Waiting List

Whether a normal four-year cycle is playing out or a "Phelps effect" is in play, interest in competitive swimming in Howard County seems to be hitting new highs. Both of the county's year-round, youth swim clubs - the Columbia Clippers and the Howard County YMCA Manta Rays - have waiting lists to join as a new indoor season starts. Even masters programs at the Columbia and Ellicott City swim centers are growing faster than usual. "We're getting calls every day now," said Jeff Scrivener, who coaches the 340-member Clippers club for the Columbia Park and Recreation Association.

The city will be able to provide temporary assistance for hundreds of city heroin addicts stuck on long waiting lists for comprehensive and residential drug treatment under a $1 million federal grant announced yesterday by Baltimore officials. The money will pay for interim methadone treatment for about 1,200 addicts over the next year -- giving Baltimore the largest such program in the nation, according to Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, the city health commissioner. "This is really important," Beilenson said.

The Howard County Library will present best-selling children's author Lemony Snicket this month. Snicket will talk about his personal history and provide details about the unlucky orphans whose exploits fill his books. He also will answer questions and sign two books for each person who attends. The Grim Grotto, book No. 11 in A Series of Unfortunate Events, will be available for purchase and signing. The event will be held at 7 p.m. Sept. 23 at Ten Oaks Ballroom in Clarksville. Doors will open at 6:15 p.m. Admission is free.

In some ways, listening to youth football leaders in Howard County talk about their organizations and the sport in general is like hearing a choir singing to true believers. To illustrate: "Everybody's up [in numbers]," said Michael Milani, a Department of Recreation and Parks sports supervisor instrumental in founding two new youth clubs in the past three years, helping rejuvenate two others and assisting in formation of a new league. "We have waiting lists, in fact." Four of the county's six tackle football organizations, not counting one for boys who exceed typical club weight limitations, have between 200 and 250 players this fall.

High rents are making it nearly impossible for Westminster's working families to live without assistance, the city's housing director has told council members. "The reality is, people can't pay rent where they are," Karen Blandford, administrator of Westminster's Office of Housing and Community Development, said at a Monday council meeting. Blandford reported a rise in working families applying for the Section 8 Rental Assistance program, which she attributes to escalating rents, low rental vacancies and low-paying jobs.

High rents are making it nearly impossible for Westminster's working families to live without assistance, the city's housing director has told council members. "The reality is, people can't pay rent where they are," Karen Blandford, administrator of Westminster's Office of Housing and Community Development, said at a Monday council meeting. Blandford reported a rise in working families applying for the Section 8 Rental Assistance program, an increase she attributes to escalating rents, low rental vacancies and low-paying jobs.

The number of students initially accepted to the Johns Hopkins University this year who decided to attend dropped more than 10 percent from last year, forcing the school to go deeper into its waiting list to fill out its freshman class, but university officials insist the decline is unrelated to a fatal stabbing at an off-campus fraternity house this past spring. The slaying April 17 of Christopher Elser - a junior from South Carolina - did not affect students' decisions to attend the university because it was not widely publicized outside the Baltimore area and because Johns Hopkins officials were open about the incident, said university spokesman Dennis O'Shea.

As you read this, more than 80,000 Americans are waiting for transplants - with no guarantee that organs will become available in time to save them. If today is typical, 16 will die by midnight. The waiting list - 2 1/2 times larger than it was just a decade ago - isn't all bad news. It stems in part from the growing success of transplant surgery and, with that, the increasing tendency of doctors to recommend patients for transplant surgery. But experts worry that disease trends, along with an aging population, will only widen the gap between the supply and demand for organs - leaving thousands more desperate for help that might never arrive.

No one jokes about "perpetual students" at the Renaissance Institute at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. The whole point for these students - all of them age 50 and older - is to be lifelong learners. They prefer the phrase "50 years old and better." As a learning cooperative, the members teach and take classes on such topics as the fiction of Joseph Conrad, history of ancient China, archaeology of Egypt, the anthropology of violence and warfare, and the art of PowerPoint presentations.

Amid a tough economy with jobs scarce and housing prices rising, the working poor of Howard County lost an avenue for help last night as the county Housing Commission voted to indefinitely close the swollen waiting list for federal Section 8 rent subsidies for the first time in 15 years. The commission delayed voting, however, on a long-awaited plan to buy the 26 acres on which 230 homes sit at New Colony Village, a development on U.S. 1 in Jessup, as part of a complex proposal to help residents who have been unable to sell or refinance their homes because they were built on leased land that was never subdivided into individual lots.