Ideas

As I have mentioned before, I think it's important for a person like myself to have a day-of coordinator. My friends who have used them say wonderful things about being less stressed and being able to enjoy the day to its fullest potential. I understand that they are useful in terms of the flow of the wedding and troubleshooting but I also believe wedding coordinators have a tendency to go above and beyond. For example, one coordinator pulled the mother of the groom out of the bathroom so she didn't miss a family photo opportunity.

As Harford County's law enforcement officials consider whether to start using cameras to enforce speed limits in school zones, they'd do well to consider not only the embarrassing experience of Baltimore City's speed camera program, but also the mixed blessing of Bel Air's red light camera program. When the Town of Bel Air first looked into putting enforcement cameras at traffic light intersections to catch and fine red light runners, it seemed like a great idea. Red light running was rampant at many intersections, and traffic accidents were the result.

Rep. Steny Hoyer deserves praise for his comments earlier this week acknowledging that Democrats need to be willing to put Social Security and Medicare on the table as part of a comprehensive solution for our nation's debt problem. To achieve the type of reasonable and responsible solution that our country needs, both Democrats and Republicans need to be willing to make compromises on areas that their core constituencies have long considered to be untouchable. Congressman Hoyer has stepped forward and shown the type of practical political leadership that our country so desperately needs.

Former Gov. Robert Ehrlich is still whining about the GOP defeat in 2012 ("How Republicans can win in 2016," Nov. 25). He seems to think that next time the public will embrace the same philosophy that it rejected this year. Forget about helping the less fortunate, and insist that women who don't want to bear a child but have become pregnant - regardless of the circumstances - go through with an unwanted birth? Those ideas, among others, will only guarantee the same result four years from now. Wake up Bob, and look around before you lose again.

From Liz Atwood: Call me a party-pooper, but I make it a habit never to shop on Black Friday. It isn't so much that I hate the crowds, but that I almost never know what I want to buy for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. I can never understand those folks who do their Christmas shopping in the summer and have it all wrapped by Halloween. I have only started to think about what I want to buy. I was scouring the websites to find out the hot toys for tweens this year and I'm reminded of the old saying "There's nothing new under the sun. "  It seems the Easy Bake Oven, which has been around since I was a kid, is still popular.

Washington Downtown Holiday Market You'll find some unusual gifts at this year's Downtown Holiday Market, which features products from over 180 artisans and crafters. Browse through houseware, jewelry, paintings, clothes and crafts from around the world, offered at 60 exhibits each day. There will also be live music and entertainment while you shop, as well as food vendors including Shake Shack and Alexa's Empanadas. The market is in front of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery.

My husband and I had a parent-teacher conference at his preschool the other day, during which we realized Isaac is showing a great interest in numbers and how they work. We'd noticed some of that at home (counting things, making patterns, asking -- and figuring out -- some sums on his own). But his teacher had some scraps of paper she'd saved, including a couple where he'd done his own math problems. I'm a Word Person, not so much a numbers person. Not that I dislike math, but I just don't think about it that much.

Thanksgiving can be an overwhelming holiday. Even the most seasoned cooks can become agitated by the menu planning and trying to get all the details just perfect. Relax. Area farmers' markets have got you covered. Even as the growing season draws to a close, the markets' bustle increases with shoppers looking for ingredients for their Thanksgiving feast and farmers selling their last big crops of the year. The weekend before Thanksgiving is traditionally the markets' biggest weekend of the year (though many run until the week before Christmas)

The recent action by the Bel Air Board of Town Commissioners to join a mutual emergency agreement with other communities is a reasonable effort at coming up with an administrative framework to account for doing something that already happens. As a practical matter, in times of emergency like blizzards, floods and tropical storms, various governments are fairly generous in offering assistance to each other for things like snow removal, directing traffic, helping with evacuations, providing shelter for displaced people and the like.

Had Vice President Joe Biden behaved toward Sarah Palin in their 2008 debate the way he behaved toward Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan in their debate last Thursday, he might have been denounced as a patronizing misogynist. In his debate with Mr. Ryan, the vice president was merely a jerk. Interrupting while someone is trying to make a point is an old debate tactic intended to throw your opponent off-balance and distract observers from what is being said. By some counts, Mr. Biden interrupted Mr. Ryan more than 80 times and moderator Martha Raddatz broke in at least 50 times, mostly interrupting Mr. Ryan.