Hunger

Skies should clear enough tonight to reveal a bright moon, which reached official fullness at 12:45 a.m. this morning. February's full moon comes with a passel of folk names, all evocative of winter's danger and deprivation. Some of our ancestors called it the Snow Moon, which makes sense given February's history of big snowfalls. Others knew it as the Wolf Moon, a frightening suggestion of predators circling our settlements in the moonlight. For many whose winter stores were dwindling, it was the Hunger Moon.

Luis Larin once fasted six days to protest rising electricity rates in his native Guatemala. Now a day laborer in Baltimore, Larin is among 11 current and former temporary workers who will begin a hunger strike Sept. 3 to secure higher wages for those who pick up the trash at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. "We think it's the only way we'll get attention and get a living wage for workers," Larin said through a Spanish interpreter. The hunger strike announced yesterday is the latest move by the United Workers Association to pressure the Maryland Stadium Authority to meet its demand for better pay. Camden Yard workers typically earn $7 an hour.

Gov. Martin O'Malley expressed support yesterday for a "living wage" for cleaners at Orioles and Ravens stadiums, just before workers are set to begin a hunger strike Monday to pressure the Maryland Stadium Authority for better pay. O'Malley made his remarks at a news conference to discuss the state's new living-wage law that goes into effective Oct. 1. The law wouldn't cover the temporary workers who are hired to clean the two state-owned stadiums when...

WE'RE SQUARELY in the middle of Baltimore comfort food season, and I love it.The other Monday I trotted off to the Woman's Industrial Exchange for chicken pot pie. A few days later I lunched on the same dish at Jr., a restaurant in Bolton Hill. And is any Baltimore winter complete without a trip to Marconi's on Saratoga Street for the chocolate sauce?In the past few weeks I've dined upon shepherd's pie, meat loaf, sour beef and dumplings, fresh ham, lamb chops, creamed cauliflower, mashed potatoes (skip the garlic, thank you)

ENDING WORLD hunger is a lofty goal, maybe one that can only be attained one step at a time.ESCAPE Ministries Inc. will hold its annual CROP Walk to aid in that battle at 2 p.m. Sunday.Under the auspices of Church World Service, CROP walks strive to combat hunger while raising awareness of food shortages. Twenty-five percent of the funds raised during a walk are returned to the local sponsoring organization.ESCAPE hopes to raise more than $5,000 and will use its portion to aid needy families throughout the county with emergency housing, food and utility needs.

Grand jury indicts man in death of girlfriendAn Anne Arundel County grand jury indicted Monday the boyfriend of an Annapolis woman who was killed in July 1996.James S. Johnson, 32, formerly of Annapolis, was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Desiree Chavis, 27, whose body was pulled from Spa Creek in Annapolis July 11, 1996, by two boaters. She had been gagged and a large rock had been tied to her leg. Johnson is in prison on a probation violation in an unrelated case.The state's attorney's office is looking for anyone who saw a light-colored pickup truck in Truxtun Park around the time of the killing.

A lot of things went right for the Orioles this season. Career-year performances from B. J. Surhoff and Mike Bordick. A combined 45 wins from Mike Mussina, Scott Erickson and Sidney Ponson, the top three starters. Strong offensive seasons from Albert Belle, Brady Anderson and Cal Ripken, and also Harold Baines before he was traded.So, what does it mean that so much went right for a team out of playoff contention by the All-Star break and threatening to finish last in the American League East before a meaningless September surge?

QIREZ, Yugoslavia -- Sunday was market day here.People would come in from all over the countryside to sell their produce in stalls along the one street. Elsadet Gemajli, working in his father's blacksmith shop, four buildings up from the new school, would make sure to have plenty of horseshoes for sale. Ilmi Dobra would dish out small cups of thick coffee in his cafe, where the farmers and the townsfolk stopped to rest their feet and swap the news.It was a snug, provincial, conservative life.

THE state Senate's recent passage of the bill to require teaching of the Irish famine in Maryland schools is very disturbing -- not least because the only identified historian in that legislative body, state Sen. Michael J. Collins, a Baltimore County Democrat, supported the bill.After demonstrating his professionalism as a member of the ethics committee in his handling of the Larry Young ethics case, I am disappointed that he failed to understand the threat to the profession of history that this bill poses.

TIRANA, Albania -- In this destitute country where court cases are generally decided by the biggest bribe and where a banking system is a foreign concept, there seems to be no end to the power of the swindler.Twenty people are staging a hunger strike in support of one of the investment schemes that defrauded Albanians and led to nationwide violence that brought down the government last year.For the past three weeks the protesters, some of them elderly women, have been lying covered in blankets in two dank rooms of a villa owned by Vehbi Alimucaj, head of the biggest of the failed schemes.

