Purge

Pub Date: 4/23/97

Your home is starting to resemble an episode of "Hoarders," but without the tearful back story. Sure, that armoire is gorgeous. But you never use it. Those antique candlesticks that Grandma gave you are just collecting dust. And what about all those clothes in your closet that still have the price tags attached? It's time to purge. Purging is always the first rule of thumb at the start of any project, said Stephanie Bradshaw, a Baltimore stylist who also does residential and commercial design.

The Orioles purged their pitching staff Tuesday by promoting Mike Mussina, Stacy Jones and Jim Poole and demoting Jeff Robinson, Jeff Ballard and Paul Kilgus.Do you expect the Orioles to have further shakeups in the last two months of the season?To register your opinion, call SUNDIAL at 783-1800 (or 268-7736 in Anne Arundel County) today through midnight. After you hear the greeting, you'll be asked to punch in a four-digit code on your touch-tone phone. Punch 4600 and you'll be connected with "It's Your Call," The Evening Sun's phone survey on topical issues.

Ray Bahr ought to be taking it easy. He's 75 and retired after a successful career as a cardiologist. Instead, the Canton resident finds himself prowling alleys in East Baltimore on the lookout for illegally dumped trash and goading city officials to clean up mini-landfills in back of abandoned houses. Now, the physician — who once helped launch a national movement to treat chest pain before it can lead to fatal attacks — has another sick patient, another crusade. He wants to help heal the watery heart of Baltimore — its harbor — and in the process perhaps bring a fractured city a little closer together.

Your home is starting to resemble an episode of "Hoarders," but without the tearful back story. Sure, that armoire is gorgeous. But you never use it. Those antique candlesticks that Grandma gave you are just collecting dust. And what about all those clothes in your closet that still have the price tags attached? It's time to purge. Purging is always the first rule of thumb at the start of any project, said Stephanie Bradshaw, a Baltimore stylist who also does residential and commercial design.

WASHINGTON -- Responding to growing public disgust over government freebies, the Bush administration has ordered its own perks purge to identify areas that make the president and his people look as though they're wasting taxpayers' money.Despite the order to scour for perks, Budget Director Richard Darman drew the line yesterday at requiring President Bush to give up Air Force One, saying Americans believe that "the dignity of office" should permit George Bush to travel on the Boeing 747 luxury aircraft.

The Court of Appeals yesterday ruled that the Baltimore Board of Elections acted properly when it refused to carry out an order by the state elections board to remove more than 32,000 names from the city's voter registration rolls.The court upheld a decision by Baltimore Circuit Judge Joseph H. H. Kaplan, who ruled that changes in state laws nullified the state elections board's March 29 order to purge voters who had failed to vote in the past five years.The lawyer for the Baltimore elections board said the ruling -- a one-sentence order issued a day after oral arguments -- clears the way for a smooth city election Sept.

A Republican member of the state election board claims that Baltimore officials targeted voters in majority-white precincts for removal from city rolls last year to hurt the GOP gubernatorial candidate's chances in the November election.But an investigation by The Sun indicates that the allegations by board member Daniel J. Earnshaw are unfounded.Mr. Earnshaw used selective samplings from city election board records to support his charges that disproportionately high numbers of voters were removed from the rolls in some precincts.

VIENNA, Austria -- The Iraqi government has begun a major purge of a rebellious army unit that attempted an uprising against President Saddam Hussein last week, arresting and executing as many as 150 soldiers and officers, say Iraqi opposition figures here and in London and Arab diplomats in Europe.Opposition figures say Iraqi intelligence officials have also questioned hundreds of relatives of troops who served in the Ramadi region west of Baghdad and in the Anbar region, which stretches to the Syrian and Jordanian borders.

ANNAPOLIS -- A Baltimore elections official pleaded with a legislative committee yesterday to support a bill that would make it easier for the city to keep voters on its registration rolls.Barbara Jackson, administrator of the Baltimore elections board, wants the city to be exempted from a state law that requires her to remove the names of registered voters who have not cast a ballot in the previous five years."People should have a choice to vote or not to vote," she said.Ms. Jackson said citizens have told her they find the five-year purge insulting.

