Survivors

More than 70,000 Maryland women become victims of domestic violence each year, but only a fraction of these women seek protective orders from our state's courts. If we want to do more to protect women, we need to make it easier and safer for them to get such orders. Alarmingly, sometimes women actually put themselves at risk just by going to court. Consider the case of a Montgomery County resident whose estranged boyfriend had repeatedly beaten and threatened her. When this woman finished her court hearing and had received her protective order, she began walking to her car alone.

CM Punk's path has taken an unexpected turn. Many wondered where the champion would go after retaining his WWE Championship against Ryback at Sunday night's Hell in a Cell. The million-dollar question was answered in the opening segment of Raw, but it was an answer as unexpected as the conclusion of Sunday night's pay-per-view. Punk denied having any knowledge of referee Brad Maddox's plans for the evening, suggesting he did it to make it up to Punk for screwing him in a tag team match against John Cena several months ago. (Yay continuity!

We start out with Kalabaw after Tribal Council, and Katie realizing how precarious her position is. She lost the other two members of her alliance at practically the same time. She starts out by trying to get Denise on her side. Methinks she's a little outmatched if Katie thinks she can manipulate Denise, and by the look on her face, Denise agrees with me. At Tangdang (wow, things are so much easier with only two tribes) Mike's been eating all of the rice, dry, and along with other bad decisions, that is making the rest of the tribe crazy.

It is coming up on one year since the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse story broke and just about a week since his sentencing, and I am pondering what we have learned from it and where we are in relation to more open dialogue about sexual abuse. Here is what I know for sure. Jerry Sandusky, former assistant football coach at Penn State University, is a serial pedophile, and he abused children of various ages for extended periods of time. Eight brave survivors of abuse came forward for the trial, but many more have not come forward for various individual, personal reasons.

We start out the night with Matsing and their ever-shrinking tribe. What would happen if they just keep losing? Would they have to sit our more and more of the other two tribes in challenges? Nah, you would see (well, we wouldn't) producers scrambling around in the background to figure something out. Now that Roxy is gone, Russell realizes that he needs to ally himself with Denise because of the bond between Angie and Malcolm You know, watching the credits I realize that, except for the people on Matsing, I don't know who half these people are yet. Maybe if someone else finally loses, we'll spend some time with the other tribes.

Previously, the tribes were dotted with past contestants and minor celebrities, and I somehow managed to mix up Brandon and Colton from "Survivor: One World. " How I managed to mix up Brandon and his Crazy with Colton, I don't know (but thank you to Todd Mallett for pointing that out to me in the comments!) Zane thought he was being all sneaky-like and good with the strategerizing when it totally wasn't necessary, and ended up going home. Back from Tribal Council, Russell is dealing with the feeling of actually having been on the chopping block.

Nick Ruth is $250,000 richer, thanks to a winning Mega Millions ticket. But this 19-year-old Towson resident is not thinking about a BMW or a Harley or even a trip to the Bahamas. "I have no major plans besides donating," he said. Nicholas David Ruth battled childhood leukemia and has been in remission for nearly five years. His winnings mean he can give back to the many charities who helped him, he said. Maybe a donation to the Make-A-Wish Foundation will help another critically ill kid take a cruise, as he did, he said.

Margery K. "Margie" Pozefsky, an artist and kidney transplant survivor who supported a kidney swapping transplant program at Johns Hopkins Hospital, died Friday of lung cancer at her Rockland home. She was 71. "Margie was just a wonderful woman who had been one of our patients years ago and then endowed a professorship of kidney transplant surgery at Hopkins," said Dr. Julie A. Freischlag, chair of the Department of Surgery and surgeon in chief at Hopkins. "It was a huge gift, and she also helped enhance our kidney swap program and computerized database," Dr. Freischlag said.