Takoma Park

What is silence? What is wisdom? Why are we here? Chris Phillips, a Virginia-based writer and philosopher, asks these and other thought-provoking questions in his new book, The Philosophers' Club, which sets out to help kids consider our universe and its many possibilities and permutations. The book does this by facilitating "Socratic dialogues," which Phillips describes in the introduction as "simply a way of questioning that inspires people to come up with their own answers, to find truth by their own lights."

Deborah L. Vincent, a former federal housing official brought in by Baltimore this year to help turn around its troubled housing agency, died Thursday at a Takoma Park hospital after suffering liver complications related to treatment of her recently diagnosed leukemia. The Silver Spring resident was 43. Ms. Vincent, a native of St. Petersburg, Fla., was seen by some as a visionary in public housing in nearly two decades with the Clearwater (Fla.) Housing Authority. She served as executive director of the Clearwater authority from the early 1980s until the end of 1997, gaining a reputation as an innovative problem-solver in public housing.

Eric Frederick, 90, city and racing official Eric Frederick, a retired city transportation officer and racing official, died Sunday of complications after heart failure at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. He was 90 and lived in the Woodbrook section of Baltimore County. He worked for the city's Department of Public Works for 43 years, retiring in 1970 as director of transportation. He also did transportation consulting for the cities of Buffalo, N.Y., New Orleans and Denver. Mr. Frederick was appointed to the Maryland Racing Commission by Gov. Harry R. Hughes in 1984 and served until 1998.

Less than three months after County Executive Janet S. Owens made the Fire Department's new arson-detecting dog an honorary county employee, the executive has honored the dog and its handler for their work in Anne Arundel and in other counties. Owens recognized the black Labrador, Iris, and the handler, Investigator Doug E. Wilson, with citations of appreciation at a brief ceremony yesterday. The team helped Montgomery County fire investigators determine that a fire in a Takoma Park apartment building May 6 was an arson by detecting an ignitable liquid on a suspect who previously had denied involvement in the fire.

TAKOMA PARK -- Three high school students from the Washington suburbs, armed with the support of Democratic Del. Peter Franchot of Takoma Park, fulfilled part of a class project recently by suggesting the General Assembly repeal "Maryland, My Maryland" as the state song. Earlier attempts to retire it were unsuccessful. For history's sake, I hope this one results in a similar outcome. I'm neither a Confederate sympathizer nor do I wish to re-fight the Civil War. The Confederacy may have been many things, but its reason for existence sprang from human bondage, and it had to be defeated.

Behold Takoma Park: Nuclear-Free Zone. "Tree City." Civic champion of diversity, conscientiousness, recycling. And home to a spy? In the Washington suburb long considered Maryland's most liberal, news of a city councilman's undercover activity has created a ripple in an otherwise tranquil pond. The news itself may not be rocking the foundations of all the brick cottages on Cedar, Holly and Maple avenues, but at City Hall, gadflies are buzzing. In recent weeks the number of citizens taking the podium during the public comment period of the City Council's meetings has doubled, from three to six. And every one of them has had something to say about Councilman Terry Seamens.

GREENBELT - The night they were arrested and subjected to an attack by a Prince George's County police dog, two homeless men found on the roof of a Takoma Park business weren't breaking and entering - they were bedding down on scraps of carpet and eating crabs cast off by a local restaurant. That was the picture painted by federal prosecutors yesterday as two Prince George's police officers and a former Takoma Park officer went on trial, accused of violating the suspects' civil rights and filing false reports to cover up the Sept.

A former Takoma Park resident who had lived as a fugitive for more than 13 years after being charged in the fatal shooting of a Howard University professor has been arrested in Toronto, police announced yesterday. While a medical student at Howard, Jacquelyn Camille Robinson, now 41, began a secret relationship with Henry Lloyd Garvey, a member of the faculty at the university's medical school, according to Detective Phillip Glavin of the Toronto Fugitive Squad. Glavin said the affair lasted 18 months -- until Robinson discovered that her lover was a married man. After a fight on Sept.

The election result is final. Aristide won. The Electoral College could be upgraded to University. The real scandal is that Florida's count is no more inaccurate than other states'. Takoma Park is nuclear-free but not gun-free. The reverse would be safer and quieter. Quick, buy up everything in the mall, lest they run out before Christmas. Anything to help the economy.

TAKOMA PARK - This is a town where tie-dyed clothing and Birkenstocks never go out of fashion, a place where aging hippies and young vegetarians, potters and folk musicians, peaceniks and women's rights lawyers make their home. Yet even the free-spirited folks in this self-proclaimed "Berkeley of the East" are having a hard time pushing through one of the most popular of liberal causes: a handgun ban. More than 18 months have passed since anti-gun activists went door to door collecting signatures for a referendum to outlaw the possession and sale of handguns in Takoma Park.