Here's a conundrum. If anti-hunger organizations like ours are really good at what we do, Americans will respond - and do the wrong thing. That's because of a widespread misunderstanding of why we still have kids who are hungry in this country. Simply put, the problem is not a lack of food. Rather, the bigger issue is a lack of access to services. Fortunately, this is a problem that can be solved - and Maryland, to its credit, is attempting to do just that. During holidays and economic downturns, people and businesses increase donations to food banks and soup kitchens, while society beefs up appropriations for food stamps and other public feeding programs.

The second full moon since the winter solstice rises over Baltimore tomorrow at 5:59 p.m. Our ancestors knew it as the Wolf Moon, the Snow Moon or the Hunger Moon. It's easy, and chilling, to imagine why. This one rises nine hours after a "penumbral eclipse," a slight darkening of the moon as it passes through the edge of the shadow Earth casts into space. It will be visible from Asia and the Pacific.

Baltimore is not New York. It is not Boston or Charlotte or San Diego either. This is not a shortcoming, it is a point of civic pride. While football teams from those cities were expected to go deep in the National Football League playoffs, it is Baltimore's Ravens, not the Giants, Patriots, Panthers or Chargers, playing this Sunday for a trip to the Super Bowl. What's our name? How perfect that the Ravens have been inspired by a defiant Muhammad Ali's quest for respect four decades ago from an opponent who would refer to him only as Cassius Clay.

Mayor Sheila Dixon will meet tomorrow with students from the Algebra Project, a mentoring group whose members have been staging a hunger strike since Friday to win city funding for a program they say would provide about 1,000 jobs to young people. Dixon said last night that she agreed to meet with the students to discuss ways to find outside funding for Peer to Peer Enterprises, but that she will not pledge the $3 million in city money the students are demanding. The 13 students participating in the strike say they will not eat solid food until Dixon pays to expand the program.

Promising a hunger strike until their demands are met, about 40 city high school students and young adults rallied at Baltimore's Inner Harbor yesterday evening to protest the City Council's rejection of $3 million in funding for programs that would pay youths to help peers in need. The protesters gathered at the harbor's amphitheater, then marched peacefully a few blocks to the Legg Mason plaza, where they chanted slogans and listened to speeches. The group planned to spend the night at a nearby church and repeat the routine daily without ingesting anything but water and juice.

On March 6, 2008, MATILDA BARBARA (nee Oswinkle); beloved wife of the late Joseph F. Hunger; devoted mother of Joe Hunger and his wife Jackie; and Connie Kane and her husband Jim; loving grandmother of Greg, Jeff and Ken Hunger, Jen, Jimmy and Jessica Kane. Also survived by two sisters, Charlotte and Esther Conway. A Funeral Service will be held at the family owned Duda-Ruck Funeral Home of Dundalk, Inc., 7922 Wise Avenue, Tuesday, 10 A.M. Interment Oak Lawn Cemetery. Friends may call Sunday and Monday 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M.

It got a little strange for Adrienne Abrahams when she started dreaming about Skittles. Not that dreams filled with cascading candy are a bad thing. It's just that Adrienne, 16, was about halfway into a 30-hour juice-only fast - part of a nationwide effort Friday and yesterday to draw attention to world hunger - and you might have thought her gastronomical fantasies would feature more substantive food. "Then I fell into a vegetable garden, and I was mad," she said, recounting the end of the dream.

In this season of bounty, there are troubling reminders of hunger in our midst that should not be acceptable. Two reports last week found that the number of hungry Americans, including children, remains about the same, which is way too many people. And things aren't likely to get better as food, energy and housing costs are increasing while salaries remain the same or decline. Reducing hunger requires more aggressive public and private action. The federal Department of Agriculture reported that in 2006, there was a slight increase in "food insecure" households, up from 12.59 million in 2005 to 12.65 million in 2006, or nearly 11 percent of all households.

Voices Here's a fine seasonal poem by Todd Davis, who lives and teaches in Pennsylvania. It's about the drowsiness that arrives with the early days of autumn. Can a bear imagine the future? Surely not as a human would, but perhaps it can sense that the world seems to be slowing toward slumber. Who knows? - Ted Kooser SLEEP On the ridge above Skelp Road bears binge on blackberries and apples, even grapes, knocking down the Petersens' arbor to satisfy the sweet hunger that consumes them.

There's good news, better news and bad news regarding the Hunger Project benefit concert scheduled for tomorrow night at Owen Brown Interfaith Center in Columbia. The good news is that the concert will assemble a renowned collection of musicians, including pianist Brian Ganz and violinist Jody Gatwood, who will be playing an inspiring mix of classic and newly composed music. The better news is that all proceeds will go to the Hunger Project, an organization that works to end hunger worldwide.