Watch for Oz Bengur's son, Noah, to be in the Baltimore area this weekend to campaign for his dad. Oz Bengur is running for the Third District congressional seat on a strong end-the-war message, and he's probably one of the very few candidates around the country who actually has a family member in combat boots. Noah Bengur is a Marine captain and Harrier pilot who has served in Iraq.

There has been a monsoon of e-mail and calls -- most in approval and agreement -- on my recent column on military service and the lack of public and personal sacrifice in the "war on terrorism." A number of writers argued against the draft because they do not believe in the mission in Iraq, or don't even know what the "mission" is. They believe the Bush administration lied to get us into Iraq.

Fine. They are entitled to believe that, and it's pretty much where I am. Beyond the present situation, however, there is still a lack of engagement in the national defense by all segments of American society; right now only a certain segment steps up to volunteer, or is the target of recruitment efforts. The affluent and well-educated are most certainly not inclined to enter the military.

The problem I have with the "Bush's war" argument against the draft is this: Had more Americans had something personal at stake, and had more members of Congress family members with their lives on the line -- we might have been more cautious about letting the president start this war, and we would certainly be more active in coming up with a finishing plan. When more Americans, across all socioeconomic strata, are engaged in the nation's defense the nation gains in a more vigilant citizenry.

Here are more letters from readers. (For further response, please submit a post to this blog.)

WTRA (wishing to remain anon.):

Why should I encourage my children to blindly follow a
mad imbecile who sends them to die in an unprovoked
invasion of a sovereign nation?  I have no problem with citizens
defending a direct threat to the United States, but
have a problem with the Military-Industrial Complex
using 'terrorism' as an umbrella to justify their
hidden agendas.  We need a return to honesty and
integrity in our government.  Until that time, I will
do everything in my power to keep my kids out of the military.

Lee Lears:

There seems to be a real disconnect in this argument
about the efficacy of a military draft. What's left
out of the equation is the question of the Iraq War
itself -- a war that was conceived in mendacity; a war
that was unprovoked and unnecessary; a war that has
maimed and killed thousands of Americans and
Iraqis, for no reason; a war that has nothing to do
with the defense of the United States or the
installation of democracy in Iraq --and everything to
do with oil, hegemony and the hubris of politicians.
A military draft will facilitate this pointless carnage, just as it did in Vietnam. There's nothing democratic about military conscription. It simply provides the government with cannon fodder for military adventurism. If we really want to support the troops, we'll begin bringing them home from this quagmire.
Stuart Aiken:

My second son graduated from West Point in May 2005 and will be deployed to Baghdad in about one month. I read about service men and women who have died in Iraq/Afghanistan and I come to tears. There is no response to this war like it was during the Vietnam era. As you are well aware there was a draft back then and college student anti-war activism heightened the nation's awareness to that futile effort in SE Asia.

Eliel:

I can hardly think of a more important topic of discussion for our country. The bottom line up front is that the situation puts our democracy in danger. By the way, I just showed up in Iraq for a year tour. I went to Afghanistan in 2004-05.

Joan Wodarski:

As a mom who watched her son strive to get accepted into the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, I highly agreed with your article. My son did get accepted into West Point. It was the greatest two years of my life. I can't say the same for him, however. At first he enjoyed it, not because he liked being yelled at, but because he could see the big future down the road. This began to fade. Since he sang in the boys’ choir at his high school he was asked to sing in the West Point choir. They sing at all the funerals of the fallen soldiers who return home to West Point.  In ‘03, Steve wrote to me that it seemed like it was every day. Eventually, when he did make it home, I saw a depression coming over him....This went on for two years.... He finally opened up to me and said, "Mom, I don't think I can send guys out to die for me in this battle.” My heart was crushed...He said what I had felt.  My views on the war had been changing. It was witnessed everyday on the evening news, which they seemed to brush by, only to move on to the next topic. He has transferred to a civilian college.  Much happier and doing well.  We still keep in touch with our friends from West Point....and pray for them each day.

