WaPo: Simms facing financial difficulties in Dem AG primary Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Today's Post discusses the departure of several staffers for Democratic Attorney General candidate Stuart Simms, who previously served as running mate to departed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Doug Duncan. The article is worth reading but not quoting here.

Attorney General Joseph Curran - who is the father-in-law of Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley - has held the office of Attorney General for decades. An old-school liberal, AG Curran has focused on broad civil consumer protection enforcement. Other Democratic candidates include Montgomery County State's Attorney Doug Gansler and Montgomery County Councilman Tom Perez. Those Democrats are competing to determine who will face Republican presumptive nominee Scott Rolle, who is State's Attorney for Frederick County.

I have not been following this race closely. Gansler and Rolle are experienced, aggressive prosecutors who like the public eye; their candidacies do not surprise me. I know less about Councilman Perez but his website indicated an endorsement from Progressive Maryland and has a video stream similar to "You Tube" (but not You Tube.) Simms has a long-time figure in Baltimore and Maryland politics as the former chief of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services for the state. To what extent real differences exist between the candidates, I cannot easily say.

Sun's Marbella: MD Sen race enjoying new "crazy" characters Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

From Jane Marbella in today's Sun:

Credit candidate Dennis Rasmussen, a Democrat, with being prescient. The former Baltimore County executive seemed like the wacky one when earlier this year he released "Razzmania," an animated musical cartoon that has gotten more than 13,000 hits on YouTube. "There's Cardin on the left beating the same old drum," goes one rapped-sung lyric. "And Steele on the bass - we don't know where he's coming from."

It says something about this bunch that Baltimore gadfly Robert Kaufman, the socialist in the race, no longer seems so far out there. He sounds like he's enjoying the spectacle as he travels the candidate forum circuit with the regulars: "Kweisi; Allan Lichtman; the millionaire, a very nice fellow - I'm terrible with names; the former scientist with the space service; and the guy who wears the wig." (The last three are Rales, Democrat Thomas McCaskill, a retired research physicist, and Republican Daniel Vovak, who wears a white wig as a reference to his party's "Whig" roots.)

Kaufman doesn't seem ready to concede the most-outrageous contest. He ends the interview by making three points: One, the U.S. is "addicted" to war; two, he's not just asking for your vote but your kidney (he needs a transplant, his having failed as a result of a knife attack a year ago); and three, if you can't give him a kidney, as a "booby prize" he'll take a cash donation to his campaign.

Paul Sarbanes was many things as a Senator, but "crazy" was not one of them. He could have used a dose of "Wild and Crazy Guy." The closest in temperament to Sarbanes is clearly Ben "the Senior Technical Administrator" Cardin, who is absolutely brilliant but will not let you think he is by his demeanor. Mfume would be far livelier through his passion and focus, Lichtman through his idealism, Kaufman through his aggressive advocacy of socialist theory and Steele through his Chevy Chase-esque political pratfalls for six years.

But Ben will mind the store. And audit the inventory and shipping reports. Without fanfare, or administrative inconvenience. In triplicate. Sigh.

Cardin's Campaign (ahem) Charisma Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

From fellow Free State Politics blogger Sara Da Muse:

I bring [the issue of candidates' willingness to meet voters] up because this morning Ben Cardin walked right by me (leaving the Metro station, not in a rush) and didn't smile or greet me. Now Cardin doesn't know me and I'm not a bigwig. But I can kind of imagine (given the sticker, the aide in tow, and the lack of a tie/jacket) that he'd been hanging out in front of the Metro giving out flyers and shaking hands. Then I imagine that Ben, when he'd done the required amount of being nice to strangers, stalked off and went back to thinking about all of the things that really entertain him. I wouldn't bring this up, but this isn't the first time that he or another reasonably successful pol has seemed to be a bit less than a man-of-the-people.

Blowing off coldly a likely Democratic primary voter (which someone boarding a Maryland-side Metro station likely is, that's why Ben presumably went there) is not a crime. But it is unwise, especially when some polls put you behind Kweisi Mfume, others put you barely ahead, and there are many other weak but not yet dead candidates in the primary.

When I got out of the Grosvenor Metro Station during a nasty storm a month ago in the evening rush hour, Allan Lichtman shook my hand eagerly and looked pretty damn glad to meet me. I am not a registered Democrat (am Libertarian registrant so primaries don't mean much for me) but if I had shaken Lichtman's hand and caught the blowoff from Cardin, I would follow the rule that most job interviewers follow: when qualifications are close, give the job to the applicant who wants it more.

Gilliard on Steele Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Honorary Marylander Steve Gilliard hits the target in his analysis of Republican Senate candidate Michael Steele's well-publicized and exceptionally clumsy gambit for votes from people who resent George Bush, but won't vote Democrat. Apparently some has told Steele such people exist in Maryland and some other people told him that he can insult the President and the Republican Party at will without affecting his political base.

