Magazine

Gardeners are forever looking for something to wrap a flower bed around. There has to be a bed along the front of the porch, and others might be carved out around a garden shed, a birdbath or the trunks of shade trees. For many people, there's another opportunity right out by the curb: the mailbox. A garden bed around a mailbox gives gardeners a chance to put their horticultural stamp where it's sure to show. In the midst of handsome shrubs, interesting ornamental grasses or hard-working annual and perennial flowers, a standard-issue mailbox on a post becomes a piece of functional art. When there's a flower bed to visit, the trip out to the mailbox is much more interesting, even if the postman brings nothing but bills.

Margaret C. Doyle, a retired public school English teacher and poet who later taught for many years at the Renaissance Institute, died Thursday from complications following surgery at Baltimore Washington Medical Center. The former longtime Pikesville resident was 85. "Margaret was a magnificent woman. She was brilliant and loving," said Jim Holechek, a retired Baltimore public relations executive and author. "Her husband was an artist and she was a poet, and it was always wonderful to interface with her. She was a very sensitive person and able to express herself very well.

I almost didn't become a writer. By the time I returned to Baltimore after a few years abroad, I already held three university degrees and was taking a break from my fourth. Just one requirement away from an MA in creative writing, I was the most over-credentialed storyteller I knew. I was also a chicken. Too afraid to try to earn a living allowing what I'd learned in urban planning courses to inform my writing on cities, I took a job with Baltimore's department of planning instead.

The House of Delegates voted Wednesday to give Maryland one of the toughest gun laws in the nation, passing a bill that would ban the sale of assault-type weapons, set a 10-bullet limit on magazines and require fingerprints and a license to buy a handgun. Delegates altered the Senate's bill during more than 10 hours of emotional floor debate that lasted over two days. Key lawmakers said they expect the differences to be resolved quickly and the legislation sent to Gov. Martin O'Malley for his promised signature.

'Urbanite,' a free monthly magazine focused on urban affairs in the Baltimore area, will go out of business at the end of September, publisher Tracy Ward said Friday.   She said the print magazine now on the street is the last, and that the website will most likely go dark as of Oct. 1 "for the foreseeable future," even though she herself will probably keep working through the end of the year to tie up loose ends. Ward has owned the publication for almost a decade.   "A lot of people rallied around it," she said in telephone interview Friday afternoon.

Presented by the Anne Arundel County Department of Health's Learn to Live program, the newsletter Building Blocks discusses ADHD in young children and provides tips and resources to help child care providers and parents. Free copies of HIM (Health Ideas for Men) magazine are available at the Department of Health, J. Howard Beard Health Services Building, 3 Harry S. Truman Parkway, Annapolis. The magazine features articles on exercises that encourage fitness, eating healthy while dining out, quitting smoking and preventing skin cancer.

Vincent Frank Bova, a retired printer and longtime Cheverly resident, died Dec. 9 of congestive heart failure at a nursing home in Pensacola, Fla. He was 97. Mr. Bova was born and raised in South Baltimore, one of 11 children of Sicilian immigrants. He attended city public schools. As a very young man, he went to work at Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Sparrows Point shipyard, building and repairing the hulls of vessels. He later became a printer and worked for many years for National Geographic magazine in Washington before retiring in the late 1960s.

AmericanStyle magazine, a quarterly publication catering to consumers and producers of fine crafts, has suspended publication and is seeking a buyer, its Baltimore-based publisher announced this week. The magazine has had trouble maintaining advertising sales, said Jean Thompson, a spokeswoman for the magazine's publisher, The Rosen Group, a marketing firm focused on helping North American artists expand their businesses. Many of the magazine's advertisers are art galleries, Thompson said.

If Stanley McChrystal has any kind of mordant humor, surely the song playing in his head these days is that old tune by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, the one about "the thrill that'll get-cha when you get your pict-cha on the cover of the Rolling Stone." That's actually Lady Gaga on the current cover, nearly naked but for an undergarment that gives "bullet bra" a whole new meaning. But somehow McChrystal has managed to upstage her even though he only makes an oblique appearance in the vicinity of her left knee, in a teaser headline, "Obama's General: Why he's losing the war."

