Fliers

The Baltimore branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is asking for volunteers, and particularly men, to help distribute reward fliers on Saturday following a recent string of rapes in the city. "This could be our mother, sister, daughter, grandmother, niece, aunt - you get the message," branch President Marvin L. Cheatham wrote in an e-mail. He promoted a $2,000 reward for information leading to an indictment in the rapes. Organizers plan to gather at noon on Saturday at Knox Presbyterian Church at 1300 N. Eden St. - Matthew Hay Brown

A bevy of Santas will not tap-dance their way into Rockette-style formations onstage to help the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra celebrate the Christmas season this year. That cute tradition, and the rest of the Holiday Spectacular presented by the BSO since 2005, is on a hiatus prompted by a decline in ticket sales and audience surveys reflecting a desire for a change. That change arrives this week with Holiday Cirque de la Symphonie. Aerialists, contortionists, jugglers, hula-hoopsters and a couple of strongmen will be deployed to the strains of "O Holy Night," "Sleigh Ride" and more.

Two East Baltimore pizzerias were closed last week by city health officials who found they repeatedly violated a ban on distributing fliers to residences and failed to pay their fines. The food permits of the two carryout restaurants, both named Nephew's Pizza, were suspended for five days, a period that ended Friday. "It's a good first start. It sends a message," said City Councilman Jim Kraft, who introduced the 2006 bill that banned distribution of commercial fliers to homes.

It is Thursday night and I'm reading through the article "Delegation mulls school board change, redistricting" and see the subheading "Three Congressmen for Howard?". Excuse me? No matter how the Maryland General Assembly's special session on redistricting plays out, the Columbia Flier 's subheading is just plain wrong. Over the past year, I have seen numerous uses of sexist language in the Columbia Flier. Blatant sexism has no place in the Columbia, let alone in our weekly newspaper.

As the chart from Congressional Quarterly below shows, Congress is usually unpopular with the American public. Even in 1974, the Year of Watergate and public outrage at the presidency, slightly less than half of Americans approved of Congress. Last month the figure was 29 percent. It will probably go down the next time pollsters ask, the public having been reminded so blatantly of congressional imperiousness by the Senate's voting to keep its free airport parking.Free airport parking is a small matter.

Annapolis police have been flooded with calls in recent days from residents complaining about racist and anti-Semitic fliers that were distributed in several city neighborhoods. The fliers, which promote the white supremacist group National Alliance, showed up Wednesday night in driveways and other places in the Admiral Heights and Homewood neighborhoods, said Officer Hal Dalton, a police spokesman. The Eastport, West Annapolis and Hunt Meadows neighborhoods also have been targeted. Dalton estimated that officers had collected about 60 fliers over the past three days.

More than a dozen community leaders gathered around the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley memorial at City Dock in Annapolis yesterday to denounce what they called "racist" fliers distributed around the city Friday and Saturday nights. The fliers, distributed under the name National Alliance, attack a coming slavery reconciliation walk as "hateful and destructive to white people everywhere." The West Virginia-based group, which has embraced white supremacist views, has been linked to other literature distributed in the region.

A Baltimore County councilman wants to curtail unsolicited advertising circulars, claiming the papers litter neighborhoods and can eventually clog area waterways. Councilman John Olszewski has drafted a bill that prohibits circulars from being dropped off at homes in the county. The County Council is expected to vote Monday on the proposal. If passed, the law would take effect in 45 days. The law will not apply to U.S. Postal Service deliveries or those by a private mail service. "Our streets and stream beds are denigrated with trash," he said.

Carroll County's Republican Central Committee chairman acknowledges that he trailed volunteers for Democratic state Senate candidate Cynthia H. Cummings, but denies taking her campaign brochures out of newspaper boxes.Thomas W. Bowen said he and his daughter, Deborah, drove through a south Carroll subdivision behind Cummings volunteers Raymond "Pete" and Pamela Ray as they placed fliers in newspaper boxes. Mr. and Mrs. Ray reported to police that the male passenger in the trailing car removed campaign fliers from the boxes.

Airlines from the United States have been flying more passengers to Latin America, but 14 Latin carriers recently teamed up to try to slow the Yankee blitz by offering customers a frequent flier program called Latinpass.USAir, the only U.S. carrier in the Latinpass program, has a domestic route system that positions it to fly passengers to and from a dozen gateway cities in the United States.The most important of these is Miami, where USAir is eager to increase its business. Diners Club, a subsidiary of Citicorp, also recently joined Latinpass; American Express signed a preliminary agreement to join; and hotel and rental car partners are expected to sign on soon.