Gilliard has stated elsewhere that a lot of white voters will simply stay home or not vote at all if it is Mfume-Steele. I am not sure I agree generally but I suspect enough will take a pass one way or another to help ensure a bad election night for Steele. Where Steve and I are in total agreement is that the Democratic nominee - Cardin or Mfume - will dropkick Steele in the debates. Since Steele is largely an unknown even after 4 years in office, a bad debate performance will hurt Steele more than average.

New Link to Wizbang! Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

I am not exactly a conservative but I appreciate conservative commentary as a check on occasional liberal excess, as well as for its own sake as a different perspective. While I think a lot of conservative websites are grossly overrated (the self-appointed "libertarian" Instapundit is growing sloppier and sloppier, it seems), I appreciate Wizbang! for its sharp commentary and its beautiful web formatting.

Maryland Court of Appeals to Take Same-Sex Marriage Case Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

The Court of Appeals has elected to take directly the Deane v. Conaway case involving same-sex marriage.

A word on procedure, particularly for non-Marylanders. Maryland has two courts that exercise essentially only appellate jurisdiction: the Court of Special Appeals and the Court of Appeals, the latter being the highest Court in the state. The Court of Special Appeals got its name from its prior limited jurisdiction in "special" appellate proceedings, but now can hear almost all appeals from a Circuit Court. That happened in this case; Clerk of Court Frank Conaway and other Defendants appealed after Judge Murdock ruled in favor of the same-sex couples. However, now the Court of Appeals, not the COurt of Special Appeals, has this case for appellate

It is not clear whether the Court of Appeals took the matter from the Court of Special Appeals sua sponte (which it can do, I believe, under applicable procedural rules) or whether one of the parties requested certiorari, i.e. certification of issue to the highest court. It appears to be the latter but the procedural posture is not clear to me.

What is clear is that the brief are due in September and October for Appellant and Appellee and that the Court will take this matter for oral argument during the December term, i.e. next winter or spring.

Blog Design Reworking - Under Construction Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Thank you for your patience with the mess. I have been experiencing difficulties with the eternal Mozilla-Explorer differences in site layout. When I tweak for one, the other causes problems, like trying to spread a tablecloth that is simply too small for the table.

WaPo article on White Minority in Black PG County Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

From today's Washington Post, A1:

Two years ago, the Hoppers moved from a nearly all-white neighborhood in Baltimore to Prince George's County, where Abby Hopper had grown up around all kinds of people. She says she wants that for her kids. Her husband, Greg, also likes that they got a lot more house for the money.

Whites moving into black neighborhoods often follow the pattern of gentrification: The influx leads to higher property prices, displacement of residents who can't afford to stay and lingering resentment. But the paradigm has shifted in Prince George's, one of the few suburban counties nationally with wide swaths of black wealth.

Some white families are being drawn by the upscale amenities of subdivision life at relatively bargain prices. There's little tension about displacement, because they move into neighborhoods with people of similar economic statuses, and by and large, they say they are being welcomed.

Prince George's County is not quite as wealthy as Montgomery County, but it is probably the wealthiest majority black county in the country. PG County grew both more black and wealthier at the same time during the 1980s and 1990s. So when whites move in to majority-black PG County neighborhoods and communities, especially like Lake Arbor, Largo and Mitchellville, they are often surrounded by their neighbors of another "race" or culture who are socio-economic peers or people of greater means and standing than themselves. Most white people in the U.S. do not get that experience, ever. For black people, it is commonplace.

Steele caught "fibbing" about confidentiality of Post Interview Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Paul Kiel of Josh Marshall's TPM Muckraker confirms with Dana Milbank that Michael Steele's interview was "on background" and that Steele could be identified "only as a GOP Senate candidate."

Steele claims that the interview was to be "off the record" which in journalism generally means zero footprint, no trace in the article, not printed verbatim with a limited identification of the interviewee.

Steele also apparently reversed his position on campaigning with President Bush, changing his stance from "probably not" to calling Bush his "homeboy."

No Thanks, Redstate Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

I post frequently on DailyKos, on topics similar to the ones that Crablaw discussed. As is probably known by most of the likely readership of Crablaw, DailyKos and RedState have an adversarial relationship. While similar in a view ways and different in that DK is liberal Democrat and RedState is a conservative Republican form, their styles are very different.

DK is a community, a bona fide community of personal support. You find diaries about wonkish topics, but some get intensely personal as well. DK is inviting, liberal in the sense that your bona fides are good until proven wrong.

When I went onto RedState out of intellectual curiosity and a desire to debate topics, the fact that I had written four months before a harsh crude snark against Senator Joe Lieberman (CT-"D") - a Democrat - was brought out as evidence of me being a cybervandal or "troll." A vigilant guard of RedState's purity did a search from my first post to check whether I was a troll. He connected the dots, and gave me a stern warning against troll or "moby" conduct (the techno musician Moby apparently told his fans to pretend to be Republicans and infiltrate talk radio or some such.) This was followed by several condescending remarks from other posters, sniffing that I could write well when I cared to but that the DK crowd apparently demanded crudeness.