From Herman Heyn, Baltimore:

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 7:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

This week's New Yorker has a piece about how employe pension funds threatened or ruined big corporations, like General Motors and Bethlehem Steel. In explaining "dependency ratio" mechanics in private company pension funds, writer Malcolm Gladwell -- a well-paid author and speaker who, I'm guessing, has spent more time in the West Village than he ever spent in a steel plant -- pretty much credits generous retirement plans, and those who designed them, with the downfall of American industry. At one point, Gladwell applauds investor Wilbur Ross for his approach to the pension legacies at Bethlehem Steel after he purchased the company and its plant at Sparrows Point. Having watched the events unfold here in the last five years, I found this salute to a cagey corporate flipper odd, even for the most pro-business neocon. So did former Sun reporter Mark Reutter, an expert on Bethlehem Steel and author of the book, Making Steel. Reutter read the Gladwell piece and wrote a succinct and right-on letter in response. It has been shipped to the New Yorker, but Reutter also shared it with us:

Malcolm Gladwell ends “The Risk Pool” (August 28th) where a good reporter would begin. Namely, what has happened since 2003 when New York-based investor Wilbur Ross purchased bankrupt Bethlehem Steel and its once premier steel plant at Sparrows Point, Md. Rather than investing in new machinery or seeking new markets for steel, Mr. Ross flipped the properties to London-based industrialist Lakshmi Mittal in April 2005, gaining a personal profit of $267 million. Together with stock earnings from the initial public offering of his company, International Steel Group (ISG), and related trades, Mr. Ross and his Wall Street allies pocketed $1.185 billion. This sum is almost identical to the $1.1 billion that steel retirees lost over the same period in health-care benefits from the sale to Ross and the sum absorbed by the federal government’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Rather than “saving” the steel industry by ending unsustainable retiree benefits, Mr. Ross ingeniously diverted the cash flow from the working class to the investment class.

-- Mark Reutter, Urbana, Ill.

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 8:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

I am no musical expert, but I know what I like. I think I have a pretty good ear. Not much of a brain left, but the ears are still pretty good. Back in the 1990s, when WMAR-TV shocked the entire Baltimore metropolitan television audience by allowing me to host a two-hour Sunday morning TV show, I had the great pleasure of selecting weekly musical guests -- bands that would play bump-n-break music and a couple of their original pieces, and soloists from classical to country.

They were all professional musicians -- men and women who made a living at their art. From jazz to swing to rock to klezmer and polka, we had it all, and we had it good. There has not been a regular live televised venue for local musicians since.

One of our guests -- I believe it was a Valentine's Day show in 1996 or 1997 -- was Mark Brine, a shy and gifted American roots guitar player, singer and song-writer -- something like Hank Williams and something like Bob Dylan. I am no expert, but I thought there was something, like, special about his guy.

We got him on the show to sing a song I really liked, one with sweet country charm: "Shy Boys Always Dance With the Big Girls." Laurie DeYoung of WPOC-FM was guest co-host on the show that day, and she was quite taken with Mark's music and his style, though it was about as far from country-western as Appalachia from Austin. Mark was one of those extremely modest musicians who aren't good at self-promotion but who soon realize that you got to knock on doors to get some attention.

He went away for a while, leaving the Baltimore area some time after my TV show was cancelled, and I did not hear from him again, though occassionally there would be a notice of a CD.

Well, the boy's back in the Baltimore area. I got a message from him this morning: "Was in Boston a year and a half, until January '06, and back for a spell. Got some new property in Tennessee that I'm hopin' to move into asap, good Lord willin'."

Brine has a new CD, "I Deliver," of country bluesy stuff, and already one on-line critic has hailed it. "Mark Brine does the best traditional American roots music that I have heard in quite a while," writes John Shelton Ivany.

I look forward to hearing Mark's latest CD, and if the shy boy gets a date around Baltimore, I'll be sure to let y'all know.

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 7:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

This has been a huge reader reaction day -- as was the case the last time I wrote about the all-volunteer military, the absence of the draft and the Iraq war. I have encouraged the letter-writers to post to this blog. I hope they will. In the meantime, here are some samples.

