Helms

Defining obscenity is a difficult enough task for the courts, but for legislative bodies it is hopeless, and any serious attempt to legislate standards of art will inevitably produce politically purified art like that found in Goebbels' Germany or Stalin's Russia.Yet that's just what Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., is yearning to do. Using isolated and extreme examples of artistic projects, Helms managed to buffalo both the House and the Senate into adopting measures to restrict the artistic content of works which are supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

On the job a little more than a week, Alicia Estrada hasn't settled into her new digs at the Annapolis Maritime Museum. But she has begun evaluating its programs as she looks to the future of the former oyster plant. "I'm just trying to get my head around everything," said Estrada, the museum's new executive director. She'll get the official schoolchildren's tour of the waterfront museum in coming days, she said. The museum tells the story of the Chesapeake Bay through exhibits, lectures and entertainment — and, in the process, teaches about the maritime heritage of the Annapolis area.

On April 26, 2006, SUSAN LEA, beloved mother of Joshua Estes, passed away in her home. She was the daughter of Bobbie Trent and the late Joseph Helms; sister of Linda Helms-Van Bemmel, Lisa Evans, Joseph Michael Helms and Randy Evans; aunt of Michelle Rivera, Jake Reid and Nick Van Bemmel. She was also survived by one aunt Lois Trent and three uncles; Edwin, Troy and Roger Trent; a former spouse and friend Keith Estes and a good friend Tom De Franco. Family has received friends at the Fleck Funeral Home, 7601 Sandy Spring Road, Laurel, MD on Sunday April 30 from 3 to 4 and 6 to 8 P.M. Services to follow Monday at 11 A.M. Interment private.

Bel Air resident Richard Bock has been named president of FranNet of Maryland, which assists individuals interested in exploring self-employment as a career option through franchised business ownership. Bock knows firsthand about franchise ownership. He owns two Huntington Learning Center sites, one in Bel Air and the other in Perry Hall. His experience in buying franchises over the past 15 years gives his FranNet clients greater insights into navigating the process. Prior to his involvement in Huntington Learning Center, Bock spent 23 years with Volvo Cars in the United States and Europe.

On January 24, 2005, NORMA JEAN (nee Langenfelder), wife of the late Eugene N. Helms, devoted mother of Eugene N. Helms Jr., and his wife Barbara L., Paulette H. Crosby and her husband A.P. Ramsey Crosby, dear sister of Rita Mae Weber, Georgia Lee Linthicum and the late Betty L. Johnson, dear grandmother of Elizabeth C., Eugene N. III and Corinne L. Helms and Lindsey H. and A.P. Ramsey Crosby Jr. Friends may call at the family-owned Ruck Towson Funeral Home,...

Roscoe G. Bartlett, a candidate for the 6th District House of Representatives seat, discussed his campaign with Republican leaders in Washington on Sept. 12.Bartlett met with Representative Wayne Gilcrest, R-1st, Sen.Jesse Helms, R-N.C., and members of GOPAC, an organization working for a Republican majority in Congress."Good, the Congress needs more conservative Republicans," said the North Carolina senator after learning that Bartlett was a candidatefor the Maryland seat.

IN THE last campaign hours, Harvey Gantt had stood in front of wildly cheering, foot-stomping, flag-waving crowds to shout:"This time he isn't going to get away with it!"He was wrong.The truth came at midnight when a beaten but defiant Gantt told his campaign workers, "I'm still smiling deep down although I hurt inside. I know we gave it our best."Once again Sen. Jesse Helms, the muffin-faced Houdini of the New Right, had pulled off an 11th-hour escape.Once again the pollsters had said Helms' back was against the wall.

SEN. JESSE Helms (Neanderthal-North Carolina) wants to slash federal money for AIDS victims because they contract the disease, he believes, from "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct."This is just ole Jesse funnin' again, gay-bashing as he does every so often when he's low and needs a pick-me-up.If he really wanted to punish consciously unhealthy conduct, he'd be going after smoking.But -- well, North Carolina, Jesse Helms and the tobacco industry are pretty much one and the same. Mr. Helms isn't about to bite the lobby that feeds him.It costs Mr. Helms nothing, however, and helps endear him to his fans, to pretend he still believes, as almost no one else does any longer, that AIDS is a gay disease.

WASHINGTON -- In a lopsided defeat for conservatives led by Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., the Senate has resoundingly voted down attempts to impose harsh new restrictions on the content of creative work funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.The Senate yesterday also approved by a margin of more than 2-to-1 a bipartisan compromise offered by 14 senators, led by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, to relax NEA restrictions enacted by Congress last year that have resulted in more than two dozen grant rejections and three lawsuits by artists and arts institutions.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Jesse Helms, eclipsed in the foreign policy arena by more powerful Senate players, has staked out an issue he can call his own: Cuba.As the Senate's harshest critic of Cuba's Communist dictatorship, the North Carolina Republican senator has won rave reviews from an enthusiastic audience -- the circle of prosperous businessmen within Miami's Cuban-American community.In the process, Mr. Helms has added a new element to his nationwide conservative support network and unearthed a potentially lucrative source of cash for his re-election race next year.

