NEWS
By Justin Fenton | September 19, 2009
Baltimore police commanders have postponed plans for an $11,000 overnight retreat, saying the event would be a distraction as the department grapples with crime and budget woes. Using money seized from suspected criminals, the department had planned an overnight training retreat at Leakin Park's Outward Bound center. According to documents filed with the Board of Estimates, nearly 50 commanders would have participated in a program that included "use of low ropes activities, a combination of problem-solving games, and elements of the high ropes course."
NEWS
By Justin Fenton | September 10, 2009
With the city staring at budget cuts, the top brass of the Police Department are scheduled to go on an $11,000 overnight retreat next week. But officials are defending the expenditure, with the trip paid for through cash seized from criminals and the destination hardly glamorous - commanders will be bunking at Leakin Park for the night. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said 48 members of the agency's leadership team - from Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III to the deputy majors - will attend the training and team-building retreat at the park's Outward Bound center.
NEWS
By Larry Carson | June 14, 2009
For a politician whose stock in trade is language and communication, staying silent for 10 days might seem like a nearly impossible task. But silence and professionally guided meditation is something Del. Elizabeth Bobo has learned to love and use in recent years, she said, and she feels it helps her, both as a person and an elected official. A strong personality and liberal Democrat well-known as a vigorous advocate for causes she believes in, Bobo, who represents a single member district mostly covering West Columbia, said she may not seem that different on the outside, but she's feeling more peaceful on the inside.
NEWS
By Jeannine Stein | January 20, 2008
PORTLAND, ORE. / / I knew this was no ordinary trip when I got on the hotel shuttle at Portland International Airport. Two nicely dressed women about my age shared it with me, and for the first minute we sat in silence, like every other shuttle rider. Then one woman said, "So ... are you guys here for art camp?" We were. We had flown in to attend Art & Soul, a six-day arts-and-crafts retreat at an Embassy Suites hotel near the airport. The retreat featured workshops in mixed-media collage, jewelry, book arts, painting, drawing, fiber and fabric crafts, and doll-making.
NEWS
By Sandy Alexander | December 2, 2007
The Bon Secours Spiritual Center in Marriottsville is best known as a quiet place, surrounded by more than 300 acres of farmland and forest, and featuring walking trails, a tranquil pond, a peace garden and a labyrinth. But as the retreat and conference center approaches its 40th anniversary in 2008, its leaders have decided it is a good time to make a little more noise. That includes the hammering and drilling of a major renovation project and a more outspoken publicity campaign to let the community know about a place that marketing coordinator Barbara Castellano calls "the secret at the top of the hill."
NEWS
By Melissa Harris | November 18, 2007
STAR TANNERY, VA. -- Steam wafted off the 104-degree water. Worried that I'd be scalded, I tested it with my toes and timidly stepped into the tub. As the water climbed up my body, the throbbing in my lower back from a morning horseback ride faded. I lasted in the ofuro, a Japanese-style bath, at Virginia's Pembroke Springs Retreat for 13 minutes, shorter than the recommended 15- to 20-minute soaking time. When sweat began to roll down my temples, I knew it was time to wrap myself in one of the inn's summer kimonos, called yukatas, and get a glass of water.
NEWS
By Jacques Kelly | August 11, 2007
Margaret Blandin Clark, a social worker and University of Maryland assistant professor, died Thursday of cancer at her Charles Village home. She was 56. Born Margaret Blandin in Bethesda, she earned a bachelor's degree in sociology at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia and a master's degree in social work from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. She moved to Baltimore in 1977 and worked for Associated Catholic Charities in its school mental...
NEWS
By STEVE CHAPMAN | May 14, 2007
CHICAGO -- We all know that when it comes to war, Republicans are strong and resolute, while Democrats are weak and craven. We know because Republicans tell us so. Those have been the constant GOP themes in the congressional debate over the Iraq war. House Republican Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio accused Democrats who want to require withdrawal by a certain date of proposing "a timetable for American surrender." They were cheering for "defeat," charged Arizona Sen. John McCain. President Bush vowed that unlike his partisan opponents, he would not "cut and run."
NEWS
By Matthew Hay Brown | January 31, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Conservative Republicans, out of power in Congress for the first time in 12 years, will return to Baltimore tomorrow for a three-day retreat featuring pep talks by such movement lights as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey and former Sen. Phil Gramm. On Friday, the members of the House Republican Study Committee will hear a pitch from former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who has been courting conservative leaders in his run for the Republican presidential nomination.
NEWS
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS | June 12, 2006
WASHINGTON -- With the Iraq war hanging oppressively over his presidency, George W. Bush is heading to Camp David today with his top advisers in hopes of gaining fresh perspective on his most pressing problem. The two-day working session at the presidential compound in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains marks an effort by Bush to take advantage of news of the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the forming of a new Iraqi government. The high-level retreat comes at a pivotal moment: Bush is under pressure to show progress in Iraq amid growing calls for a new strategy that could hasten the withdrawal of U.S. troops.