does. Anyway, the ladies are still in Vegas, where Brandi is on a mission to help women twerk their way to empowerment. Watching the ladies try to pole dance was probably the most entertaining two minutes in this show's history.

Less than six months after the initial euphoria, the stark reality is setting in. Baltimore's empowerment zone, a coveted designation that is supposed to bring $100 million extra money from the Clinton administration, is not progressing smoothly.First came the news that Edward Hitchcock, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's choice for the $120,000-a-year empowerment czar, is being eased out amid allegations that he could not deal with the fundamental twin demands of openness and community participation.

Last week I wrote about a young community organizer named Dayvon Love. Mr. Love and his fellow activists in Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, a grassroots advocacy organization he cofounded, may be the city's strongest proponents of black empowerment. Baltimore is majority African-American, but the heads of its most influential nonprofit organizations are usually white. Race still plays a role in which voices gain access to media outlets, policymakers and funding. So in LBS' view, if their goal is to help predominantly African-American communities, white nonprofit leaders must redress this power imbalance and do whatever they can to support a social policy agenda that is shaped and led by black people.

Last night, I took another gander at the episode guide for this season of "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," and realized this isn't the last episode! We've got one more coming up. Plus, I forgot about the reunions, and reality show reunions are like the meat right near the bone - kind of gross, but full of flavor. That comparison works. I promise it does. Anyway, the ladies are still in Vegas, where Brandi is on a mission to help women twerk their way to empowerment. Watching the ladies try to pole dance was probably the most entertaining two minutes in this show's history.

Two items have recently burst onto the media scene: a movie called "The Iron Lady" about one of the greatest women in history - former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - and a growing European recall of breast implants in danger of exploding. I wonder what the former would say about the latter. Did it ever cross Ms. Thatcher's mind that women's lives could be meaningfully enhanced by surgically strapping gel packs to their chests? How did women get from Margaret Thatcher to this?

An important lesson is contained in Baltimore's successful bid to win an empowerment zone, with $100 million in federal grants and $250 million in potential tax credits for employers creating new jobs. The city triumphed, because an alliance of more than 500 leaders representing the private sector, non-profits and community groups was quickly assembled and worked well together.We urge that this alliance now continue and go beyond what is stated in the empowerment zone application documents.

WASHINGTON -- Baltimore is one of 78 cities competing for six coveted federal urban empowerment zones -- and top Clinton administration officials vow that the winners of the multimillion-dollar designations will be chosen on merit, not politics."

Six weeks after Baltimore was chosen to receive millions of federal dollars to revive decayed neighborhoods, the first signs of activity are emerging.In West Baltimore, a printing company is making plans to add a couple of workers, taking advantage of new federal tax credits. Across town, the Kennedy Krieger Institute is busy raising money to convert a block of vacant East Baltimore rowhouses into residential treatment centers. And the manager of a proposed ecological-industrial park in Fairfield says he is ready to move quickly on the project.

In an article yesterday. Michael V. Seipp's current position with the Baltimore Development Corp. was incorrect. He is the vice president.The Sun regrets the errors.Baltimore officials have selected huge sections of the poor, decaying neighborhoods that lie beyond the prosperous Inner Harbor as a prospective empowerment zone in their campaign to win as much as $100 million in new federal grants.Hundreds of volunteers will be dispatched over the next few months to develop an ambitious plan to transform nearly seven square miles spanning the east and west sides, as well as the industrial south.

At first glance, Dayvon Love is easy to overlook. At 5 foot 9, he has average height and a slightly larger than average build. As he carefully takes in everything and everyone in a room, he might initially seem painfully shy. So when he finally speaks, his observations can hit you like a punch you had no idea was coming. He says that in his experience as a teacher, most Baltimore City Public Schools students think of your average teacher as "someone who's not cool or smart enough to do anything else.

Trayvon Martin's mother Sybrina Fulton on Sunday morning emotionally addressed Baltimore's Empowerment Temple, the church of the Rev. Jamal Bryant who has been at her side as national outcry has built over her son's death. "It's so easy for me to cry right now but I can't because I have work to do," she told the congregation. "I was forced into this position, but I believe God is using me. " Martin, 17, was shot to death in February in Sanford, Fla., returning home after a trip to get snacks at a 7-Eleven.

As Trayvon Martin's mother stood at the altar of Baltimore's Empowerment Temple on Sunday, the Rev. Jamal-Harrison Bryant asked for anyone whose child had also been the victim of "senseless violence" to come forward. At least a dozen women and men assembled at Sybrina Fulton's feet before she stepped down to grab one of them. She squeezed the woman, patted her back and whispered in her ear. Then Fulton moved down the line, tightly embracing each mother, grandmother and father, each of them too familiar with loss, until she'd touched them all. Congregants erupted into deafening applause and brushed away tears.

Two items have recently burst onto the media scene: a movie called "The Iron Lady" about one of the greatest women in history - former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - and a growing European recall of breast implants in danger of exploding. I wonder what the former would say about the latter. Did it ever cross Ms. Thatcher's mind that women's lives could be meaningfully enhanced by surgically strapping gel packs to their chests? How did women get from Margaret Thatcher to this?

It all started with a little bit of good-natured trash talk between the pastors of two of Baltimore's most prominent African-American churches. The Rev. Jamal Bryant of Empowerment Temple "fell off the wagon" and confesses he wasn't exercising as much as he should. His trainer used that to pump up another client, the Rev. Frank M. Reid III of Bethel AME Church, telling him he was in better shape than the much younger Bryant. Reid, feeling a little confident, and Bryant, his ego bruised just a bit, then threw out a fitness challenge to one another: Your church against mine.

When Jennifer Ransaw Smith was single, she "hopped around" from one advertising firm to another in Los Angeles and New York, doing what all high-powered ad reps do to notch the resume-boosting experience that makes them sought-after hires. "The whole thing [about the industry] is building your book," so the more upwardly mobile career moves, the better, she said. Yet years later, her life hadn't exactly panned out the way she'd planned. Happily married with two kids and living in Columbia, she was caught off-guard by how miserable she was at work after finally landing the dream job she'd been chasing from place to place all those years.

William E. Carlson, the top lawyer for Baltimore's multimillion-dollar federal empowerment zone, has been soliciting private legal work from companies in the zone for his politically well-connected law firm, Shapiro and Olander.Mr. Carlson, who stands to be paid at least $118,510 from empowerment zone coffers, mailed about 50 letters to companies eligible for empowerment zone benefits.He asked executives of those firms to consider contacting Shapiro and Olander for help in applying for the "exciting array" of tax credits and other initiatives offered by the federal redevelopment effort.

Howard County boasts a plenitude of nonprofit organizations and charitable agencies. Howard Magazine highlights who they are, what they do and how you can help. Name: Pinnacle Empowerment Center Who: Heather Comstock, Executive Director Q:    What is your mission? A:    Pinnacle Empowerment Center provides career and life coaching to women who are in need of support and guidance as they navigate changes in their lives. (The center) provides women in transition customized career and life management services and resources needed for lifelong success.