Signal

You can see fall coming as surely as you can see a candle flame snuffed by the wind. At twilight, watch any grass field or woods where this summer's fireflies, nourished by a wet spring, rose in great numbers. Now their dwindling lights tell us autumn is on the way.Think of it as the lightning bugs' parting signal in a brief life of signals.Seven days on the planet between June and mid-August, that's about all the adult lightning bug has in temperate zones. Time for the males to rise from the ground at twilight or night, fly through the darkness flashing, looking for a mate.

After winning the school's first-ever national championship, the Stevenson men's lacrosse team has been selected to receive the Henry Ciccarone Memorial Award by the Touchdown Club of Annapolis as the organization's Collegiate Team of the Year. "For the past 40 years or so, the Touchdown Club has chosen one college lacrosse team in Maryland to receive this award," president Justin Mullen said. "There was no debate this year as Stevenson's outstanding 2013 season that culminated in the school's first Division III national championship clearly stood out above the rest.

If Hurricane Irene has accomplished anything - aside from causing Gov. Martin O'Malley to spend what seems like his every waking hour touring flood damage and power outages for the TV cameras - it's to demonstrate that a great many Maryland drivers don't know what to do when a traffic signal is out of operation. Perhaps you have had the frustrating experience of getting stuck at a blacked-out intersection where drivers don't seem to understand who should cross the road next.

President Barack Obama's latest changes in his top national security team seem more a shift to a stronger emphasis on human rights than a break with his long-range determination to keep the United States out of nation-building adventurism. His appointments of UN Ambassador Susan Rice as national security adviser and of Samantha Power, a persuasive insider human rights advocate from the National Security Council, to replace Rice at the UN suggest that shift rather than any momentous pivot.

The problem: On rainy days, a railroad signal malfunctions in the Canton Industrial Area. The back story: Patience is a virtue, but it's hard to ask drivers to be understanding when something is broken. Spencer Simpson Jr. of Hamilton noticed that on particularly wet days, the railroad signal on O'Donnell Street near Oldham Street by the Canton Industrial Area will sometimes start flashing, even when there is no train coming. Drivers obey the signal initially, but eventually disregard it when no locomotive approaches.

What goes around comes around. Sarah Palin is accused of provoking the tragedy in Arizona. Probably not true, but just a minute! President Barack Obama was the focus of criticism for the Gulf oil spill. His opponents made it sound as though the president caused the tragedy. Now the Republicans are in the hot seat because they forgot that they might win an election or two and continued on their merry way throwing political rocks at the Democrats. Their swipes were only meant to wake us up, and awake we are now. It is sad that tragedy has to be the trigger for sanity.

Wasting money on decorative brick crosswalks is not going to solve the traffic/speed problem on Rolling Road ("Rolling Road work may get on a fast track," Catonsville Times, June 22). Baltimore County might as well not do anything and not waste taxpayer money. We don't need fancy, expensive crosswalks on dangerous roads. Instead, we need a traffic light at Newburg Avenue and South Rolling Road. Newburg Avenue is a cut-through street for many neighborhoods. This intersection is highly confusing for motorists, pedestrians, high school students and bikers.

THE PROBLEM -- A flashing yellow light on Greenspring Avenue near Brooklandville seems to work erratically. THE BACKSTORY -- About six months ago, Baltimore County crews installed a flashing yellow light at Greenspring Avenue and Woodvalley Drive, just north of the Baltimore Beltway. Ira Geller was happy. "I thought the signal was there to warn northbound drivers that vehicles were exiting Woodvalley onto Greenspring Avenue," she wrote to Watchdog. "The light would be necessary because the Greenspring Avenue hill blocks oncoming motorists' view of Woodvalley Drive," she wrote.

Allied Signal Technical Services Corp. of Columbia has been awarded a $1.5 million contract by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for mission operations and support services at the Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif.The contract, including options, has a potential value of $6 million.Allied Signal will provide flight operations support for five active Pioneer series spacecraft; process and distribute the data to the scientific community; and ensure the operations, maintenance and modifications of the flight operations and data processing facilities.

A new traffic signal at Ten Oaks Road and Route 32 in western Howard County will be activated at 10 a.m. today, according to officials of the State Highway Administration.The signal, which has been on a "flash" mode since last week, was installed last month.After Tricia Ann Rayeski, a 24-year-old special education teacher at Glenelg High School, died April 17 of massive internal injuries when her car was hit by a pickup truck at the intersection -- police said Rayeski failed to yield to approaching traffic -- community members collected almost 400 signatures on a petition asking for a signal there.

