Roots

A cabal of corrupt corrections officers and members of the Black Guerrilla Family gang enjoyed nearly free rein inside the Baltimore City Detention Center, federal authorities allege, smuggling drugs and cellphones into the jail and having sexual relationships that left four guards pregnant. An indictment unsealed Tuesday names 25 people - including 13 women working as corrections officers - who face racketeering and drug charges. Twenty of the accused also face money-laundering charges.

Michael Dresser got it right in describing the trajectory of the Baltimore school facilities bill as going from "non-starter to law," but the story goes far beyond the elected and appointed officials who worked hard to make the deals and shepherd the legislation to passage ("City schools bill a political showpiece," May 17). The deeper story must include the herculean efforts of the Baltimore Education Coalition (BEC), the innovative policy advocacy work done by the ACLU of Maryland and the powerful community organizing of groups like BUILD and Child First.

Question: The roots of my orchid are growing way out of the pot. Should I cut them off? Answer: No, wild flailing roots are business as usual for an orchid. Orchids are epiphytes which grow in tree crotches or wherever they can get purchase in the tree canopy. It's not normal for them to be confined to a pot, consequently potting medium for orchids is primarily shards of bark. When this decomposes it is too much like soil, and the roots are not happy. They may be signaling that it’s time to repot your orchid with new specialized orchid potting "soil."

Let's get the last name out of the way first. It's Juszczyk. Somehow, from that lonely vowel and thicket of consonants, comes a pronunciation of YOOZ-check. Don't feel bad if you don't say it right the first time. No one ever does. No, check that. One guy did. "We had a Polish card-swiper at our dining hall" at Harvard, said Kyle Juszczyk, the rookie fullback the Ravens selected in the fourth round (130th overall) of the NFL draft. "And he actually nailed it on the first try. But he's the only one. " Instead, Juszczyk picked up a nickname that made life simpler.

The guys in Good Charlotte might be in their 30s, and many of their fans might be in their early teens, but that doesn't mean Good Charlotte is too old to be cool. "We're not the dads — yet," said guitarist/singer Benji Madden. "We're kind of the older brothers. We can still hang around and be a part of it." That's just what Good Charlotte will be doing on the Bamboozle Road Show, a touring festival, featuring Boys Like Girls and Baltimore punk group All Time Low, among others.

Washington. -- When President Clinton travels to Ireland this fall, he will be inviting comparison with his political idol, President John F. Kennedy, who also went there in search of his family roots.The similarities between Bill Clinton and Kennedy, however, pretty much end with their mutual Irish heritage.Mr. Clinton's trip is billed as a diplomatic effort to encourage the peace process in Northern Ireland, reinforcing his embarrassingly slender credentials as an active world leader.Sporadic violence recently halted the talks between the British government and Sinn Fein, the political arm of the Irish Republican Army, aimed at settling a guerrilla war that has raged for 25 years.

When G. Love started tossing around ideas for his new album, he found himself revisiting his roots as a young blues lover kicking around Philadelphia. The album, "Fixin' to Die," pays tribute to the raw sound of Delta bluesmen while turning up the volume a bit. The title track, a cover of the Bukka White tune, is recast as a righteous acoustic stomper. Ditto for the cover of the Paul Simon song, "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover. " It sounds like a stretch, but G. Love settles into a comfortable groove and rides it for most of the album.

Christina-Taylor Green, the youngest victim of the mass shooting that critically injured Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was born in Maryland a few hours after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. A politically engaged 9-year-old, Christina-Taylor had recently been elected to the student council at her Tucson elementary school and wanted to meet Giffords, the Arizona Daily Star reported today. Her father, John Green, is a scout for the Los Angeles Dodgers and in the late 1990s was an amateur scout with the Baltimore Orioles.

The Summer Spirit Festival, which was to be headlined by Nas and Damian Marley, has been cancelled. The one-day event was scheduled to take place at Merriweather Post Pavilion August 14.  Common and Erykah Badu performed at the festival last year. This year, Chuck Brown and the Roots had been announced to join Nas and Marley. The festival had been advertised since June. The cancellation was quietly announced a week or two ago, a spokeswoman for Merriweather Post Pavilion said.

Ivy Chisley looks at earrings during the Kunta Kinte Heritage Festival at the Anne Arundel County Fairgrounds. At top right, Danielle Edwards, 5, dances on the shoulders of her father, Derrick Edwards, as they enjoy music and wait for food. Below, Jerome Hall of the 9th and 10th U.S. Cavalry Association mans the group's Buffalo Soldiers exhibit. The festival honors Kunta Kinte, an African slave brought to Annapolis in the mid-1700s. An ancestor of author Alex Haley, he was featured prominently in Haley's book Roots.

