Writer

Our marijuana laws are the real travesty The Baltimore Sun made a number of valid points in its editorial about Michael Phelps ("Snark attack," Feb. 6). But there is more that needs to be said. No one would bat an eyelash if Mr. Phelps had been photographed hoisting a Budweiser. Yet the data show unmistakably that alcohol is more addictive than marijuana, vastly more toxic and orders of magnitude more likely to make its users aggressive or violent. Given the laws, Mr. Phelps took a big risk.

Dallas Morning News beat writer Calvin Watkins confirmed this week that Cowboys receiver Terrell Owens had told him Ray Lewis called Owens last summer and wanted the receiver to speak with Cowboys owner Jerry Jones about the Ravens linebacker. ( For more, go to baltimoresun.com/ravensinsider)

NOVELIST LARRY DOYLE Larry Doyle won two Emmys as a writer for The Simpsons TV show. He wrote episodes for Beavis and Butt-head and several movie screenplays. He has written for magazines and Web sites. Now the writer has just recently published his first novel, I Love You Beth Cooper, the story of a high school geek in love with the head cheerleader. Doyle and other first-time novelists shared their experiences as part of a panel at the Baltimore Book Festival. The event, held in Mount Vernon, ends today.

Wednesday THE PERFECT HOLIDAY -- (Yari Film Group) An extended family prepares to gather for the holidays in this ensemble Christmas comedy. With Gabrielle Union, Morris Chestnut, Queen Latifah and Terrence Howard. Next Friday ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS -- (20th Century Fox) Jason Lee (TV's My Name Is Earl star) is the live-action songwriter who transforms the trio of computer-generated chipmunks into out-of-control pop music sensations. ATONEMENT -- (Focus Features) Adaptation of Ian McEwan's respected 2002 novel about a young woman's decades-long struggle to make up for an impulsive childhood act that had serious repercussions.

Abigail Tucker of The Sun has won the 2007 Mike Berger Award, given by Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism for outstanding human-interest reporting. The prize, named for the late New York Times reporter Meyer "Mike" Berger, comes with a $1,000 honorarium and will be presented to Tucker on May 15. The judges noted that "Abigail Tucker's writing on the lives of little-known people stood out for its depth, grace, sensitivity and emotional complexity." In a nominating letter in March, Sun editor Timothy A. Franklin wrote, "Abigail Tucker is a writer of rare originality and perception who explores the most intimate topics with insight and sensitivity, all with a fiction writer's expert grasp of storytelling technique."

Ralph Marsh, 70 Author and journalist Ralph Marsh, an author and veteran journalist for the Associated Press and various newspapers, has died. He was 70. Mr. Marsh died Wednesday at his home near Heavener, Okla., after a short illness, according to Evans and Miller Funeral Home in Poteau, Okla. He worked for more than three decades as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Kansas and Oklahoma, including the Wichita, Kan., Eagle-Beacon, The Oklahoman, the Tulsa Tribune, the Chickasha Daily Express and the Topeka Capital-Journal, as well as at the AP. Mr. Marsh was Capitol correspondent for the now-defunct Tribune and covered the Capitol for the AP in the 1970s.

MEL TOLKIN, 94 Comedy writer Mel Tolkin, the head writer for Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows, which defined the art of sketch comedy during early television, died Monday of heart failure at his Century City home, said his son, writer-director Michael Tolkin. Mr. Tolkin spent nearly a half-century in show business, beginning in the 1930s when he wrote revues and played piano in Montreal jazz clubs. He wrote comedy for Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Danny Kaye and Danny Thomas, and in the 1970s was a writer and editor for All in the Family.

BOB CARROLL JR., 87 Television writer Bob Carroll Jr., a pioneering television writer who worked on every one of Lucille Ball's TV shows, including the 1950s classic I Love Lucy, died Saturday in Los Angeles, his longtime friend Thomas Watson said. Mr. Carroll and Madelyn Pugh Davis, his writing partner, were working on comedian Steve Allen's radio show in the 1940s when they learned Ms. Ball was looking for writers for her show, My Favorite Husband. When the show moved to television in 1953, Ms. Ball brought her writers with her, changing the show's name to I Love Lucy and adding real-life husband Desi Arnaz to the cast.

Siobhan Gorman, who covers the intelligence community for The Sun, was honored yesterday with a Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting last year about the National Security Agency. Gorman's award marks the third major prize in recent weeks for Sun journalists. Robert Little received a George Polk Award for "Dangerous Remedy," his series about the Army's use of an experimental blood coagulant, and the series "On Shaky Ground," by June Arney and Fred Schulte, won an honor from Investigative Reporters and Editors.

Sometimes the columnist's weekly offering drops into the public consciousness as if it were a bottomless well. No splash, no sound, nothing. Properly so, some will say. Just what it deserves. Sometimes, though, particularly in the age of the Internet, when pontificators append e-mail addresses, responses do come. The messages waiting on Monday morning can be illuminating and friendly - or a bracing introduction to the etiquette of the cyberworld. It's a case of being careful about what you wish for. Rule No. 1 for the e-mail writer: Act quickly while umbrage is peaking, lest some more thoughtful tone creep into your message.