Ah, Thanksgiving. Has there ever been a year when we truly needed a break from the constant carping that has become our national sport? Just for today, let's leave it to the cable TV barkers and the online posters to make sure that everything that's wrong with the world gets duly noted. You can even re-join them on Friday. But for today, let's give credit where it's due. I'll even start. Here are 23 things I'm thankful for: •The prospect of seeing all those plastic bags that currently get tangled in trees instead impaled on the spikes of the scary sculpture Pat Turner wants to erect in Westport.

Old age ain't for sissies. — Bette Davis Her father had lived for a decade and a half in a big house on the Eastern Shore. Then he started showing signs of dementia. In 2008, Barbara Turner finally had to take the reins. It was tough enough that Turner, a retired newspaper journalist, was forced to move her dad into assisted living. But what should she do with his stuff? She wanted to keep it all — the chairs, the old photos, even the lawn equipment.

Save it or toss it? It's a question we face whenever confronted with canceled checks, utility bills, ATM and credit card receipts, 401(k) statements — that mound of paper taking over our homes. If you're like many, you err on the side of caution and keep each piece, letting the stack of papers grow, throwing them in an overstuffed drawer or stowing them in a box that won't be reopened for months or years. Or you may be paper-averse, especially if you're Generation Y or younger, and save digitally instead.

When Barack Obama took office in January, the legal community braced itself for a politically motivated, mass firing of the nation's 93 federal prosecutors. But it never came. Instead, the new president asked the 50 or so U.S. Attorneys who hadn't already quit to stay put until successors could be found. In Maryland, that could take a while. Politicians on both sides of the political aisle are fans of incumbent U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein, a George W. Bush appointee, and they're in no hurry to usher him out. It's even possible that they could ask him to stay.

Oxford, Ohio - Detroit is feeling the urge to merge. The Big Three automakers are burning through billions in cash. Stock values for General Motors and Ford are plummeting. So, in desperation, GM engaged in merger discussions with Ford this year, and reportedly is now entertaining the prospect of merging with Chrysler. Such a merger, though, is an awful idea. First, the record of corporate acquisitions involving the Big Three has been disastrous over the past decade: GM spent $2.4 billion on an option to acquire Fiat in 2000, only to spend another $2 billion to escape the deal five years later.

As part of its formal case for reaccreditation, Coppin State University officials watered down a faculty and staff-written report critical of the college's treatment of its core academic staff, records show. Among the criticisms omitted or played down in a final "self-study" report to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education was that Coppin's shared-governance committee has not convened in several years, that professors are underrepresented in university decision-making bodies and that there is a general "absence of active, systematic, meaningful faculty involvement in budget planning and development."

WASHINGTON -- A major purge has begun in the Iraqi military in the wake of reports of a coup attempt against President Saddam Hussein last week, administration officials said yesterday.The reports of the purge of Iraq's officer corps have added details to early, sketchy descriptions of unrest in Baghdad that came last week.One official said the United States was involved in the coup plot. "There is a major purge going on," he said. "There was a plot" and "we were involved," he added, refusing to provide any details.

LIANG VILLAGE, China -- Thirty years ago, during one of the most brutal upheavals in Chinese history, Communist zealots inspired by Mao Tse-tung rampaged through this dusty town, killing scores of innocent people and destroying places of worship.But when locals recently erected a new Taoist temple, it wasn't consecrated to the victims of the decade of mob rule known as the Cultural Revolution. Instead, villagers and local Communist Party leaders chose to honor Mao, worshiping the very man responsible for the havoc in their community three decades earlier.

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai accused Zimbabwe's authorities yesterday of preparing a "war against the people" to intimidate opposition voters in a presidential runoff. The accusation came as a document purporting to represent the opposition's "transition" plans circulated here in the capital, prominently featuring a "hit list" of bureaucrats and security officials who would be purged. A spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change scoffed at the authenticity of the document, saying it was merely another sortie in the regime's battle to prevent Tsvangirai from taking power by frightening the higher echelons of the bureaucracy and security services.

CHICAGO -- Perhaps it's not fair, given all the temptation on the beat from deep-dish pizza and Chicago-style hot dogs (that's with pickles and tomatoes) and with vast parts of the city smelling of chocolate thanks to a downtown candy factory. But the skinny on the officers of the Police Department here, at least according to the new police superintendent, is that some have, let's say, fitness issues. The superintendent, Jody P. Weis, a former FBI agent, came in last month as a reformer vowing to clean up the nation's second-largest police force, and he has already diversified the ranks and bolstered community relations.