Letter from reader Lynn Pakulla:

I just read today's column and I couldn't agree more with you.  Thank you for putting in words a subject that has been going on in my mind for a long time.  I hope the efforts of the writers, Frank Schaeffer and Kathy Roth-Douquet will begin a new wave of thinking about serving our country.

I truly wish the draft would be reinstated and require mandatory service of everyone from age 18-21.  That way everyone in our country would be affected and perhaps become a little more involved in the social responsibility to vote as well as serve our country.   

My youngest daughter Shannon is 27 years old and currently on her second tour in Iraq.  How often I have thought of how much she is giving by serving our country.  The price of gas is of little consequence as I constantly worry for her safety and safe return.  My problem is not that she is paying her dues but I feel she is paying more than her dues and when I see how the youth of our country, not only the elite youth of our country but those who have fallen through the cracks of society and are unemployed or selling drugs or existing without any direction or desire to work at all. 

I thank you for bringing out a very important issue.  It's time for America to wake up! 

Letter from reader Susan Boyd:

My son, now 40, was a Marine. He spent several months off the coast of Lebanon but, thankfully, was never put in harm's way. As a reservist, he was called up for the first Gulf War but, thankfully, stayed stateside. Even though he never saw combat, believe me, I know of mother's fears and concerns regarding a son in the military - especially the marines. Our only grandson will soon turn 17 and the thought of something happening to him makes me sick to my stomach. He's bright and talented and will be going off to college, not the military.
    With all that said, I do believe we need a national draft during this time of war. We need a formal declaration of war so military families can receive the financial assistance they deserve. We need to ration something - anything - to put people's minds into the war effort. We need to fly our flags with pride and honor, not just for our country but for our service people. We need to stop funding big business and the wealthy and fund our military, giving our men and women the equipment they need now and developing the technology necessary for tomorrow. We need to stop taking money from the Navy and Air Force to cover the cost of having an army. We need more housing rehab facilities for the families of the wounded. We need to offer jobs to those wounded who have recovered and been through mental and physical trauma the like the rest of us will never imagine. We need to remember that right now a handful of volunteers are fighting to the death for the survival of this country. We need to support them and join them in the fight.

From Sandy Lybarger

I would have to agree with you about the strain.  The only ones that are being affected are the troops and their families.  Speaking as a mom of a soldier who is with the 172nd Brigade that just got extended -- it is just affecting us. You hardly see any ribbons on vehicles anymore. The support for our troops is low.  It’s basically if it doesn't affect me - who cares?  My son has been in Iraq more than a year and got back to Alaska for about a month and had to return.  He was due to get out of the Army originally in August 2006. They extended to November 2006. Now it’s been extended again until March 2007.  How many times can they do this?  I know it’s a voluntary Army, but he signed up for three years.  He's my only son.  My personal opinion is they should start bringing the troops home. Believe me I support our troops 100%, but where is the support from our country?

From another military next-of-kin:

You made many important points that need wider discussion in our country.  For a variety of reasons, including those you discussed, most Americans do not, in their daily lives, have to confront the fact that the nation is at war.  It would have been hard to imagine this state of affairs in the weeks and months just after 9/11. Though I have not read the Schaeffer/Roth-Douquet book you quote, I imagine their research supports your key point that there is a lack of shared responsibility across all social and economic classes for the nation's defense.  Certainly, there is a great divide in our country between the civilian and military cultures, as you said.  I can attest to that, as a military next-of-kin myself and as a civilian employee in the Department of Defense.  This undoubtedly is not a good thing for the country.  But is it an inevitable consequence of an all-volunteer military?  Would you take the next logical step of advocating the reinstatement of a draft?  And would a draft necessarily solve the problem? I think our Viet Nam experience suggests that the problem might persist, even with a draft.

