Thankful

Each Wednesday we'll bring you a Q&A with a Ravens player to help you learn a little more about the team. Today's guest is strong safety Dawan Landry, who is tied with cornerback Domonique Foxworth for the team lead in interceptions with four. Landry talked about the team's push to the playoffs, the issue of self-discipline and his role as a leader. Question: Does this team have what it takes to make the playoffs? Answer: Look at the heart that we show each and every week.

My town, Annapolis, is a special kind of college town. The students at the Naval Academy are distinctive not for their backpacks, ear buds and school T-shirts, but for their crisp summer whites and their somber dress blues. The midshipmen take off their hats - their covers - when they enter a building, and they say "sir" and "ma'am" when you greet them. At this college, you don't pay anything unless you quit or get kicked out. About 1,400 arrive every July, but only about 800 will graduate four years later.

So many things for which to give thanks, and so little time to do it.What, again?Yes, again!It's time for this column's 17th consecutive list of Things to Be Thankful For -- our annual (and occasionally sarcastic) counting of our blessings before the first of the drumsticks and the last of the Alka Seltzer fizzies.To wit:Be Thankful if Eli Jacobs manages to get his finances in order. (You've been staying awake nights worrying about that one, haven't you?) Otherwise, how does the name Mercantile Trust Orioles strike you?

I want to express my gratitude to the members of the CA Board of Directors, to CA President Phil Nelson, and to all of the CA team members who have worked so hard this year on behalf of our community. It has been an eventful and transformative year, and it has truly been an honor to serve the Kings Contrivance community and Columbia residents for the past four years, this year as chair of the CA Board of Directors. At a personal level, I am so grateful for the many messages of support and concern I received from community members following surgery for a fractured elbow and other injuries sustained while traveling recently with Del. Liz Bobo in India.

This column takes pause, somewhere between the first of the TV football games and the last of the turkey and sauerkraut and Bromo Seltzer, to present its annual listing of things for which Baltimoreans should give thanks.To wit:Be thankful for Gov. Parris N. Glendening's proposal of a 10 percent income tax reduction. His is a sophisticated economic strategy borrowed directly from Ellen R. Sauerbrey -- which, in turn, was a sophisticated economic strategy she borrowed directly from the tooth fairy.

With gratitude for all our blessings on this Thanksgiving Day. . . .And with, let's face it, our customary measure of holiday sarcasm . . . .This column hereby presents its 19th annual collection of things for which Baltimoreans should give thanks.For example:Be thankful you never took graciousness lessons from Roger Hayden.Be thankful if they settle the baseball strike soon. That way, ballclubs won't raise ticket prices to finance their losses again so that we're paying more money for more games that were never even played.

As you sit down to eat a Thanksgiving meal today, your inner sports fan might wonder, "OK, exactly what do I have to be thankful for this year?" It's a fair question. The Orioles are coming off their eighth straight losing season, a whopper that included steroid busts, drunken-driving arrests and the airing of organizational dirty laundry in Congress - a run of ugliness that might never be surpassed. The Ravens were expected to provide relief this fall, but they, too, have fallen hard, losing 11 of their past 16 games going back to 2004.

THANKSGIVING once again, and I've just emerged from an interrogation by an old friend. It was one of those ritual pre-holiday questions: Are you ready for (1) Thanksgiving, (2) Christmas, (3) Guy Fawkes Day? On this occasion, my friend threw me a curve. He asked, "What are you thankful for?"I've been pondering this question ever since, and I've arrived at the conclusion that, yes, I am thankful, and I am most thankful that I was born white, male and American.No doubt some readers already have branded me racist, sexist and chauvinist.

So many things for which to give thanks, and so little time to do it.What, again?Yes, again!It's time for this column's 15th annual list of Things to Be Thankful For in Baltimore, brought to you two days before Thanksgiving this year in order to get everyone into the proper (that is: thankful, with a sarcastic overlay) mood.To wit:Be thankful you're not the one who told Dennis Rasmussen, ''You need to spruce up your image a little. Get some new suits and some monogrammed shirts. And why not get yourself a new car?

With pride on this Thanksgiving Day. . . .With great heapings of thanks for all blessings. . . .And with, let's be honest about this, more than a little sarcasm. . . .This column hereby presents its 18th annual collection of things for which Baltimoreans should give thanks.Thus, without further ado, dear friends:Be thankful if Dr. Neil Solomon finally understands the phrase: "Physician, heal thyself."Be thankful Mayor Schmoke only got shoved by that 13-year old whose fight he broke up. Sure, the kid's behavior was appalling.

We would like to appreciate the service that was provided by the Laurel Police Dept. on Saturday, May 4, when the following incident happened at Main Street Dental. We received a call from the alarm people on Saturday evening informing us that out dental office alarm had gone off. We called our neighbor who also heard some noise in the basement of the dental office. The police were notified and they came right away. It was a suspected robbery. The police came and surrounded the building in view of catching the suspected robber.