The city's primary election is over, but in one district, the bickering between candidates continues. Belinda Conaway, the only incumbent City Council member to lose her seat, has asked the U.S. attorney for Maryland to prosecute her challenger, alleging her opponent unlawfully used an IRS logo in campaign literature. Conaway failed by 648 votes in her bid for a third term representing the city's northwest side in the Democratic primary last week. She lays much of the blame for that loss on the campaign tactics of her opponent, Nick Mosby.

Baltimore housing officials are warning that the city's homeless and others in need are being misled by deceptive fliers offering Section 8 housing vouchers. The fake fliers are circulating throughout the city, according to statement from the Housing Authority of Baltimore City. The fliers tell people to bring pay stubs, Social Security information and proof of income to the housing office to apply for a program that actually ran out of money last year. "These claims are not true," the statement from the housing authority says.

More than 70 people gathered Sunday evening on an Edmondson Village street corner, rallying for the safe return of an infant who disappeared Friday with the teenager who had been left to watch him briefly. Pastors and relatives surrounded Whitney McGee, the mother of Ki'Yauhn Birch, as she tearfully pleaded for Jonae Boozer, the 16-year-old last seen with the 7-month-old boy, to surrender the baby. "Put my baby somewhere safe and call somebody. He's probably hungry," McGee, 20, wept, as she said she was deeply worried about her baby's well-being, especially in the intense heat of the past few days.

As a resident and Columbia Association lienpayer I resent the costs of the mega ad campaign with President Phil Nelson's pictures in the Columbia Flier. Such information belongs in the Community section of the paper at, I'm sure, a considerably smaller cost. By accepting these ads, the Flier is also painting itself into a corner by compromising its objectivity regarding CA news coverage. Tom Laufer Long Reach

I scoured the May 26 edition of the Columbia Flier for a report on the Columbia Triathlon, to no avail. I simply couldn't believe it. This is one of the best-regarded triathlons in the country. The race director, Robert Vigorito, is a long-time Columbia resident who has contributed millions of dollars to local charities over the years from race fees. The race this year featured many nationally ranked professional triathletes and the race winner broke the course record. Please explain why the race did not merit any coverage this year.

A week before Baltimore's annual homage to the Hon, the hullabaloo over who owns rights to the city's quintessential Everywoman seems to have reignited. Hampden merchants were taken aback this week to receive a list of things Honfest vendors would be prohibited from selling or saying. No politics. No religion. Nothing bearing the Honfest logo. Nothing that would infringe on the various Hon trademarks. And what chapped folks the most: no cat's-eye glasses. "You can't restrict cat's-eye sunglasses.

A small group of people wearing Ku Klux Klan garb handed out fliers about white racial pride yesterday afternoon at Catherine Avenue and Mountain Road in the Green Haven neighborhood of Pasadena, area residents said.A 17-year-old girl said members of the group wore white hoods and sheets, and she saw them talking with state police officers."The lack of white pride is truly a sad and strange thing, because no group has more right to rightful pride than the white people of the world," the fliers said, according to Michael Arrington, 18, of 225th Street in Pasadena, about five blocks from where the Klan distributed the leaflets.

Minden, Nev. -- An experienced pilot takes off in a single-engine plane on a clear day for a short flight in the Sierra Nevada region and is never heard from again. Officials look for him without success, and his family is tormented by the questions about his fate that nobody can answer. It's a familiar tale, of course, because the headlines have been flooded with the search for millionaire aviator Steve Fossett, who took off Sept. 3 and remains missing in northern Nevada. But this case isn't a week old; it happened 43 years ago. And the hunt for Fossett might help resolve the enduring mystery surrounding Charles Ogle, then 41, who lifted off from Oakland, Calif.

Baltimore police are planning a mass search Saturday for Phylicia Barnes, the North Carolina teenager and track star missing since a December visit to the city. The new search will involve more than 200 law enforcement officials. Police are also seeking volunteers to help distribute fliers in the Northwest Baltimore neighborhood where Barnes had been staying with her half sister. Anyone interested in helping should call the public affairs unit at 410-396-2012. Anthony Guglielmi, the chief spokesman for the city Police Department, would not identify the precise area to be searched or what is prompting detectives to concentrate there.

Two East Baltimore pizzerias were closed last week by city health officials who found they repeatedly violated a ban on distributing fliers to residences and failed to pay their fines. The food permits of the two carryout restaurants, both named Nephew's Pizza, were suspended for five days, a period that ended Friday. "It's a good first start. It sends a message," said City Councilman Jim Kraft, who introduced the 2006 bill that banned distribution of commercial fliers to homes.