From reader Joan Hart

As a pre-teen in the 40's, I well recall how invested we all were in WWII. Rationing of coffee, sugar, gasoline, shoes, meat, etc. drew us into the war effort. We saved tinfoil, even from our gum wrappers, saved empty cans, poured our pennies into buying war bonds, and we had a leader as President who inspired us to ultimate victory. No wonder the present war is called "Bush's War"! He's in it virtually alone except for the brave men and women who have fought and died.  It's been a big mistake on his part to ignore the American people. In January, 2003 I stood on a freezing day on the Washington mall with thousands of people to protest the threatened war. Bush's comment the next day was simply that he "would not be moved by public opinion." No wonder I call him the worst president in my lifetime!  God help our courageous and generous troops!

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 4:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

Seen: On either Middletown Road, in the Eklo area of northern Baltimore County, or just across the Pennsylvania line, on the same route -- a large billboard on the front lawn of a home proclaiming: "We were robbed. Did you see anything?" I believe a date was given for the robbery, and a $5,000 reward offered. (I would have stopped and checked this out myself but I was late for lunch at the in-laws and, being senior citizens, they're very much into punctual dining, if you know what I mean.)

Anyway, strange thing this.

If you know anything about it -- or if you're the homeowner and want to explain -- or the burglar and want to give yourself up -- give me a call at 410-332-6166, or drop a line to dan.rodricks@baltsun.com

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

The Cambridge City Commissioners will vote tonight on the final master development plan for the massive Blackwater Resort Communities, a project that will practically double the population of the Eastern Shore city and put a golf course in a Chesapeake critical area. The meeting is at 6 pm at the Dorchester Community Services Building, - 2450 Cambridge Beltway. (Near intersection of Rt. 16 & Egypt Rd.) Check out the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Blackwater blog.

The CBF says its petition drive against the 2,700-home project has passed 25,000 signatures. Next up: the State Critical Area Commission must vote on the project, and the commission has been urged by federal officials to delay the project at least a year. (See my earlier post on this.) Part of this project will be built in a designated critical area, and the whole project defies Maryland's progressive Smart Growth principles.

Governor Ehrlich has taken a walk on it, saying it's a local matter. Martin O'Malley's position appears to have shifted.

The mayor and Democratic gubernatorial candidate seemed initially supportive of the plan when he made a campaign visit in June. At the time, O'Malley praised the Cambridge planning commission for reworking the development plan by pushing homes away from the Little Blackwater River, though a golf course, hotel and conference center would still be built in that critical area.

However, Sun reporter Tim Wheeler learned that, in July, after heavy rains caused flooding in the Blackwater area, the mayor said more needed to be done to curb what he called overdevelopment. He called on Ehrlich to use the state's open-space funds to buy up much of the former farm fields where Blackwater Resort would be built. O'Malley also said that if he were governor, he would use the state's funding and clout to push the development closer to Cambridge, in line with Smart Growth guidelines.

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 4:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 7:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

Before we get started . . .   check out the corn-cookin' tips on the blog post below -- back from vacation . . .  Thanks to the thoughtful contributors.

There was a two-day flood of e-mail on a recent column on the Archdiocese of Baltimore's "evangelical" pursuit of the Basilica restoration and plans to demolish the Rochambeau and plant a prayer garden. (Can't people pray inside the Basilica?) The mail was about 10-1 in agreement and approval of the column, with a few critics predictably claiming I am anti-Catholic. Supporters of the church's spending and its plans have been writing letters to the editor this past week. As I said before, what difference does it make? The cardinal was going to get his way no matter what anyone said. (By the way, a diocesan priest called to say that the final bill on the basilica will be more like $42 million, not the $30 million reported here.)

Sunday morning's early (4 a.m.) mail brought this letter from a state employe who asked that his name not be used:

I just read your Sunday column on the voter registration numbers.  I consider myself an independent (although I usually find the Democrats less offensive than the Republicans), but after years of finding myself having effectively no say in electoral matters I grudgingly changed my registration to Democrat. The reason?  In most races in Maryland (my part of it, anyway), the race is decided in the Democratic primary.  Even in those rare instances when a Republican has a chance of winning, there isn't usually any competition in the Republican primary.

