Rage

Maryland State Police have arrested a tractor-trailer driver for pointing a fake gun at a dump truck driver Friday on the Baltimore Beltway. Troopers arrested the driver, Johnathan Maniah Adams, of Fort Worth, Texas. Adams was being held at the Baltimore County jail. - Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The last time Congress took a break, Rep. John P. Sarbanes held a series of town hall gatherings at local libraries and a volunteer firehouse with his Baltimore-area constituents. This week, he conducted conference calls instead. Sarbanes said the "virtual" meetings allow him to reach thousands as he spends his August recess trying to convince constituents of the merits of Democratic health care ideas, compared with a few hundred who might show up at a school or community center.

Anne Arundel County police are investigating an apparent road rage incident in which an Odenton man is accused of flashing a handgun at a woman who cut him off during rush hour Thursday. About 5:50 p.m., an off-duty officer stopped at what he thought was a traffic accident on Piney Orchard Parkway near Odenton Road in Odenton. But a 24-year-old woman said it was a road rage incident. She told the officer that she might have cut off another driver, who blasted his horn and, when their cars were stopped, pointed a handgun in her direction and asked whether she wanted to be shot.

A Baltimore City police officer who is no stranger to controversy was arrested Friday and charged with assault and reckless endangerment in connection with a road rage incident in Harford County, Maryland State Police said Monday. Officer Robert G. Cirello, 30, of Abingdon was driving in Bel Air about noon Friday when he and another driver got into an unspecified disagreement in traffic, state police said. As the two vehicles reached Emmorton and Plumtree roads, the second driver said Cirello, who was off duty, flashed a gun, according to Sgt. Arthur Betts, a state police spokesman.

Hulk Hogan, in the midst of a messy divorce, had to say something in response to the negative publicity he has gotten after saying he could relate to O.J. Simpson's rage at his wife, but nothing he says can make this better. (For more, go to baltimoresun.com/ringposts)

Jean Poholsky looks forward to dining at Iron Bridge Wine Co. for the upscale ambience as well as for the food. So when she arrived at the Columbia restaurant for lunch with friends Monday, she was shocked to see glass shards covering a stone walkway that had been spray-painted in red with the words "Get rid of the foie gras." An admitted lover of the French delicacy made from the livers of ducks and geese, Poholsky concurred with the restaurant's owners that whoever was responsible for the overnight vandalism could have expressed their opinion differently.

How odious must executive pay abuses become, people kept wondering, before Congress and corporate boards recoil in horror? When will a company devise a compensation scheme so laughably grasping, so utterly counter to the idea of a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, that the jig will finally be up? Ladies and gentlemen, we appear to have a winner. The people at AIG's financial products unit did such a great job crippling the economy that they're getting $165 million in bonuses. Their job was to sell insurance on toxic mortgage bonds.

It's been about a month since the Maryland Transportation Authority approved plans to start charging a modest monthly fee for E-ZPass accounts, and the expressions of outrage continue to flow. You want sympathy? Don't look for it here. Call a politician. Your local legislators might be happy to introduce a bill to roll back the increase or to put the General Assembly in charge of the matter. Oops, some already have. Those bills are all but certain to fail for several reasons. One is that the legislature has no business wading into toll decisions.

Was the doctor a genius, delighted with the creations that sprung from his mind, or a hopeless egotist? Louis Riecke wasn't sure. But something made him want to believe in John Ziegler, the big scientist with an even bigger ego. Riecke had pumped iron competitively for more than a decade when he met Ziegler in York, Pa., the mecca of American weightlifting for much of the 20th century. Riecke had always been an excellent lifter but never quite among the world elite. Ziegler said he could change that.

Jan. 13, 2007. That's when Baltimore's rage over the departure of the Colts to Indianapolis flickered out. If you're wondering why that flame hasn't been relit as today's Ravens game against the Colts in Indianapolis has approached, the events of that evening are why. The silence - about Bob Irsay, Mayflower vans, William Hudnut, betrayal, hatred, vengeance and closure - has been deafening. Granted, it has also been refreshing. Even at the time, it was hardly a unanimous feeling in town that the tale of that snowy March morning in 1984 had to be retold or that it had to be used to whip the city into yet another fury toward the team with the beloved horseshoe.