As National Volunteer Month comes to an end, I wanted to thank the thousands of volunteers who continue to make our communities so great. We are very fortunate to have men and women, boys and girls who give their time and energy. Think about it. Our neighborhoods, recreation programs, schools, faith based organizations and nonprofits thrive and are successful because of volunteers. We all benefit because of their commitment and willingness to help others. So, again, thank you to the wonderful volunteers for their contributions to our communities, county and state.

This year marks the observance of landmark anniversaries of several military milestones in U.S. history. The 150th anniversary of the third year of the Civil War, among the bloodiest in American military history, is commemorated throughout 2013. This year also is the bicentennial of the second year of the War of 1812; it was a year notable for the British Navy's Chesapeake campaign which resulted in the sacking of Havre de Grace. Notably, a century ago this year was the last full year of what passed for peace in the complicated lead up to the start of World War I. The coming year marks the centennial of the start of what was initially referred to as the Great War, but would later be called the War to End All Wars and then when another great war erupted a generation later, World War I. This year also marks the 60th anniversary of the end of a war that looms large in American policy even now, the Korean War. In an effort to ensure that the Korean War doesn't get lost in the mix, a group of veterans from Harford County who fought on the peninsula nation that borders China's northern Manchuria territories, but has been claimed at times by Japan, donated $1,000 to the county's public library system to support commemorations of the 60th anniversary.

The advocacy group Dumbarton United has been working with the school board and County Councilman David Marks to bring air conditioning and much needed renovations to Dumbarton Middle School. Councilman Marks met with me last May when I became president of the PTSA and pledged to do whatever was needed to improve our school. I received a phone call from David Marks on April 15 and I am very pleased to announce that County Executive Kevin Kamenetz has introduced a budget which includes the funding for Dumbarton's renovation, including air conditioning.

Maryland coach Mark Turgeon took the two little turtle figurines out of his coat pocket and placed them on the table in front of him. Alex Len, whose mother Juliya had given Turgeon the figurines when her then 18-year-old son first committed to the Terps, sat at the coach's side. One of the figurines represented a baby turtle, the other one fully grown. “She said I am giving Alex to you as a baby, when he leaves here I want him to be a man,” Turgeon recalled Tuesday after Len announced he was leaving Maryland to make himself eligible for the NBA draft.

On Monday,  April 8. I took a feral cat in our neighborhood, "Pretty Kitty," to Spay Now, a low-cost spay clinic across the street from Laurel Hospital, to be spayed. Just as I'd gotten her in front of the door of their clinic, she popped the lock on the carrier, leaped out of it, and took off for a huge, tall grass field next to their place.  Immediately,  one or two clinic workers, a couple of other people in the area and myself all took off after her. They got her cornered in an area of the business complex that was just beyond the field.

LEST ANYONE forget, this is the day for pushing aside both that fourth helping of turkey giblets and our anxieties about the state of the world, as we utter thanks for our abundant blessings. In time, state budgets will crumble, city homicide rates will tumble, but our column on Things to be Thankful for ... well, it's here to stay (unless it's eliminated in the next round of government downsizing). And so, for the 27th straight Thanksgiving, we offer you a slight pause between the first battle of the drumsticks and the last of the Alka-Seltzer fizzies: a few blessings to count, even in these nervous times.

FOR THE 24th consecutive time in the history of this newspaper column, we go for the gluttony. It is our destiny. On this Thanksgiving Day, in the brief moments between the first of the turkey giblets and the last of the televised football games, we pause to consider all those things for which we give our deepest, most heartfelt community thanks.If you believe that part about "heartfelt," we've got a deed to the Hanover Street Bridge we'd like you to consider. Still, in our annual spirit of good nature and sarcasm, here are this year's nominees of Things for Which to be Thankful:Be thankful for Kurt L. Schmoke, who gave it his best shot for 12 difficult years.

Towson University baseball could live to fight another year after Gov. Martin O'Malley included an additional $300,000 in his 2014 budget to help the university sort through difficulties with its athletic funding. The baseball program had been slated for elimination after this season until O'Malley became interested in its fate. An O'Malley spokeswoman said Monday that the appropriation, still subject to General Assembly approval, resulted from a one-on-one meeting last week between the governor and Towson president Maravene Loeschke.

Despite the ruthless and cavalier manner with which the mayor's office steam-rolled the rights of homeless people camped under the JFX, there is a certain sense in which clearing the site was actually a good thing ("Homeless camp's clearing brings hope, questions," March 9). Transition of any kind after a period of stability - if one could call it that, given how the campers were living - comes with a natural degree of resistance. What many of the campers talk about is the sense of community and camaraderie that grew up among them over the months they were there.