Homeland

For many folks headed to Preakness, the focus of the afternoon isn't the race. It's the fashion — and we don't just mean hats. If you're in the grandstands, the Jockey Club area or Corporate Village, you'll want to dress the part. Betsy Dugan, owner of Bettina Collections in Cross Keys and former co-owner of Octavia in Pikesville, has been dressing women for Preakness for years. "This is the time ... to dress up," she said. If there's one rule of thumb, it's that ladies and gentlemen at Preakness should look like ...well, ladies and gentlemen.

There are 875,000 on the terrorist watch list ("U.S. launches internal review," May 1). Unbelievable! This speaks out against the effectiveness of our immigration screening system and homeland security apparatus. Do I feel unsafe as I travel about my country? You bet I do, and it is a heavy topic of conversation. What are we to do about this? Just wait for the next 9/11 or Boston calamity? Even the dummies who voted in the past election are getting scared. However, we can all rest assured that Washington has the answer.

ONE LAMENTABLE result of this month's elections is that the stalemate has been broken over the creation of a monstrous Department of Homeland Security. This cosmetic response to the myriad failures that made the nation vulnerable on Sept. 11, 2001, offers no assurance that Americans will be safer. Instead, it poses new dangers. Most alarming is that the version of the legislation passed by the House on Wednesday -- with the Senate apparently soon to follow -- is a 500-page, 11th-hour rewrite few lawmakers have read and perhaps none fully understands.

Designed by the influential Baltimore architects Edward L. Palmer and William D. Lamdin in 1925 and built in 1928, the home at 101 Witherspoon Road is one of the premier properties in Homeland. This North Baltimore home is built of local stone with a Vermont slate roof, and it has over 7,000 square feet of living space. The property is being offered by Hill & Co. Realtors for $1.25 million. "It's a unique property with one of the largest lots in Homeland," said Mary Lynne Mullican, the listing agent for Hill & Co. "The wrought-iron work on the back loggia is beautiful.

Police found two men with gunshot wounds in a North Baltimore neighborhood Thursday night and later determined they were shot at a different location. The men were shot, sometime before 10 p.m., by an unknown suspect, who was standing outside their vehicle. At the time, they were parked in the 500 block of Chateau Way in the Winston-Govans neighborhood, police said. They later drove to the Homeland area. Officers responded to the 6000 block of Bellona Avenue, near Northern Parkway, at about 10 p.m. for a report of a shooting.

Homeland Development LLC has opened the final 32-home section at the Villages of Homeland East, where the firm is building three-level garage townhouses with brick-fronts, wainscot and color-coordinated stucco exteriors in North Baltimore.The Alcott is a 1,600-square-foot home starting at $127,990. The entry level has a one-car garage with automatic opener, coat closet, laundry area and mechanical room. A powder room and 19-by-15-foot family room are optional.A 16-by-10-foot front kitchen, powder room, 16-by-9-foot dining room and 19-by-12-foot living room are on the first floor.

I ADMIT it: I cut through.To get from Northeast Baltimore to Roland Avenue to my daughter's school, I drive through residential streets in Homeland and Roland Park. Anyone who has tried to negotiate Northern Parkway or Cold Spring Lane knows how sclerotic Baltimore's east-west arteries are. So people cut through.This commuter traffic does not please residents of Homeland, to whom apparently, we motorists on our way to school and work are a crowd of bashi-bazouks galloping over the hill to plunder their houses and slaughter their cattle.

The former South African apartheid government's designation of black "homelands" was a fraud that never achieved credibility. Small parcels of least-valuable land were set aside for a majority of the population. All that is past history. But now an unreconstructed purist named Constand Viljoen, a former army commander, is crusading for a homeland -- but this time where a white, Afrikaner culture could flourish. It would be geographically and economically within South Africa but politically separate.

Homeland, the third jewel in Baltimore's triple crown of planned neighborhoods, followed the earlier development of Roland Park and Guilford in the 1920s. Its rich history has been chronicled by Barbara M. Stevens, who has resided in Homeland most of her life, in a recently published updated edition of her 1976 book, Homeland: History & Heritage. Proceeds from sales of the book benefit the Homeland Community Foundation Inc., which supports continued beautification of the neighborhood and preservation of its public areas through landscaping.