MORAL: RedState will protect its own, apparently including Democrats like Lieberman, from rough satire. They probably would have lynched Lenny Bruce.

DK is fairly profane as well. whereas RedState is extremely hostile to profanity, issuing multiple warnings against harsh language. Most (but not all) of the conservative Republicans I know say the word "f&&&" without apology.

Well, I guess I am just not RedState material. I am pretty BlueState, culturally and politically. Thanks but no thanks. If I want to be searched, prodded, investigated, probed and hall monitored, I will catch a flight to Detroit. And if I want intellectual debate with conservatives, I will call a conservative friend and have a cup of coffee or a beer.

Spew Steele Out of Our Mouths Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

From ABCNews Online:

TAKOMA PARK, Md., July 25, 2006 — The GOP Senate candidate who anonymously described his Republican affiliation as an "impediment" to his electoral prospects while speaking with the Washington Post's Dana Milbank and others at a Monday luncheon is none other than Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, ABC News learned Tuesday.

"'I've got an 'R' here, a scarlet letter,'" said Steele of his party affiliation. "'If this race is about Republicans and Democrats, I lose.'"

...

In between bites of hanger steak and risotto at his steakhouse meeting with reporters, Steele not only faulted President Bush for failing to connect with the plight of Katrina's poor, but also rapped the administration for its handling of Iraq — the issue Steele labeled "the single thread that is weaving through every issue, including high gas prices and the violence in Lebanon."

"People want an honest assessment from the administration," Steele told Milbank, "and they want to hear the administration admit … it didn't work, so we're going to try a Plan B."

...

In contrast to his telling Milbank on Monday that he "'probably'" did not want President Bush campaigning for him given the President's unpopularity in Maryland, Steele in his ABC interview refused to challenge Bush's handling of Iraq, expressing confidence that the "president is trusting the intelligence that he's getting from the generals on the ground."

Democrats seized upon Steele's clandestine musings to portray the candidate as too beholden to the president for his fundraising prowess to truly be an independent voice.

Mark Clack, the campaign manager to former NAACP chief Kweisi Mfume, one of the Democrats seeking his party's Senate nomination, questioned Steele's consistency: "It seems that he's trying to have it both ways: casting himself as a moderate maverick, while at the same time accepting the national Republican Party's invitation to join the Senate race and join in on the campaign bounty which he currently sits upon."

You can read here the original piece by Dana Milbank in the Washington Post.

I view Steele at this point as Joe Lieberman's counterpoint. Just as Democrats should not tolerate someone running for their party's nomination who undercuts their party in public, Republicans deserve a nominee who is proud to be a Republican. If Steele is ashamed to be a Republican, then close up your campaign and go back to practicing law in the District of Columbia. I am not a Republican but Republicans deserve to nominate, well, a Republican.

A more outlandish act of political suicide is difficult to imagine. Cardin and Mfume - especially Mfume - should be offering thanks in the house of worship of their respective choice. Mfume even more so, since when Steele looks ridiculous, jittery white liberal activist afraid of a "Nader event" can take heart that Mfume can beat Steele. (I already think that Mfume can beat Steele, but liberal activists, well, have old baggage.) Steele running means he believes in Steele and Steele alone. Maryland for Steele, just like Connecticut for Lieberman. Oh yeah, and Steele tried to hide behind anonymity with the Milbank article. So he is politically unprincipled, disloyal to his party in the middle of a major election AND chicken-shit. Mfume or Cardin will beat him down, hard.

If Steele does not believe in the Republican Party, why is he running and why should any Republican activist anywhere in the country send him a dime? Why crowd the field out from Republican candidates who would lose, but not ruin party morale? And won't this ruin his chances for post-election wingnut welfare?

A philosopher and sage once said, "if you are neither hot nor cold but lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth." I predict spewing by Marylanders in November, if Steele even makes it that long.

Washington Post Editorial on Overturned Wal-Mart Bill Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Targeting a single company because it's unpopular ... is a misuse of governmental power. And repassing the law would have nothing to do with solving the problem of rising state health-care costs. Compared to the national average, Wal-Mart employees are only a tad more likely to collect state-sponsored Medicaid benefits, and many other employers in Maryland keep their health benefits similarly low. About 800,000 Marylanders don't have health insurance, and most of them don't work at Wal-Mart. Massachusetts, a state that is trying to responsibly address rising health-care costs, hasn't resorted to preying selectively on its large employers. Neither should Maryland.

In my view, perfectly said.

Long-Shot Senate Democrat Candidates Are Shooting Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

From today's WaPo.

The other five Democratic U.S. Senate candidates who sat on a riser at the University of Maryland at College Park last week seemed to have the same mission: stick it to Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin.

University professor Allan Lichtman and socialist activist A. Robert Kaufman attacked Cardin for his stand on the Iraq war, while businessman Josh Rales knocked him for being too much of a Capitol Hill insider.