Someone's been making off with the big industrial batteries that provide backup power at traffic signals in Baltimore, and now the thefts are being investigated by the city inspector general's office, which looks into allegations of waste, fraud and abuse in municipal government. A representative of the battery's manufacturer said the thieves most likely would have tried to sell the 54-pound batteries as scrap for their lead content. Russell Conelley, an agent in the IG's office, confirmed in an interview with The Baltimore Sun that it is investigating battery thefts reported to have occurred along Harford Road in Northeast Baltimore and Wilkens Avenue in Southwest Baltimore.

Six months after Maryland, Maine and Washington voters endorsed same-sex marriage at the ballot box, two more states have adopted laws allowing gay couples to marry, and a third is poised to join them. On Tuesday, lawmakers in Delaware adopted a same-sex marriage law, and Minnesota's House of Representatives passed a marriage equality measure there today, setting up a final vote in the Senate on Monday. Last week the Rhode Island legislature adopted a similar measure. That three states have moved to legalize gay marriage over the span of less than a month shows how quickly public attitudes toward same-sex unions are changing.

Kweisi Mfume was named the new chair of Morgan State University's Board of Regents on Tuesday, more than three months after his predecessor was ousted amid a public battle over university leadership. Mfume quickly signaled that university President David J. Wilson, whose contract was at the center of the board's upheaval in the last several months, will continue on at the university with the board's full support. Mfume, a university alumnus, longtime board member, former member of the Baltimore City Council and the U.S. House of Representatives and past president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, will take over the position July 1 from the interim chair, Martin Resnick.

Eugene "Gene" F. Kolb, a retired Bendix/Allied Signal mechanical engineer, died at Maryland Shock Trauma Center on April 12 of complications from a head injury related to a fall at his house. The Kingsville resident was 84. He was born in St. Charles, Mo., and was a 1947 graduate of St. Charles High School. He earned a mechanical engineering degree from the Missouri School of Mines. He served in the Army for two years in the early 1950s and moved to Maryland to take a job at the Bendix Joppa Road plant in Towson.

Be still, my somewhat jaded American Catholic heart: A Jesuit? A Jesuit from Argentina who, as archbishop then cardinal, eschewed the chauffeur-driven limousine for the public buses of Buenos Aires? A Jesuit devoted to social justice and to helping the poor? And, he took the name of Francis, one of the coolest saints. Excuse me while I have a somewhat positive reaction to the smoke signals from Rome. Here we were - that is, me and a lot of my friends among the heretical faithful - thinking the whole process of electing a new pope was an exercise in identifying the safest old European conservative in red shoes.

William Deal Waxter III, a retired securities analyst and World War II veteran, died of a stroke Feb. 11 at Broadmead Retirement Community. The former Roland Park resident was 88. Born in Baltimore and raised on Lombardy Place, he spent his summers at Ocean City 's Plimhimmon Hotel, a landmark founded in 1894 by his great-grandmother, Rosalie Tilghman Shreve, on Second Street at the Boardwalk. Family members said that as a teenager he ran the hotel's switchboard and began a lifelong interest in communications.

Scientists from around the world are rotating arrays of radio telescopes toward Mars in an effort to confirm that a weak, mysterious signal -- about the strength of a cell phone call -- has been received from the $165 million Mars Polar Lander. "We are continuing to review the data," Mary Hardin, a spokeswoman for NASA's suddenly rejuvenated Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said yesterday. "In the meantime, we are using radio telescopes in England, Italy and the Netherlands to help us listen."

SOME OF you might have noticed a change recently in the signal pattern at Route 99 and Maplewood Drive. Dave Buck of the State Highway Administration's communications office said the signal, which was installed almost a year and a half ago at the request of a nearby elementary school, was switched about two weeks ago. When installed, the signal was flashing most of the time, operating only at peak times in the morning and afternoon on weekdays. Now, it is a "fully actuated" signal from early Monday through the rush hour Friday.

When push came to shove, Republicans and Democrats came together for a last-minute bi-partisan compromise on the so-called fiscal cliff, a combination of automatic spending cuts and tax increases that would have plunged the nation back into recession. The deal passed the Senate overwhelmingly after marathon negotiations between Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Joe Biden. Just eight senators voted against it, and although it technically came after the midnight deadline, the New Year's holiday afforded Congress the chance to finalize the deal before the markets - or the general public - had time to react.

A 15-year-old was struck by a car at an intersection at Maryland Route 198 in Anne Arundel County Thursday morning, police said. The teen was crossing at the intersection of Route 198 and Russett Green East around 5:59 a.m., when he was struck by a Chevrolet Camaro. Police said the car had a green light and remained on the scene, and that the teen was crossing at the intersection against a pedestrian traffic signal. The teen was taken to Laurel Regional Hospital, where he later died, police said.