IRVING KRISTOL, 89 Neo-conservative writer, publisher Irving Kristol, the political writer and publisher known as the godfather of neo-conservatism whose youthful radicalism evolved into an emphatic rejection of communism and the counterculture, died Friday in Washington of complications from lung cancer. "His wisdom, wit, good humor and generosity of spirit made him a friend and mentor to several generations of thinkers and public servants," said the editors of The Weekly Standard in announcing Mr. Kristol's death on its Web site.

With his bushy beard and ever-present pipe, Bill Burton looked like the outdoors writer from Central Casting. His basement resembled a tackle shop. His stories were lively and memorable, as you would expect. But truth be told, Bill Burton was a softie, with a heart of gold and a center as squishy as an Easter peep. He loved cats. And beautiful sunrises. And fresh, ripe Maryland peaches just off the tree. And kids, especially his granddaughter Mackenzie Noelle Boughey, whom he called "Grumpy."

It was the kind of story that cried out to be told. Or so Terry Mattingly thought. It was 1982, and a little-known punk band from Ireland was touring U.S. colleges for the first time, rattling from town to town in an old panel truck. Mattingly, then a music writer for a small Illinois paper, was intrigued by the chorus from a song on their new album. The lyrics were, of all things, in Latin - gloria in te domine, gloria exultate - and appeared to have been taken from an ancient Mass. In two days he spent with the band, Mattingly, a journalist who now lives in Glen Burnie, persuaded the lead singer to speak about his faith.

Mary McCauley opened her recent Read Street review of All the Living with these thoughts: Can a writer write too well? Can a prose style be too gorgeous? She was referring to C.E. Morgan's lush prose, which she admires. But McCauley noted that a friend was "so aware of the painterly quality of Ms. Morgan's imagery, that it interfered with her ability to immerse herself in the world of the novel." I worry about a related trend. We're so frantic to devour the Next Big Thing, or catch up on our book club pick, that we can scarcely be bothered with a book that challenges us with its style or subject matter.

On April 19, I went to see the Beatles' Help! at the Senator Theatre - a $5 matinee. In a sad way, Help! could be the Senator's theme song right now: Help, I need somebody, Help, not just anybody, Help, you know I need someone, Help! But that might be looking at the situation a little too optimistically. The Senator's one-screen business model suited the Beatles' era better than today's. Perhaps Requiem for a Dream or Bye Bye Birdie would be more thematically fitting. Fact is, our society is going through swift, cataclysmic change, and the Senator is just one of many victims, including newspapers, American car companies, video stores and land-line telephones.

Native oysters still better for the bay The Nature Conservancy of Maryland/D.C. applauds the recent decision by Maryland, Virginia and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to focus exclusively on native oysters in Chesapeake Bay restoration and aquaculture efforts ("Native oysters prevail," April 7). We understand this was a complex and difficult decision, with people on both sides of the issue passionate about their positions. We are confident, though, that the best available science has led us to stay true to our native Chesapeake oyster, and not to introduce a foreign oyster.

CLEMENT FREUD, 84 Writer, politician, grandson of Sigmund Freud Clement Freud, a grandson of Sigmund Freud who became a well-known writer, politician and urbane regular on British radio, died Wednesday at his home in London. The cause of death was not announced. He was best known from his three decades appearing on the BBC game show Just a Minute, in which panelists compete to see who can talk the longest without hesitation, deviation or repetition. Mr. Freud's well-stocked vocabulary and his slow, deadpan speech made him a master of the game.

About four years ago, when Leslie F. Miller was a graduate student in the Master of Fine Arts Creative Nonfiction program at Goucher College, she was searching for a thesis topic. Cake was one of her passions. She had read an essay at a gathering of writers detailing her intense, quixotic relationship with the cakes of her past, and it had gone well. So she decided to write about eating cake. She set out on a cake odyssey, visiting the kitchens of the area's better-known bakers - Duff Goldman of Charm City Cakes, Warren Brown of CakeLove, Jamie Williams of SugarBakers, Leslie Poyourow of Fancy Cakes by Leslie - all the while retaining her fondness for simple cakes, like the Safeway sheet cake.

Not selling drugs but hailing hacks One of the letters offering a suggestion for "A better Baltimore" (Readers speak out, March 23) displayed a bit of ignorance. Those "people allowed to stand on main streets waving their fingers" are not selling drugs. They are trying to hail a cab or a hack (unlicensed taxi driver). Having lived in various parts of Baltimore for most of my life, I have known several cab drivers, hacks and people trying to hail a ride. If the writer of the letter had simply spoken to a few of the folks "waving their fingers," she would have realized that most Baltimoreans are just going about their business getting from A to B. John Williams, Towson Unlicensed cabs still pose a danger A writer recently asked "why people are allowed to stand in the road on main streets and wave their fingers to traffic as a signal that they are selling drugs" (Readers speak out, March 23)

Gwinn F. Owens, a retired editor and editorial writer who made The Evening Sun's op-ed page a popular feature with readers and contributors, died of complications from dementia Sunday at College Manor nursing home in Lutherville. The longtime Ruxton resident was 87. Mr. Owens was born in Seven Oaks, England, the son of James Hamilton Owens, a veteran newspaperman, and Olga Owens, a homemaker and musician. They moved to Lutherville and later Riderwood, where he grew up, when his father was named editor of The Evening Sun in 1922.