"If we keep electing the same people, we should expect to keep getting the same results," Rales told the audience in the student union.

Cardin shrugged off the criticism, but the jabs and volleys were a reminder of the unique challenge he faces as he seeks the Democratic nomination for an open Senate seat. Even though Cardin remains locked in a tight contest with former NAACP president Kweisi Mfume, the efforts of 16 long-shot Democratic contenders could ultimately determine who wins the Sept. 12 primary.

...

"They may take very small percentages of the vote, but the fact is that Cardin's race with Mfume is so close that they could make the difference," said Matthew Crenson, a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University.

Crenson said the "spoiler candidates" are taking more votes from Cardin because they, like Cardin, are white. Mfume benefits from being the prominent black candidate in a primary in which as many as 40 percent of voters could be African American.

If Lichtman and Rales can stay strong in Montgomery County, Cardin may get edged out by Mfume. Unless I am mistaken, neither Mfume nor Cardin has ever lost an election. Both are veteran campaigners with a long history of tough hardball politics.

Earlier this year, I thought Cardin simply had Mfume severely outfunded. And that is still true, as of today. But I am beginning to think that the polls showing Mfume ahead of Cardin or at least very close may reflect the outcome of this primary election more than Cardin's massive cash advantage. Cardin could lose this one close, especially if Cardin's support is the softest, which intuitively I suspect it is.

I met Allan Lichtman briefly about a month ago at the Grosvenor Metro Station during the day of the nastiest flooding in the DC area, the flooding that incapacitated some of the Metro system. Professor Lichtman believes passionately in the political process and is willing to fight like hell for ideals. I recall his moderation of a third-party presidential candidates' debate a number of years ago, maybe it was 2000 or 1996, I cannot recall. Sheer joy was evident on his face as he was interviewing Libertarian, Green and other party candidates for President. Some people have not given up on political idealism and I suspect Lichtman is one of those people.

Back to cynicism. I know less about Rales but he is damaging Cardin in Montgomery County. The poll indicated 5% statewide, but I suspect that that translates to about 18-20% or more in Montgomery County, and Rales has the advertising initiative, i.e. Cardin was nice enough to give Rales a running start where Cardin is weakest. Ben, you are such a nice, well-funded guy.

Republican presumptive Senate nominee Michael Steele's campaign has had a lot of turmoil, and is now run largely by non-Marylanders from the national GOP, which means he will get some serious additional GOP money from out of state. But GOP fundraising against bland, "Ben-the-Clerk" is not as exciting as going against an unabashed 198-proof liberal and former NAACP head with some personal baggage like Mfume. If Mfume squeaks this out, it will be Heaven for anyone in the political advertising business in Maryland, as the GOP will spend like a madman to get Steele in and keep Mfume out.

Sun: Korean Student Exchange in Howard County, MD Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

The first set of wake-up alarms in Eun Shin's West Friendship home sounds about 6:30 a.m. Minutes later, additional snooze alarms follow until the whole house is awake.

It is not until after a relatively silent breakfast of bagels, fruit, and bacon, that Shin's houseguests - two 14-year-old girls from South Korea - begin to loosen up while waiting to leave for their daily English class, giggling and Hula-Hooping with Shin's 13-year-old daughter Sarah.

This is just the type of interaction the Korean Embassy and the Washington Youth Foundation envisioned when they picked Howard County as the site for the new summer cultural exchange program that places Korean middle school students with Korean-American families for three weeks of classroom learning and field trips.

...

The combination of a growing Korean population, a top-rated school system and a suburban atmosphere made Howard County the prime location for the program.

Howard County's reputation in Korea has grown through Web sites that promote the county, articles in Korean newspapers and word-of-mouth endorsements, said Hyung-chul Choi, education director for the Korean Embassy . Howard County beat out Fairfax County, Va., despite having a smaller Korean population.

Why does it matter when Comptroller William Donald Schaefer insults Korean-American Marylanders immigrants by suggesting a connection between them and the dictator state of the Democrtic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)?

Because word travels. Howard County's Korean-American community has grown so large that telemarketers from South Korea call into Howard County, looking for Korean-esque surnames, pitching services in the Korean language. As Korea grows in wealth and investment capital, two-way economic trade between Howard County and the Republic of Korea may increase through local family and business contacts. But if the elder statesman of Maryland politics tells Koreans to go screw themselves, Koreans may just decide that Fairfax County, VA, is a friendlier place to land. Especially when Schaefer is repeatedly requested to apologize, and he refuses, arrogantly. When you hurt business, you hurt the government's bottom line.

We tend to think of Schaefer as an institution, but he is in fact the Comptroller of the State's finances and tax revenue. How does insulting a large community with international business connections help the State's bottom line? How were his comments in furtherance of the business of the people of Maryland?

Thanks, Don. Retire, Don: "Do It Now."

