NEWS
June 1, 2009
The following is a selection of reader comments about a recent fatal shooting downtown near Camden Yards from The Baltimore Sun's crime blog, baltimoresun.com/crimewatch. I lived in The Redwood at the corner of Eutaw and Redwood for two years during my time at UM Law. This is about the least surprising thing I've read to come out of Baltimore in a long time, and really was only a matter of time. Those of us who lived in this block of Eutaw were always shocked at the total lack of police enforcement of the rowdy, obscene and violent crowds who would pour out of the Upper Deck bar and the Goddess strip club on all nights of the week.
NEWS
By DAVID ZURAWIK | October 8, 2008
The format of the second presidential debate was described as that of a town hall meeting, but it was pure TV from the "citizens" seated on risers on a brightly lit stage, to the candidates moving about a stage like performers. In TV terms, body language and modes of address were never more important. John McCain lived up to his reputation for excelling in town hall meetings, quickly establishing a soft-spoken intimate relationship with the audience even as he attacked his opponent - two things experts say you are not supposed to be able to do simultaneously.
NEWS
By Sumathi Reddy | September 28, 2008
Everyone wants to meet the new guy. And so as Benjamin Todd Jealous works the room at Baltimore's Annie E. Casey Foundation, there is a receiving line of sorts that forms everywhere he turns. Roslyn M. Brock, vice chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's National Board of Directors, squires the 35-year-old Californian around the reception on the second day of his new job. He is the 17th CEO and president of the NAACP, "the youngest in our history, and THAT is something," she says as applause fills the room.
NEWS
By Brendan Walsh | September 2, 2008
He pointed the gun in my face a few minutes before 5 a.m. . The gun was similar to the ones carried by the police. He was maybe 15 or 16 years old, and he mumbled, "This is for real," or something similar. I had just started my daily two-mile exercise walk around Union Square Park on a recent Tuesday. When you walk at 5 a.m., you escape the heat and the dangerous rays of the sun. When the young man stopped me, I was directly across the street from the front door of Steuart Hill Academic Academy, the school where Mayor Sheila Dixon once taught.
NEWS
By MICHAEL DRESSER | April 21, 2008
Did it ever occur to you, while driving around Baltimore and its environs, that respect for Maryland's traffic laws had evaporated like dry ice left out on a July afternoon? Have you ever wondered why? For a large part of the answer, you need look no further than the District Court of Maryland. Believe me, if you get a traffic ticket in Maryland, go to court. If your offense is severe enough, the judge might turn down your sheets and put a chocolate on your pillow. Here's an example from a courtroom I visited recently: Three straight cases come before a Catonsville judge.
NEWS
By Ken Murray | February 12, 2008
He devoted much of his childhood in Africa either to playing sports or watching television, but Boubacar Coly can speak eight languages with ease. He is Muslim by faith but attended Catholic schools much of his life and even a Catholic university for a time. He grew up on a continent where soccer is king, but his heart led him to basketball and the United States. Incongruous as those facts seem, they are mere snapshots of a young man who forged a life in the United States when everyone back in Ziguinchor, Senegal, told him not to leave seven years ago. Factor in three major knee surgeries, two lost seasons of college basketball, a new wife and a reinvigorated career at Morgan State, and it still doesn't cover the journey Coly has taken.
NEWS
February 2, 2007
WHAT YOU SAY One of my favorites is also one of Will Smith's first - Six Degrees of Separation. Smith showed that he had a future in acting in this movie. Starring with veterans Stockard Channing and Donald Sutherland, Smith held his own and gave a very believable performance. This movie was not mainline cinema, and many people have never heard of it, but it is well worth watching. Smith plays a young man trying to survive by pretending he is the son of famous parents and befriending a young man with rich parents in order to live the lifestyle he so desires.
NEWS
By RICHARD IRWIN | September 28, 2006
A young man shot Tuesday night outside a house in Baltimore's Central Park Heights neighborhood died yesterday morning at Sinai Hospital, city police said. Northwestern District officers investigating a report of a man shot in the 3300 block of St. Ambrose Ave. about 9 p.m. found Davon Sampson, 18, of the 3400 block of Alto Road bleeding from at least one bullet wound to the abdomen, said Agent Donny Moses, a police spokesman. Police had no suspect or motive, Moses said.
NEWS
By CAL THOMAS | August 23, 2006
ARLINGTON, Va. -- Sen. George Allen, Republican of Virginia, was caught on tape referring to a campaign worker for his Democratic opponent, James Webb, as a "macaca." The campaign worker, S.R. Sidarth, is East Indian, and it was quickly noted that the word "macaca" is considered a racial slur in some European countries. Macaques are monkeys and, thus, the derivative "macaca" is considered racially insensitive. Mr. Allen said he didn't mean to be offensive and was just joshing with the young man, but The Washington Post twice treated the incident as front-page news, and one of its columnists, Eugene Robinson, unburdened himself in 770 words hinting, if not at Mr. Allen's supposed racial insensitivity, then at his stupidity.
NEWS
By PETER HERMANN AND RICHARD IRWIN | August 15, 2006
A young man was killed and two teenage boys were wounded early yesterday in North Baltimore's Harwood neighborhood when at least one man opened fire on the trio as they sat on the front steps of a rowhouse, city police said. Officers responding to a call for gunfire about 1 a.m. in the 400 block of Ilchester Ave. -- off Greenmount Avenue -- found two boys, ages 16 and 17, wounded on the steps and the man -- 23-year-old Ryan J. Teel of the 3000 block of Mayfield Ave. -- dead, said Officer Nicole Monroe, a police spokeswoman.