Since Baltimore City Hall contended in a federal lawsuit last year that a group of international banks conspired to keep a key interest rate benchmark low, more municipalities and private companies have started to investigate potential losses because of the alleged scheme. Baltimore bankruptcy attorney Joel I. Sher is looking into whether banks' manipulation of Libor, the London interbank offered rate, caused a jumbo mortgage lender, Thornburg Mortgage Inc., to lose money though interest-rate swaps tied to the rate.

After 16 years at the helm of the Baltimore Development Corp., the city's influential, quasi-public economic development arm, M.J. "Jay" Brodie will work his last day at the agency on Friday. "What I've told everybody is … that I'm taking a period of refreshment," Brodie said Thursday morning after a meeting of the city's Urban Design and Architecture Review Panel. He said he planned to take at least a month off before committing to new endeavors. Brodie, 75, started at the BDC in 1996 under then-Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke.

Anne Arundel County's beleaguered police force will be commanded by a former Maryland State Police superintendent and political survivor who has led the county department once before. Larry W. Tolliver will take over as chief on Tuesday, more than a dozen years after he last supervised Anne Arundel police and three weeks after current Chief James Teare Sr. decided to retire amid a criminal investigation. Tolliver, 66, ascended to several top positions from a job as former Gov. William Donald Schaefer's security officer.

Mary Pat Seurkamp has heard it from any number of students and professors over the years, and she knows exactly what they mean. Because she too felt at home the moment she set foot on the campus of Notre Dame of Maryland University. "You can't put your finger on it," she says of the connection. "But it's there. " Seurkamp, 65, is now coping with the sadness of severing that bond. She will retire this month after 15 years leading Notre Dame, one of the longest tenures of any college president in the state.

A long-time Anne Arundel County prosecutor is taking the reins of the county lawyers' association, in hopes of updating it and luring more of its 1,100-plus members into taking more active roles. Later this month, Jessica Daigle, 44, will take over as president of the Anne Arundel Bar Association. Like other associations, the AABA finds itself vying for people's scarce free time and facing the reality that social media make it easier for newcomers to connect. "I want to make this an organization where people say, 'I have to join," Daigle said.

The selection committee's decision to award the No. 1 seed to Loyola Sunday night was the first time the program had earned that seed since 1999. That year, the Greyhounds went 12-0 as the only undefeated team in Division I, but fell to No. 8 seed Syracuse, 17-12, in the quarterfinals. The coach of that squad was Dave Cottle, and the current coach of the Chesapeake Bayhawks of the Major League Lacrosse relived the memory of that loss during a phone interview Tuesday. “I know in '99, we were devastated that we were the only undefeated team in the country and we had to play the winner of Syracuse-Princeton at Princeton,” Cottle said.

Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina has demonstrated in the two weeks since Republicans gained control of the Senate that he is not up to being chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.He crudely threatened President Clinton in a letter saying "the administration" would not get "full and fair" treatment before his committee if it did not postpone Senate action on a world trade agreement. That is not the position of the Republican Party in Congress.Then Mr. Helms recklessly said on national television that he did not believe President Clinton is "up to" the job of commander in chief and implied that members of the joint chiefs of staff had said as much to him. Sen. Bob Dole, the majority-leader-to-be, and other Republican senators criticized the remark; Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the joint chiefs, denied it was true.

RALEIGH, N.C.-- A few days ago, in the heat of a rigorous campaign, Sen. Jesse Helms declared that God was on his side. He also had $16 million, a black opponent in a mostly white state, and a knack for jabbing political erogenous zones with the sharp stick of negative advertising.Yesterday the voters of North Carolina decided that the combination was a winner, and returned Mr. Helms to the Senate for a fourth term over former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt by a surprisingly comfortable margin.

The prospective new owners of the Baltimore Jewish Times took over Washington Jewish Week nearly two years ago and made an array of changes to the publication, which had just turned 80 years old. They redesigned the tabloid, revamped the website and launched an email newsletter. It's not yet clear if they contemplate similar changes to the Jewish Times, a weekly that has come out every Friday for 93 years. Craig Burke, the publisher of Washington Jewish Week, said he cannot discuss specific plans until he learns more about the Baltimore company, Alter Communications Inc., which also publishes Style magazine.

Kwame Kwei-Armah is doing his utmost to speed up the transitions. Center Stage 's new artistic director strides back and forth along the stage where the troupe's production of "The Whipping Man" is being rehearsed, scrutinizing the set from all angles. He brings in more helpers. He removes obstacles from the actors' paths and cuts out extra steps. He signals the precise moment when two bags of loot are flung through an open doorway and land on the floor with a muffled thump.