Baltimore Sun: Maryland First in Household Income Among U.S. States Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, August 29, 2007:

It's the kind of statistic that makes politicians and economic development gurus cheer: Maryland ranked as the richest state in the nation last year, according to estimates released yesterday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

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Look no further than Howard County, with a median household income of $94,260 - the nation's third-wealthiest behind the Virginia counties of Fairfax and Loudoun. In Maryland, Howard came in first [emphasis Crablaw].

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Statewide, Maryland became wealthier in the first half of the decade, with the median household income rising to $65,144 in 2006, from $63,973 in 2000, when adjusted for inflation. Demographers note that while Maryland took the top slot last year, its median income was not statistically different from New Jersey's at $64,470. Maryland's income was nearly three times that of the nation's poorest state - Mississippi.

A few points.

First, if Howard is third in the nation, and two Virginia counties are ahead of Howard, it stands to reason that Howard must be first in Maryland. Thus, the sentence highlighted in green above is surplusage that a careful editor should have caught.

Second, the term "household income" skews to the vanity of two-income households. When two single people earning $60,000 a year marry or move in together, their household income doubles. Whether chils support or alimony payments were taken into consideration in the definition of "household income" is unclear. Howard County has a lot of medium and large-acre zoning, along with a lot of tall, skinny townhouses in Columbia. Some apartment condos and rentals, but not many.

Third, Maryland and New Jersey are within the margin of error of each other for household income.

Fourth, per capita or household incomes do not translate into standards of living directly. I would rather be a bus driver in Baltimore making $40,000 than an Alaskan fishing boat captain making $150,000+, and would rather be impoverished in Berlin or Rome than either of them. There are many externalities that per capita and household income statistics don't measure. One of the best things about Howard County is that is a relatively crime free, though hardly absolutely so. It is better to be a poor person in Howard County than in Baltimore City in many ways not only because local government is better funded and far more efficient, but because some aspects of the poverty tax (i.e. additional costs borne often by poor people) such a crime are reduced. On the other hand, local transit in Howard County is not as good as in Baltimore, though still pretty good for a suburban county with many spread-out destinations. (Transit-phobes like Julia Gouge in Carroll County, please take note.)

Income is not synonymous with wealth; the article describes Maryland as the "wealthiest" state in a few places but wealth is net assets, not a stream bearing unidentified expenses.

Fourth and most importantly, there is no Maryland. I mean, there's the Maryland Annotated Code and Form 502, and there are goofy traditions like Maryland's state song calling Lincoln a despot and trivial garbage like ring jousting as the state sport (a sport which probably less than 1% of the state has ever seen live, and only 1% of those has ever played.) But I have more in common with a suburban attorney living outside of Seattle, Toronto or Amsterdam than I do with most of the Eastern Shore, and I have been a legal resident of the state my entire life. You can find bumper stickers for Ireland nationalism showing a green 26 + an orange 6 = the map of Ireland, representing the Irish Republic and Ulster's six counties, respectively. An analogous sticker for a united Maryland would be a farce.

Maryland is at least six states, psychologically and economically. Montgomery County has the financial resources to secede and may technically have done so without notice by the newspapers. The Eastern Shore is our own little piece of Mississippi, though happily with somewhat higher income as noted in the Sun article. Carroll County is scared to death of the Baltimore Negro Menace that commuter buses to Baltimore threaten to inflict on white womanhood. Prince George's County is mostly black, mostly wealthy by U.S. standards and full of very strong local pride. Baltimore County is too busy being ... not Baltimore City. Baltimore City is bleeding to death: income, wealth and literal blood. So hearing that the wealthy part of Maryland grew, or just enough Baltimoreans slipped through the statistical cracks, retired to South Carolina or died of natural causes or gunfire doesn't tell you very much.

David Lublin at FSP on O'Malley's Shrewd Slots Strategy Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Check out David Lublin's solid piece at Free State Politics on the political maneuvering on slots by Governor O'Malley.

Sun: Slots Not the Way to Save Horse Racing Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun Editorial, August 16, 2007:

The horse-racing business in Maryland is worth trying to save, for three main reasons. It employs about 9,000 people; the Preakness is a great national showcase for Baltimore; and, maybe most important, the horse farms in the state supported directly or indirectly by racing occupy 685,000 acres of land as open space, about a tenth of all the open space in Maryland.

But slot machines are not the way to save the horses.

On Tuesday, the administration of Gov. Martin O'Malley began distributing a report by Thomas E. Perez, the secretary of labor, licensing and regulation, that examines the impact of slots on neighboring states and on their racetracks, and finds it to be significant. But there are all sorts of apples and oranges in this debate (we're tempted to say road apples and oranges) - and perhaps a fig leaf or two, as well.

Crab's commentary below the fold...

I am neutral about slots. Part of the problem with government spending is that when times are good, government tends to get creative and the pork spreads all around. Then times get lean, and pork's constituents stand up to be fed anyway. Political economy suggests that demand will roar in to meet the excess supply of money into Annapolis, that the money will be wasted rather than used but wasted more painfully in hard times, once its constituency is well ensconced. The very thing that makes slots useful makes them a little addictive - for Annapolis, not the gamblers.

But more obnoxious than the sound of 10,000 bleeping, ringing slot machines echoing through a neon-and-puke-juice-colored-plastic-bunting-trimmed whorehouse of clinking greed is the "neighing" from Maryland's wealthy horse industry come-a-begging for yet more financial support, more hand-holding. The Sun has it backwards. These welfare "queens" ride in $85,000 BMWs, not the #20 bus from public housing in West Baltimore. The idea that the horsey set need yet more state coddling while Baltimore sits in ruins amazes and stuns me. I mean, I understand that it's expensive to send "Trip" to Gilman, but really. While I don't favor putting the tax screw on the Valleys for the non-crime of being rich, they don't need Annapolis' teat either.