Federal Judge Strikes Down Wal-Mart Bill Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

The "wal-Mart" Bill levying an 8% payroll surcharge on certain employers with over 10,000 employees in Maryland (in effect, Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart alone) was struck down today in U.S. District Court on the grounds that it was preempted by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, known better as ERISA. ERISA deals primarily with retirement benefits but has some applicability over all employer-offered benefit plans and all state employer mandates for such benefits.

More on this decision to follow.

Sloppy Reporting by the Sun?? Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Out of deference to the guild privileges of The Sun Lies, my fellow member of the Maryland Bloggers' Alliance, I am reluctant to take a swipe at the Sun. But I note in passing several articles of interest regarding Sun reporting.

City Paper Conservative columnist Russ Smith commented on some sloppy news reporting by Sun reporters Jennifer Skalka and Arthur Hirsch through their failures to acknowledge open biases in their sources or sloppy numerical analysis of Maryland's electoral history as a Democratic state. Skalka missed the fact that Maryland's few Republican presidential victories of late came in landslide years, where the Democrat got fewer than 6 states or, in Mondale's case, only his home state of Minnesota. In other words, even Massachusetts and Rhode Island could be called "red states" by the Mondale loss. While I would be a little less harsh than Smith was, he was indeed correct in his analysis of the numbers. On the other hand, TheSunLies criticized Skalka for identifying the state as "bluest of blue" in essentially the same context, when Governor Ehrlich had described the state as "light blue." The point of both columnists seems to be that news is news, not commentary

Skalka also stirred some controversy at the Sun when she repeatedly identified and reported on Republican Lieutenant Governor candidate Kristen Cox as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints when that fact was not germane to any news event.

All of these items involve the distinction between news stories, feature storties and editorials, Skalka is a news reporter, and accordingly her professional guidelines call for objective fairness and relevance to current news items. Feature stories report beyond relevant "news" to topics of non-news interest, and editorials do not claim to report at all, but to comment. A complaint of conservatives throughout Maryland for many years is the corruption of objective news reporting by the Sun; ironically, the complaints about "the news" are not really news.

Given the Sun's clearly expressed hostility to Michael Steele and Robert Ehrlich, one wonders what the Sun's role will be in their respective electoral battles which many observers expect to be both intense and close. One need not be a conservative to wish that Baltimore were a two-daily paper town again.

Oh wait, it is a two paper town again.

300 - The Seven States of Maryland Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

A few years back, The Nine Nations of North America posited that nine different peoples, cultures and economies - nations - actually occupied the North American continent, from Dixie to the Heartland to Quebec. Not a scholarly read but a thought-provoking one. Sometimes the borders between them were extremely clear, sometimes less so. The border between the "Foundry" and "Dixie" ran, if I recall correctly, right along Route 50 in Anne Arundel County. I would have probably placed it five miles further south along Central Avenue at Md. Rt. 214, which is the eastward extension of East Capitol Street out to Mayo and the Bay, but you get the idea.

In my view, Maryland has seven states within it. Those would be:

Baltimore City
Baltimore Suburbs
Montgomery County
Prince George's County
Western Maryland
Southern Maryland and
The Eastern Shore.

One can make the case that all of the inside-the-Beltway suburbs should be counted with the City; Towson and Rodgers Forge look a lot like North Charles in the City, and Curtis Bay City-side and Anne Arundel-side don't look much different either. Anne Arundel County is unusual in that at least four of the regions cross its borders; Crofton and Russett Green are a lot like Bowie and Laurel, South County is definitely southern Maryland, Severna Park is suburban Baltimore and Curtis Bay and Brooklyn Park are really Baltimore, culturally and politically. The City of Annapolis under my model is part of no "state", sort of like DC.

You can tweak the borders a little elsewhere; Route 108 in Howard County passes seamlessly into Montgomery County without much fanfare at all among the large-acre lots and tall trees. A case can be made that Carroll County west of Route 91 is more like Western Maryland than like the rest of the Baltimore suburbs, with essentially no transit and no interstate highways. But this is nitpicking. The seven-"state" model covers 95% of the state in a reasonable way.

By 2005 estimates, the Eastern Shore has about 420,000 people, Southern Maryland about 350,000 and Western Maryland 460,000. Montgomery and PG Counties (including close-in Anne Arundel) have about 900,000 each. Baltimore City and its tightest, oldest suburbs comprise 860,000 people, and the expanse of suburban Baltimore has almost 1,700,000 residents. I have adjusted the boundary lines slightly beyond county lines per above in some cases to reflect trends and economic patterns. Russett Green and Maryland City in West Arundel, for example, are a short distance call from Silver Spring but a long distance call from Annapolis, so I attached them to Prince George's County in this model.

School kids in Maryland learn the 1927 National Geographic magazine characterization of Maryland as "America in Miniature." This is somewhat true, in that the state has a variety of economies and demographic characteristics. But we are more liberal, more urban, more religiously diverse, more ethnically diverse (of particular note the 1/3 of Maryland's population that is African-American) and substantially wealthier than the United States as a whole. There is a great deal of economic and political diversity within Maryland, approaching Balkanization.