Baltimore's Foreign Trade Zone has been ranked the fourth best port-related foreign trade zone in the world by fDi Magazine, which is produced by The Financial Times. The magazine analyzed 700 economic zones and — using criteria such as economic potential, promotional strategy, facilities and transportation — ranked Baltimore fourth under the "Best Port Zone" category for 2010-2011, following the zones of Shanghai, Tangier, Morocco and Jacksonville, Fla. Of the remaining U.S. port zones on the top 10 list, the Foreign Trade Zone of Los Angeles ranked eighth.

Five years ago, I thought I might have to leave Baltimore. Not because I wanted to but because I thought I needed to. It was 2008. Like many employers, Urbanite magazine, where I worked, was feeling the effects of the Great Recession, so I would soon have only half a job. The cut gave me a chance to rethink a few things. Just a few years earlier, I was at the London School of Economics sharing hallways with one of then-Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi's sons and the crown prince of Norway.

Owl Magazine , the student magazine of Harford Community College in Bel Air, recently won national honors in the Apple Awards Competition sponsored by the National College Media Association. The Winter 2012 issue placed second in the category of Best Magazine Cover. The front page was designed by Brianna Breece, a graphic design major, and featured photography by English major John Morin. The front-page models were HCC students Laurise McMillian and Marcell Betts. "A Crash Course in Counter Culture" from Owl Magazine's Summer 2012 issue also placed second in the category of Two-Page Spread, a category judging design, photography and writing quality.

Various publications have already released predictions with the Orioles finishing last in the American League East this season. The folks at ESPN The Magazine seem awfully proud of theirs, though. The cover of their latest issue -- dubbed the "Analytics Issue" -- makes a handful of proclamations, one being that "THE ORIOLES WILL FINISH LAST. " See the cover above.

In a recent article on gun control hearings in Annapolis ("Opinions differ on Md. gun controls," Feb. 7), Sonia Mangum of Stevensville is quoted as saying, in opposition to limits of the ammunition capacity in gun magazines, "If I am under duress, I am going to be missing and may not have time to reload. " She presents more of an argument why the capacity of magazines should be limited. How many of her bullets are being fired? How many are missing? Where are the bullets from those missed shots going?

It's been a long time since Salisbury hasn't entered a season ranked atop the preseason polls, but that's the scenario facing the 10-time national champion this spring. The Sea Gulls, who have captured the last two NCAA titles, are ranked No. 3 in polls compiled by both Inside Lacrosse and Lacrosse Magazine. Inside Lacrosse has Stevenson, Salisbury's former rival in the Capital Athletic Conference, ranked No. 1 and SUNY-Cortland, the team the Sea Gulls beat in last year's NCAA tournament final, No. 2. Lacrosse Magazine has Cortland at No. 1 and Stevenson at No. 2. It's an unfamiliar position for Salisbury, but considering that the team graduated six starters - including its entire starting attack - from last season's squad, coach Jim Berkman said he understands.

AmericanStyle magazine, a quarterly publication catering to consumers and producers of fine crafts, has suspended publication and is seeking a buyer, its Baltimore-based publisher announced this week. The magazine has had trouble maintaining advertising sales, said Jean Thompson, a spokeswoman for the magazine's publisher, The Rosen Group, a marketing firm focused on helping North American artists expand their businesses. Many of the magazine's advertisers are art galleries, Thompson said.

The Baltimore County Public Library has launched a new service that will give patrons access to more than 100 magazine titles on their computers and mobile devices. Patrons can sign up for the Zinio service through the library system's website (www.bcpl.info) and download the application to their tablet, smartphone or computer for free. The service gives them access to the library's digital magazines 24 hours a day. The program is compatible with iPhones, iPads and other tablets, Androids, PCs and Macs, but not with Kindle or Nook, library officials said.

Baltimore County Police Chief James W. Johnson added a much-needed voice of reason to the national debate over gun control last week when he appeared before Congress to testify in favor of universal background checks for gun purchases and a ban on assault rifles and large capacity ammunition magazines. It was only common sense, he told lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee, to extend the reporting requirements for federally licensed firearms dealers to the private individuals who account for 40 percent of gun sales in this country.