Programs

Baltimore City school officials say the nearly $1.2 billion budget the system unveiled last week will fund a raft of new academic endeavors, among them a new team to upgrade instruction in the sciences to meet the higher standards of the new national "core" curriculum and additional programs for academically gifted students. This is all to the good if it helps the city attract and retain more young families with children for whom strong public schools are often the most important factor in choosing where to live.

Antonio Barton's trip home to Baltimore in a couple of weeks will center around the birthday party for his daughter, Skyy, who is turning 4. The visit will also include a meeting with Maryland men's basketball coach Mark Turgeon, Barton said in a phone interview Monday. Barton, who received his release from Memphis after playing for the Tigers the past three seasons, said the Terps are among two dozen teams that have contacted him. And Barton acknowledged that Maryland is among a much shorter list of serious contenders.

Recession being the bane of piano retailers, it seems wholly remarkable that Harry Cohen and his son, Lou, decided to start selling Baldwins and Wurlitzers in 1937 - the year the economy relapsed toward the end of the Great Depression. But somehow the Cohens survived the recession of 1937 and 1938. In fact, the family business, founded in Philadelphia, thrived through three generations and extended into three states. Hundreds of families in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland bought new and used pianos from one of the Cohens over the years.

Data entry is repetitive and hard to do well - that is, quickly and accurately. Shane Foley is great at it. The 21-year-old Ellicott City man works on two computer screens, eyeing images of handwritten sheets on one and clicking the information into a program on the other. His boss gives him a glowing review. So does the head of the state agency whose contract he's working on. Really something for a young man whose neurologist told his parents, many years ago, to consider institutionalizing him. Foley, who has autism, is the first employee of a program for Marylanders with autism-spectrum disorders.

College junior Steve Moirano has no children of his own, but he played the proud parent Saturday as a pair of foals debuted to a crowd of onlookers at the University of Maryland campus farm. "What was it like?" Brandon Hurn, a sophomore chemical engineering student, asked Moirano, referring to a mare known as Amazin'. "Were you there?" "I actually pulled the foals out," answered Moirano, an animal sciences major planning to go into veterinary medicine. He and a few classmates were on hand to show off the foals - the first born on the farm in 30 years - and answer questions at Maryland Day, the university's annual campuswide showcase.

Two weeks after Beverly Poyer married her husband in 2007, he was deployed to Afghanistan. When he came home a year later, she was thrust into a role she hadn't expected: caregiver. Army Spc. Max Poyer, exposed to frequent mortar blasts in Afghanistan, suffered brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder. Now the life the Southern Maryland couple had planned - to finish college, buy a house and have more children - had to be redefined. That's when Beverly Poyer, 32, found a new calling: helping military families overcome emotional battle scars and transition back to civilian life.

Gun control doesn't stop bombings, and it doesn't prevent violent people from buying nails, BBs or pressure cookers. While I am supportive of gun control - and applaud Maryland for being one of the few states taking a strong stance on gun possession - tighter regulations will not prevent all violent attacks from occurring. In order to reach a real solution, the national discussion must go beyond gun control. For instance, how can we better predict who is likely to become a violent perpetrator?

A city prosecutor in Decatur, Ala., has decided not to file a motion to have bonds revoked from Rolando McClain's arrest, which will allow the troubled linebacker to come to Baltimore and start the Ravens' conditioning program if he so chooses. After signing a one-year deal with the Ravens on April 12, McClain was arrested Sunday night in Decatur after police responded to a disturbance at a local park. It was his third arrest in 16 months. McClain, who allegedly incited the crowd by saying '[Expletive]

Maryland defensive end Justin Anderson is leaving the program at the end of the semester. No reason was given for the fourth-year player's departure. Anderson, who has played tackle and end, had six tackles (one for loss) last season. He missed all of 2011 because of injury after playing extensively in 2010. The Terps will be short on defensive line experience with the departure of Joe Vellano and A.J. Francis from last season. Anderson was known partly for having the same first and last name as the emerging Virginia basketball player who was once a Maryland recruit.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra didn't think small when deciding to acknowledge the 2013 bicentennial of the birth of revolutionary composer, revolting human being Richard Wagner. Three separate programs were plugged into the season, starting in February with a sizzling sampling of Wagner's operas that included Act 1 of “Die Walkure,” the second part of Wagner's gargantuan cycle, “The Ring of the Nibelungen.” This week, we're getting a hefty sampling of the entire “Ring,” without words, via a seamless orchestral arrangement by Henk de Vlieger.