Left, Right, Up, Down, Forward Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

A member of the largely conservative Maryland Bloggers' Alliance (see sidebar link) asked me a very fair question: how does one reconcile having a bunch of liberal blogger links up on a website, while claiming to have a libertarian point of view?

A fellow contributor to the liberal Free State Politics website likewise asked me whether my joining the Maryland Bloggers' Alliance represented a a rightward shift in my politics.

I had occasion to reflect on both of these questions and others upon realizing that this very post would be Post #299 since Crablaw opened for business in November 2004. At that time, I was more focused on the mechanics of practicing law and less on bigger-picture items like politics, even though the 2004 general election was only a few days away. Post #299 is pseudo-significant because Blogger's internal editing archive currently goes back a maximum of 300 posts. After 20 months of blogging through times good and bad, we have essentially hit a milestone here and I am happy.

My own hope is that we bloggers who live here in Maryland and identify strongly with the State will join forces enough to get past partisan and ideological differences with a goal of improving political debate in the State. This may sound Pollyannaish but a variety of local perspectives strengthens all local media. The fact that we are local may, I hope, make it harder to engage in personal flame wars, though that may be too much to hope for. It's one thing to flame someone over yonder; it's another thing to flame out another Ravens fan or someone stuck home in the same snowstorm you are. (Oh, for a snowstorm now....)

As for the politics of "right" vs. "left", each of those words covers a multitude of sins (as does "libertarian.") It's not that there is no difference, but that the differences are not reliable, clean or convenient. Is opposing illegal immigration right or left? How about foreign affairs - is the effort to spread free, self-governing societies with civil liberties, civil rights and property protection a liberal or conservative effort? How about a reluctant attitude towards military solutions - is that liberal or conservative? Among "libertarians" great debate rages as well. The same term cannot readily encompass Nat Hentoff, Glenn Reynolds, Charles Murray and John Stossel. Are you a liberal if you resent George Bush's policies on abortion or a conservative if you oppose his spendthrift habits?

Both ideologically and practically, it seems proper to align with bloggers who bring out their best writing, which is what I seem to see out of both liberal and conservative bloggers. I especially enjoy reading well-written, civilly decent pieces from people I disagree with; they are the most challenging intellectually. Personally I enjoy writing about mass transit as it is a long-time focus of mine and something I know a little about; am less up to date on environmental and climate change issues, for example.

I have also appreciated seeing the different aesthetic styles of blogs among different ideological viewpoints. No clear, distinctive liberal or conservative style presents itself, although perhaps 1/2 of the blogs out their seem to use Canned Off-The-Shelf layouts from Blogger or other packages, which is fine if blog design does not fascinate you.

I say, let Maryland blogging thrive and progress. We are a small state but with an active civic life. Let's see what all of us from a variety of perspectives can do to add to it.

Hedgehog Report Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Amidst my travels online I managed not to come across the Hedgehog Report until now. Owner Dave Wissing maintains a lot of good data on multiple campaigns in Maryland and throughout the country. How I managed to miss this gem of a site until now is beyond me. Dave is a Republican and a conservative, but the site appears to distinguish policy advocacy and poll reporting properly (unlike, sadly, the Baltimore Sun all too often.) Lots of links both local and national. Very highly recommended.

World War III? Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

There is a discussion over at fellow Maryland Blogger Alliance member The Not So Free State regarding whether we are in fact facing World War III in the making as a result of the Israeli/Hezbollah military strikes. I would encourage readers to click through the comments and analyze the arguments made there for two reasons. The first would be the merits of the issues involved themselves. The second would be a more general point about how "conservative" approaches to foreign policy can differ and have differed in different eras.

Dan Rodricks on Ehrlich's Recent Gains Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Interesting piece by Dan Rodricks today on Ehrlich's recent gains in Baltimore County and elsewhere against Martin O'Malley. Its content defies cheap "snipping" but he makes a lot of good points about the effect of gas prices, energy prices and education concerns throughout the state.

A Plain Weekend Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

My wife and I took off for Pennsylvania Dutch country for the weekend. It was a welcome change of pace. We enjoyed Intercourse, though not for very long. We did enjoy a visit to Immergut's pretzel shop, operated that day by a young woman of Plain attire. I did not mind the slow traffic behind the Amish carriages, though the moronitude of the Maryland driver en route home did tire me. We visited a Mennonite Information Center outside of Lancaster City and attended a presentation of a photo montage about Amish and Mennonite life (with a mention that most Amish do not approve of their pictures being taken under ordinary circumstances,)

The Amish and the more conservative sectors of the Mennonite community are known as "Plain People," referring to their humility. their very simple lifestyles and their distinctive attire. Their avoidance of most (not all) modern technology is well known. I guess I would be considered "fancy" by the standards of Plain People, though I do keep my attire pretty plain by middle-class U.S. standards. But my entire lifestyle is wired, replete with cell phone and email connection that reached me ... even during my visit to the community of the Plain People.