If Maryland allowed independents to pick a side to vote in for primary elections like some other states do, I'd return my registration to independent (actually I think it's "not affiliated with any party") where it really belongs.

Unpleasant aside: if you print any of this, please either leave out my name or edit out my dislike of (most) Republicans.  I currently work for the state, and with the current governor's apparent practices I find it safer to keep my political leanings to myself.  I won't even put political bumper stickers on my car

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

And I have a few questions:

Why so much multiflora rose in this state?

How did all these annoying Russian olive trees get here?

Is there any good use for them?

What is the point of hornets?

What is the point of Delaware?

Is there a better way to prepare corn on the cob than to smother it in butter, salt and pepper it, and wrap it in aluminum foil and roast it gently on a grill?

Not a question, just a truth: One of the things I like about summer in Bawlmer -- you are totally allowed to eat fresh tomatoes over the zink!

Column resumes tomorrow: A look at voter registration in Maryland. Not a pretty picture for GOP.

Peace.

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

Some callers to the talk show I hosted Friday on WBAL wanted to expand the United States military's role in the Middle East -- to seek and destroy Islamic terrorists in all their dens and caves in Iraq and beyond. They defended our continued role in Iraq, said it would lead to freedom and to contagious democracy there and, more, that it was necessary to fight the war on terrorism -- and had been effective that way.

Since 2001, the US Treasury has given up billions in taxpayer dollars, much of it to fight the war in Iraq in the name of fighting terrorism. The foiled plot in Great Britain, the arrests of these suspected terrorists -- none of them, as far as we know, Iraqis and all of them British Muslims
with ties to Pakistan -- points up an essential problem with the U.S. commitment in manpower, money and blood to the war in Iraq -- it is not about terrorism. If the war in Iraq is about fighting terrorism, about making American citizens safer from the ugly and violent forces that brought down the WTC on 9/11 and almost brought about another attack this month, many of us just don't see it anymore, haven't seen it for years. Some never were convinced. This explains why American citizens' support for the war is now half what it was when the war got underway -- 36 percent, according to the latest CNN Poll, compared to 72 percent in 2003. We don't see the payoff.

But, look, if you want to believe that the war in Iraq has been and continues to be an effective combat against international terrorism, fine.

I say this to those who want to march on Damascus: If you want to fight an all-out war against Islamic terrorism in every country in the Middle East and Central Asia -- then support a military draft, for men and women, and let's get on with it. Right now, American society wants it both ways: The freedom to carry cologne and Ipods on a jetliner and have our for-hire, all-volunteer, underpaid military serve double and triple hitches in the deserts while the sons and daughters of the vast majority of middle-class and affluent Amnericans don't even come close to sacrifice.

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 4:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
                    

I even took a nap yesterday afternoon so I would be prepared to go out to the movies last night.

(By the way -- $9.25 to see a film at Hunt Valley. Geeeeeeezzzzz!!)

Anyway, good film -- not great -- Cage excellent again, and there are some awesomely frightening depictions of the WTC cave-in. I was scared, felt the onset of claustrophobia . . . But, I gotta tell ya, I yawned about three-quarters through. Not sure why. I appreciate the little-story-within-the-massive-story approach, having taken that route myself with columns on a lot of major news stories..... But I guess I wanted more, and expected more -- because the trailer was so good. I anticipated a broader sense of what the day meant and how this story-within-the-story reflected that. This film is too much like Ladder 49 to be a film about the day that changed America.

Technically speaking, it would have been nice to see more detail in the actual rescue, for instance. How did the second responders snake and climb their way to the trapped first responders? Stone skips a few beats here.

Sound effects are awesome, but music numbingly minimalist.

Maybe the problem is that no film about 9/11 will ever be able to match the emotion that took place among all of us on that day. Maybe it's impossible to top the real thing.

Still, the film is a tribute. Regard it as nothing more than that. It's a fine homage to those who sacrificed and went through hell that day -- and to all who still go out there, still stand firm on the thin line between danger and disaster and the rest of us living our lives.