Let me start with this: If not for the absurd war on drugs — by far, the nation's longest war — we would not have had so many killings on the streets of Baltimore over the years. The United States leads the world in incarceration. Without the war on drugs, thousands of men and women would be home with their families instead of in cellblocks; they might even be employed. There would be less social dysfunction and community upheaval. There would be less crime overall. If not for the war on drugs, now in its fifth decade, we would not have gangsters, like the reputed Black Guerrilla Family leaders Eric Brown and Tavon White.

When hearth and home - together with a growing family and an onsite family business - are at the center of day-to-day living, a small and dated one-story farmhouse in Ellicott City begins to burst at the seams. To keep their extended family under one roof while preserving the one-bathroom house built in 1954, the Harbin and Taylor families found the only solution was to build additions. "My mom and uncle were raised on the original farm down the road," Kim Harbin Taylor said. "That house was on 18 acres, and they farmed an additional 44, raising sweet corn and tomatoes.

Please settle an argument. You say to spread no more than 1-2 inches of mulch around a tree. Since mulch holds moisture in soil, isn't more mulch even better? Seems logical - but more isn't always better in this case. Mulch does shade soil and slow evaporation by about 25 percent. When mulch gets too deep, however, tree roots will begin to grow into the mulch seeking moisture. This happens partly because in a light rain mulch gets moist, but the water never trickles down past the mulch.

It was the spring of Gavin Floyd's senior year, and professional baseball scouts were flocking to his games at Mount St. Joseph High School. A right-handed pitcher with a blazing fastball and knee-buckling curve, Floyd was considered one of the top prep pitchers in the country and perhaps the closest to being major league-ready in 2001. "Pitching that year was really fun," reflects Floyd, now 30, a dozen years after drawing national attention. "I remember the visuals. It was a long time ago. " Born in Annapolis, Floyd grew up in the Chartwell neighborhood of Severna Park and honed his skills with the Green Hornets at Kinder Park and in youth leagues in Gambrills, according to his mother, Elaine Floyd.

Former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s Sunday columns are usually thought-provoking, but not always in the way he intended. His latest opinion piece laments the vastly expanded entitlement economy - what he calls "a European-style welfare state" ("How the welfare state has grown," April 7). Although few objective observers would describe the U.S. social safety net that way, most people recognize that our current spending on these programs is not sustainable in the long term. However, like Mitt Romney before him, Mr. Ehrlich seems uninterested in how this state of affairs came to be, other than blaming "big government.

A portion of Friday's article on the improved play of No. 10 Loyola's defense centered on the progress that Jack Runkel has made. After recording a 8.57 goals-against average and a .504 save percentage in the team's first seven games, the junior goalkeeper has posted a 5.00 goals-against average and a .625 save percentage in his last three starts. Runkel said one factor in his recent performances has been a conscious effort to break a habit of standing too deep in the cage. The 6-foot-3, 250-pound Runkel takes up a lot of space, but he said that stepping out allows him to reduce the angle that opposing shooters have.

On December 24, 2005, THOMAS ALLEN ROOTS JR; beloved husband of Nina Roots. Friends may call at the family owned MARCH FUNERAL HOME WEST, INC., 4300 Wabash Avenue, on Friday, after 8:30 A.M., where family will receive friends from 5 until 7 p.m. Funeral Service will be held on Saturday at the above establishment where family will receive friends at 11:30 A.M. followed by funeral service at 12 noon. See www.marchfh.com

By the eighth and final night of "Roots," movie theaters in many cities didn't even try to compete. They simply closed their doors.Eighty million viewers watched that last two-hour episode. Its 51.1 rating and 71 Nielsen share were a record that will likely never be matched.Mayors in more than 30 cities declared it "Roots" week.That's the kind of impact "Roots," the TV miniseries based on Alex Haley's book, had for one week in January 1977.In the weeks that followed, debate about the miniseries raged.

The losing became so persistent that Martha Macgill pulled herself from the rotation of Episcopal clergy who regularly attended ball games at Camden Yards. She remembers one defeat in particular; it was Mother's Day 2007 and Jeremy Guthrie pitched eight sparkling innings only for the Orioles bullpen to squander a five-run cushion in the ninth against the Boston Red Sox. Her son Jack Kelleher fell to the floor in despair. "It just got so depressing," says Macgill, the rector at Memorial Episcopal Church in Bolton Hill.

I'd like to grow carrots, but I hear it's tricky. Any tips? Because carrots are roots that need to push through soil, having light loose soil is a big determiner of success. For carrots, a depth of 12 inches is ideal. Add compost to your soil structure. It is the Year of the Root Crop on Grow It Eat It, our all-vegetables. all-the-time site. Find us at our new url: extension.umd.edu/hgic. Our online newsletter starts off the year with a great article providing many tips for growing root crops in Maryland.