We stayed at a bed-and-breakfast in nearby Adamstown ... by accident, that is, we did not know it precisely to be a bed-and-breakfast. we are not exactly bed-and-breakfast people, but the facilities were beautiful. I sampled Yuengling lager in nearby Reading and now I understand why people praise it. Sort of like Sam Adams, but a little dryer, lighter and less nutty-flavored. After a brief (and thrifty) visit to an outlet center, we returned among the "English" in Maryland.

CityPaper Article on Climate Crisis Issues in Maryland Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

An interesting article from a Maryland-specific perspective about climate change hazards in MD and the local efforts to reduce carbon atmospheric emissions.

Commuters with Balls Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

From today's AFP:

Dilip Khadaria settled into his first-class compartment and scoffed at the idea of violence stopping him from travelling on Mumbai's trains.

"Terrorists can do anything they like," the 52-year-old said on the western line Wednesday, a day after more than 180 people were killed and 700 wounded in a series of bomb attacks.

"We are businessmen, we will be going back to work. It won't hamper our business, it won't stop our work," he said.

...

Mumbai is the commercial hub of India, the engine room driving one of the world's newly emerging economies as well as an important centre of learning, and many here vowed not to see their routines disrupted by the bloodshed.

...

The train network is vital to getting Mumbai to work with an estimated six million passengers travelling every day.

Mumbai (Bombay) is enomorous, and relies on a suburban commuter rail network linking suburbs to downtown Mumbai the way other cities rely on subways. The system has over 6 million riders per day on 300 km (190 miles) of track. Compare this to the daily ridership of the NYC subway, 4.9 million people daily along 1000 km (650 miles) of revenue track. Essentially this makes the through-put per track mile almost 4 times as dense on the Mumbai at-grade rail as the mostly sub- or supra-grade NYC subway. How do they do it? By crushing 14-17 people per square meter into the trains, replete with people hanging outside the train, as one often sees in photographs from Mumbai. Even if you assume that the average Mumbai rump is narrower than the average backside in Topeka, Kansas, it is still an unbelievable "Super-Dense Crush" condition.

Then you see six bombings on one of the main north-south lines, in one morning.

Then you see commuters with balls go to work the next day, en masse.

Unbelievable. Makes me appreciate the 92% on time rate of the occasionally standing-room only MARC Penn Line a lot more. We could do better but we have it pretty good.

Affordable Housing in Baltimore Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Today's Sun contained a news article and a column regarding affordable housing. The thrust of both was that Baltimore is becoming more yuppie and that is problematic due to a lack of mid-level housing within the City.

I see their point but don't know that I agree with how they pinpointed the problem. There is a ton of extremely cheap places to live, but in crime ridden hell-holes. The Sun did include a useful map showing the stark balkanization of City neighborhoods by recent housing prices. A mythical knockout blow to crime could increase the asset values of entire zip codes, but that seems unlikely somehow in a City with 50-60 thousand drug addicts about of an adult population of maybe 400,000.

Many, probably most, of the middle income residents are likely to be middle class homeowners with children. The problem is that middle class people with children usually cannot afford private schools, but are reluctant to put their children into the disastrous pits of City middle schools and most (not all) elementary schools if they have an alternative. The County is no educational paradise but it is obviously better than the City, with less than half the property taxes per assessed value. Plus you can park your car easily: public transit is sometimes good but not an easy way to get groceries and diapers to pantries with children in tow or toddlers to the pediatrician. Cabs are available in the City but are expensive, and car insurance is brutal for full theft coverage.

CREAT - Cash Rules Everything Around Them. If it is difficult to sell a moderately priced house in the City to a middle income family, then the builders have every reason to pass on new mid-range housing and aim at single or childless urban professionals whose high income workaholic jobs place a premium on proximity to the office. Trying to make Charles Village into the next Parkville and Arbutus makes little economic sense. A middle-income family w kids is not likely to want city life particularly. While there are middle income people w no kids, if they have no kids, they are more likely to be upwardly mobile w two incomes increasing during two careers, i.e. the "undesirable" higher income household seeking that higher income "lifestyle.". So the stratification grows, a la San Francisco. Cheaper land for backyards is likely to be in the suburbs rather than in the City, as a matter of basic land use economics.

Culture makes city life attractive, but who's gonna watch my kids while I go get cultured? I am 37 w two kids in diapers, be damned if my wife and I are going clubbing.

Majikthise - Philosopher Blogger Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

It is helpful for everyone in the information business to get some exercise - of their reasoning faculty. Logical fallacies damage the work of attorneys, writers, policy makers, lobbyists, advocates, organizers and anyone else interested in ideas, politics or public life.

Sexist, archaic notions of a "philosopher" suggest a "white" man with a white beard in a tower or at a Greek agora, writing something inscrutable to be taught later by someone inscrutable. "Philosophers" as commonly conceived do not usually live in Brooklyn, attend cool musical performances or watch World Cup, and are hardly ever women named Lindsay. Until now.