A Mass of Christian burial for Claire Tumulty, who lived in Homeland for many years, will be offered at 10 a.m. tomorrow at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, 5200 N. Charles St.Mrs. Tumulty, who was 72 and lived on St. Albans Way, died yesterday of cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital.The former Claire Cotter was a native of Washington and was educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart there and at Manhattanville College in Purchase, N.Y.Her husband, Dr. Philip A. Tumulty, professor emeritus of internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins medical school, died in 1989.

President Barack Obama has named Gov. Martin O'Malley one of two co-chairmen of a panel of state and federal officials focused on defense and homeland security, the governor's office said Monday. The Maryland Democrat will co-chair the Council of Governors with Republican Gov. Terry Branstad of Iowa. The panel brings together 10 governors, the secretaries of defense and homeland security, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, the commandant of the Coast Guard, the commander of U.S. Northern Command and other key officials to discuss issues related to the National Guard, homeland security and defense support to civil authorities in the event of terrorism or natural disaster.

More than 100 police, fire, first responders, military and civilian personnel participated in a one-day Homeland Security exercise on Feb. 4 at Battelle in Aberdeen. Those attending included representatives of federal, state, county and local governments, as well as military representatives from the Aberdeen Proving Ground and Fort Meade. The exercise was coordinated by the Harford County Division of Emergency Operations in cooperation with the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security and Aberdeen Proving Ground.

The identity of a 29-year-old man fatally stabbed Jan. 12 outside a liquor store was released Jan. 15. Police said Michael Anthony Price, who lived in the 600 block of McCabe Avenue, was pronounced dead at Johns Hopkins Hospital at 12:25 a.m. Jan. 13. A Baltimore police officer had found Price with apparent stab wounds to his torso and arm in the 5400 block of York Road and attempted to revive him until paramedics arrived. Police canvassed the area for a suspect and arrested Lonnie Murrill, 42, of the 500 block of E. 43 r d Street.

The finale of “Homeland” Season 2 was an appropriately epic and totally off the wall conclusion to a narrative arc that prioritized constant, edge-of-your-seat dramatic momentum, even at the occasional cost of believability. First, the basics: The episode began at Carrie's aunt's picturesque cabin in the woods, the two lovebirds finally free to juggle produce and watch the sunset together. It's clear that Quinn is stalking them at their hideout, but they seem oblivious. They feel so safe that when Brody unearths a handgun in the cabin, Carrie removes the bullets and shoves the weapon back in the drawer.

Ramon "Ray" Santamaria Jr., a retired tennis pro and captain of the 1954 Johns Hopkins University lacrosse team, died of cancer Dec. 9 at Union Memorial Hospital. The Cockeysville resident was 80. Born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, he was the son of Ramon Santamaria Sr., who came to Baltimore in 1938 as consul for the Republic of Honduras. His mother, Ramona, was a homemaker. He lived on Keswick Road in Roland Park and was a 1950 graduate of Polytechnic Institute, where he was class president all four years, played lacrosse and wrestled.

A Hispanic woman was eating her lunch near a pond outside her workplace when deputies from the Frederick County Sheriff's Office arbitrarily accosted her. They questioned her about her immigration status, arrested her and placed her in detention, where she remained for 46 days, separated from her 1-year-old child. This 2008 incident has been echoed countless times across the country, as local police officers - deputized as immigration enforcers - engage in racial profiling to fulfill their mandate to detain undocumented immigrants for deportation.

The Rev. John Paul Buchheister Sr., a retired pastor who had been a United Methodist Church district superintendent, died of cardiac failure Saturday at Oak Crest Village. He was 87 and had lived in Lutherville. Born in Baltimore, he was the son of Harry Buchheister, a chocolate candy and taffy confectioner. He grew up on Wilkens Avenue in Violetville in Southwest Baltimore and was a 1943 graduate of Polytechnic Institute, where he was quarterback of the school's football team. He joined the Navy and was sent to the University of North Carolina, where he took courses at its preflight school.