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 8:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
                    

Worthy of note: The number of independent voters who registered as Democrats just so they could take part in yesterday's primary between pro-Bush-War Joe Lieberman and anti-Bush-War Ned Lamont.  According to the New Haven Register, where Lieberman resides, the Senate primary -- or, one might argue, the War in Iraq -- brought an unprecedented number of voters into the Democratic Party ranks, with 28,886 added to the rolls since May, for a total of 696,823.

A significant number had been Independents in a state that has some 900,000 unaffiliated voters. About 40 percent of the eligible Democrats voted, an unprecedented turnout for a primary election.

There was heavy grass-roots organizing in The Blog-o-Sphere, and, the Register reports, the Lamont win "strengthens the credentials of the 'Netroots,' citizens who organize and communicate about politics on the Internet, where $1 million was raised for Lamont’s effort."  Netroots helped Howard Dean get on track in the 2004 presidential race, but Lamont marks their first big winner in a congressional race. (In Maryland's Third District Congressional race, anti-war Democrat Oz Bengur appears to have embraced this strategy, spending a lot of dough on Internet advertising and e-mailing.)

Said Tim Tagaris, who worked as part of the Democratic National Committee Internet team before joining the Lamont campaign: "This is no small accomplishment for the bloggers."

The result of all this: A three-term senator, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate in 2000, lost to an upstart businessman, a political nobody at the start of the year, who ran an anti-war campaign.

Lesson to Lieberman: He should never have got into that huggy-kissy thing with George Bush! It was the kiss of political death in 2006.

Meanwhile, a new CNN poll shows opposition to the Iraq War at an all-time high among Americans. Sixty percent oppose the war, and only 36 percent support it. That's half the number of Americans who said they supported the war as it began.

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 3:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
                    

One can only imagine the scope and intensity of the uproar if a white guy had said what Michael Steele said to a reporter regarding the general election for the Sarbanes Senate Seat, and a possible matchup of Steele and Democrat Kweisi Mfume, both African-Americans.

"Voters have to ask who's going to better serve them," Steele told U.S. News & World Report's Dan Gilgoff. "[Someone] who represents all the people, or just one particular race?"

Great stuff. Just what we need: Steele signaling whites that Mfume, because of his skin (or that strange, ethnic-sounding name of his) can't be trusted to represent them. What year is this? What century?

Aren't Republicans and conservatives always the first to grouse about the injection of race into politics and debate? Aren't they -- and Steele -- the ones who have complained loudest and longest about this newspaper's 2002 editorial that dismissed Steele as a candidate for lieutenant governor, saying he had little to offer in qualification but the color of his skin?

Mfume's camp had no comment to make when The Sun contacted them about Steele's cynical wink. Smart move. Mfume has nothing to gain by engaging Steele on this level, and everything to lose -- along with the rest of us -- in a campaign that becomes about race instead of character or ideas.

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 4:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
                    

My friends: Mark this down for a side trip next summer, if you happen to be in New England in August. You want to try and get to the Feast of the Blessed Sacrament in the Madeiran section of New Bedford, Mass. I went this weekend with my brothers -- our father, Joe Rodricks, was born Jose Rodrigues in Funchal, Madeira in 1914, and died 20 years ago this summer -- and we had a good time. Lots of Portuguese food and, of course, sweet Madeira wine shipped over in wooden barrels from the old country just for the four-day festival. There's also a very nice Madeiran heritage museum, with tours given by the man who created it, Joe Sousa.

At the festa, you can buy big plates of food -- Portuguese fish dishes, stewed beef and pork and goat -- and eat under a pavillion or on picnic tables under a high and robust grape arbor.

But here's the best part -- for $8 you get all the fixings for a cook-it-your-self-o-bob (the Portuguese term is carne de espeto). You get a generous portion of marinated sirloin, onion and peppers in a plastic container. A festival worker hands you a long, heavy skewer (I think a six-footer, but it might have been seven) with a wooden handle. You take the fixings to a prep area and stack the meats and vegetables on the skewer, then look for a place to set it down on a 40-foot long open pit of gas-fired charcoal under a canopy. You'll be surrounded by others doing the same, some of them washing their roasting meats in Madeira wine.