Majikthise, aka Lindsay Beyerstein of Brooklyn, NY, holds a Masters in Philosophy from Tufts and maintains a blog dealing with political and philosophical issues. While I respect her commentary on politics generally, her blog contains a rigorous philosophical analysis of many current issues, political and otherwise. The philosophical rigor is what I found most worthwhile, a worthy workout for my own brain, as it were, on issues ranging from white collar crime, the definition of fascism, deadbeat dads, birth control and the death penalty. Her blog's name comes from a philosopher character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

Enjoy. Very highly recommended.

An Inconvenient Truth Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Former Vice-President and 2000 Democratic Presidential nominee Al Gore has been busy since being "the former next President of the United States." An Inconvenient Truth is a documentary both about the science of global warming and about Gore himself, with many personal asides about several generations of the Gore family interspersed with excerpts of Gore's presentation on global warming from several cities.

The film provides a basic overview of global warming and CO2 emissions statistics, noting the sharp, parallel increases in each in the last 30 years. Much of the film deals with the ice caps of Greenland and both poles, specifically how global warming affects polar temperatures more profoundly, leading to a risk of the polar ice melting and separation. If the polar ice caps and/or Greenland largely melt, as trends seem to suggest is slowly happening, the world's sea level may rise up to 7 meters, inundating parts of many world cities including New York, Beijing, Shanghai, Calcutta and many others. Much of downtown Baltimore lies directly on the water

I lack the scientific background to critique the documentary's thesis, but the presentation was compelling. I strongly recommend seeing the movie as well as any scientific critiques that you can find thereof. If you have links to critiques fo the movie's thesis (I have searched and found none yet), please post them in the comments with my thanks.

The late astronomer and humanist Carl Sagan was an early activist on the subject of global warming. Yet even the mighty Sagan occasionally got the science wrong. When Sagan predicted that the smoke from oil files set by Saddam Hussein would cause climatological catastrophes, he turned out to be wrong. In fairness to Sagan, he admitted he was wrong in print and cited it as an example of the tentative character of scientific analysis and discovery. Sagan's late wife Ann Druyan was a credited contributor to An Inconvenient Truth. The movie did point out that the basic theory of man's contribution to global warming is essentially undisputed in scientific journals, but more disputed in the popular press.

Go see it and feel free to post your impressions of it below, along with any third-party critiques that strike you.

Good News Network Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

We tend to follow bad news, let's face it. "200,000 people in the County went to work today, substantially without incident" does not inspire reader attention or sales of newspapers.

But one website does focus on good, uplifting news. We can all use an occasional dose of the good side of reality, even if it kills us.

Newark, NJ learning from Baltimore Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

From today's Newark Star-Ledger

BY KATIE WANG Star-Ledger Staff

BALTIMORE -- Joseph Kolodziejski, the head of Baltimore's solid waste department, stood alone before a crescent-shaped table filled with city administrators.

The topic of the meeting was trash pickup, which was ignored in an entire swath of the city during one week in May.

"What happened?" asked Matt Gallagher, a top city administrator, armed with bar graphs, pie charts, color-coded maps and spread sheets glowing on overhead computer screens.

"Did they forget? Did they go back out the next day? Was there an explanation?"

There wasn't, but Kolodziejski assured the group disciplinary action was taken.

Next up was Frank F. Snyder Jr., the deputy fire chief, who also fielded testy questions.

"Sick days are up," Gallagher pointed out. "What's going on over there?"

Each week in Baltimore City Hall, department heads have to answer to CitiStat, a part-human, part-computer information jugger naut that tracks all services in the city. The system can see if a homeowner's garbage is collected, if graf fiti is scrubbed from the wall, if potholes are patched. It knows how many firefighters put in for OT and how many cops called out sick. It is an omniscient program that tracks whether government's basic functions are carried out, and how much money is spent in the process.

Newark will adopt a CitiStat- like program under Mayor Cory Booker. One of Booker's promises during the mayoral race was to transform City Hall and make it accountable to the residents.

I do not claim to know how effective CitiStat has been in Baltimore. Undoubtedly it will play a big role in Mayor O'Malley's gubernatorial quest, as well as in Governor Ehrlich's challenges to O'Malley's effectiveness as mayor of Baltimore. Washington, DC uses a similar ticket tracking and effectiveness monitoring system that has been helpful to my clients in DC facing certain municipal issues.

What is clear is that a system like CitiStat can make most flavors of corruption easier to spot and more difficult and expensive to maintain, i.e. it is a good thing. Newark, New Jersey is reputed to be among the most blatantly corrupt cities in the country, and a new Rhodes Scholar, Ivy League moderate mayor is heading into that city. Good metric tools are not enough to defeat corruption but Crablaw wishes Newark and Mayor Booker the best. If they can get Newark turned around, maybe they can return the favor down here in the future.