Then, it's just a matter of turning the skewer now and then. People sit around and gab, listen to music, drink beer or wine, and wait for the meats to cook. Then, it takes a little team work to pull the meats and vegetables off the skewers so that they fall directly into plates. I've been to lots of festivals but have never seen this before. I had some vague memory of my father taking us to this festa when we were kids. But, having been there again -- and having seen the name Rodrigues everywhere in the heritage museum and on name tags of festival workers -- I think I'll have to go back. Maybe I'll see you there next summer.

God bless the immigrants -- and the sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters of immigrants -- for keeping faith and for keeping this tradition alive all these years.

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
                    

What's a Rockfish Republican? Find out in Sunday's column.

Do those big Ehrlich signs say, "Changing Maryland for the Better"' or "Changing Maryland for the Bettor'?" In the haze from the recent heat, I wasn't sure.

Remember what the lady on Harford Road said one hot summer night about life here in Baltimore: "It's not the heat, it's the humility."

She's so cool: Olympian figure skater -- Harford County's own -- Kimmie Meissner will be skating at Ice World in Abingdon this weekend with pediatric oncology patients and their families. It's part of Kimmie's Cool Kids Campaign, and -- trust me on this -- ain't no better place to be during the dog days than in an ice rink.

In addition to Ice World, Northwest Ice Rink, in Mount Washington, is also open during the summer. (Mount Pleasant Ice Rink, in northeast Baltimore, reopens in September.) By this time next year, there should be a new Baltimore County ice rink in Reisterstown, just about ready to open its door. That would be the first ice rink in Baltimore County since Orchard went roller years ago.

Posted by Dan Rodricks at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
                    

One of the biggest environmental stories of the year -- with potential to erupt as an issue in the Maryland gubernatorial campaign -- is the proposed $1 billion Blackwater Resorts megadevelopment. Opposition is passionate. I've received e-mails from all over the country about it.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation says it has collected more than 25,000 signatures in a petition drive aimed at stopping the development, outside of Cambridge, and in recent testimony before the Maryland agency that will act on the 2,700-home resort, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asked for a delay for further environmental impact studies. It wants the developer to pay the cost of any future environmental damage, too. The federal agency earlier had not taken a position on the Blackwater proposal.

In a July letter accompanying testimony before Maryland's Critical Area Commission, which is scheduled to act on the proposal next month, three officials of the USFWS asked for more time to assess the potential negative effect of Blackwater Resorts on the Little Blackwater River, which feeds the famous national wildlife refuge nearby. The developer wants to build his golf course along the river.

"We believe that governments should obtain the best information available before making decisions that may jeopardize one of the nation’s most important national wildlife refuges and possibly impact the multi-state effort to restore the health of the Chesapeake Bay," the letter said.

Here are more excerpts:

"The preliminary data that our research partners have collected indicates that the Little Blackwater River is currently in relatively good health in terms of water quality, fish diversity and abundance, and fish habitat.  However, these data are based on water quality sampling conducted in March 2006 and fisheries data collected since December 2005.  . . .  Therefore, we strongly recommend that the Commission postpone voting on this project until an adequate one-year baseline study may be completed which includes samples from a more typical spring season.

Furthermore, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the University of Maryland are leading a year-long study on fish diversity, abundance, recruitment, and habitat on the Little Blackwater River.  Preliminary data indicate that the river is currently in very good shape for fish diversity.  American eels, which are proposed for listing as an endangered species, are using the river along with a host of other species.  However, it is important to continue sampling the fisheries for a one-year period to obtain an accurate assessment of the fisheries in the river.  We recommend that the Commission allow this research to be completed before voting on the Blackwater Resort Communities project.

We suggest that the developer include a one percent (1%) impact fee for the cost of each house built in the Blackwater Resort Communities.  Such an impact fee applied across 2,700 homes would result in funds to mitigate damages if they occur.  In