Yesterday I took the light rail from Hunt Valley adjacent to much of Baltimore's horse country into downtown Baltimore to visit my old law school and the law library. The light rail train creaked, grinded loudly, as if MTA had not bought lubrication since trolleys and long-distance passenger trains last ran along about the same right-of-way over 40 years ago. The right-of-way was ugly with uncut grass and weeds almost sneaking up between the railroad ties. And of course the train's schedule and actual arrival times even before downtown's infamously slow shared right-of-way and stop-light ridden path compares not that well to a well-handled bicycle until the train hits Lutherville and runs more or less express. Then it finally hits downtown, and slows to a crawl. General rule: if you are under 40, have two legs and cannot outrace a light rail train going south through downtown Baltimore, you need to get to the gym. Howard Street looked like pictures I have seen of the "urban-unrenewed" side of Tijuana, replete with buildings fit for tribes of rats and of roaches.

But it's what's north and northwest of Hunt Valley's light rail station, the lots of 10, 20 and 40 acres or more replete with horses and lawn jockeys that so desperately needs the permanent attention of Annapolis, not the underdeveloped urban and suburban infrastructure. I know that infrastructure is not sexy but reasonable people invest in maintenance anyway, despite its near-fatal unsexyness.

Some people of good will and fair mind have accused me of bringing out my libertarian "claws" from time to time. My only problem with that claim is that they are not claws, they are damn sight seven inch fangs. Government should have enough money to build and maintain its infrastructure but not enough to create a new class of welfare queens with riding crops. If that's libertarian, then I am betting "all in."

Washington Post: Tawes Crab Feast Round-Up Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Washington Post, July 20, 2007:

Wednesday's 31st annual J. Millard Tawes Crab and Clam Bake served up thousands of Maryland crabs, fried clams and steamers, cobs of corn and watermelons --and plenty of politicians, considering it's an off-year for elections.

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Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown made the rounds in a white T-shirt and khakis before boarding a boat for a tour of Eastern Shore oyster beds. "You haven't experienced Maryland till you've experienced the Tawes crabfest!" Brown declared before a gaggle of local television cameras. "It's what you do."

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Next year's dual primaries for the 1st District congressional seat held by Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest drew a lot of political chatter. The race to unseat the nine-term Eastern Shore Republican is likely to be Maryland's hottest next year. Supporters of Sen. Andrew Harris (R-Baltimore County), the congressman's challenger from the right, were out in full force yesterday--as were Queen Anne's County state's attorney Frank Kratovil and Dorchester County attorney Christopher Robinson, who will battle for the Democratic nomination.

I wish I had been there.

Washington Post: Tax Proposals in Maryland Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Washington Post, July 18, 2007:

Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) and leading lawmakers say they are giving serious consideration to overhauling the state's tax brackets, which are among the flattest in the nation. Everyone with taxable income of more than $3,000 a year pays the same rate.

O'Malley called the structure "patently unfair" this week, saying at a Democratic breakfast in Frederick that Peter Angelos, the wealthy trial lawyer who owns the Baltimore Orioles, should not pay the same rate as "the woman who cleans his office."

"I'm in favor of progressive taxation, where people who make a lot more pay more," O'Malley told reporters recently.

The article goes on to discuss, in an oversimplified manner, how the state's income tax brackets work in practice. One proposal is to create a 6 percent bracket for earners earning about $150K single, $250K jointly, in taxable income. The article does not go into the state's personal exemptions or mildly odd standard deduction calculation, and also fails to note the deductibility on Form 1040, Schedule A of most state income taxes for most high-income taxpayers, yielding reduced marginal net damage from a state income tax increase due to already high federal income taxation.
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Governor O'Malley mischaracterized what progressive taxation (of income) is. It's not when "those who earn a lot more pay more," it's when those who earn more pay a lot more. I consider O'Malley's characterization disingenuous; it's sloppy beyond mere negligence.

All taxation is an invasion, a taking by force. The fact that cops rarely collect taxes at gunpoint (in the U.S.) does not make taxation anything other than a taking by force with some due process review. Non-compliance results in garnishments, levies, sales in execution and in very rare cases criminal prosecution for non-filers.

The question I have is whether the taxation of the marginal income that buys clothing and the staff of life should occur at a lower rate, directly or indirectly, than the taxation of the marginal income that, in practice, buys marble kitchen remodellings and vacations at Aspen - not because the latter are "bad" or out of some class envy but because the net damage to low-income workers of extracting tax money out of their survival staples bothers me. The current tax code provides for a small state earned income tax credit for many such workers to mitigate those concerns somewhat.

But providing relief to poor people is not what the main Democratic proposals are discussing. They are not talking about making it easy for Martin O'Malley's cleaning lady. They are discussing, instead, increasing the tax screw on the most successful people in every field while leaving the slightly lower tier of middle-high earners untouched. I would respect an across the board increase of the rate much more, even though my family and I would fare worse under a broader taxation than under the Democratic proposal. There's no fundamental reason why we should be exempt from such a proposed increase; my family's basic needs are covered and I would hate for Angelos to have his rates increased more due to Democratic lack of character and fear of taxpayers broadly on this issue. If they cannot raise taxes across the board for everyone above subsistence level, they should not do so at all.

Hong Kong is generally regarded one of the freest economies if not the freest on Earth despite having one of the world's least free economies only 20 minutes away by commuter train. Most Hong Kongers don't pay income tax. In effect, the income tax does not come into effect until around 220,000 HKD per annum, which is about $29,000 USD dollars or so. One of the biggest fears of the business community in Hong Kong is threat of democracy or, more precisely, full home rule and universal suffrage. The fear is that the tax system that allows workers to earn pretty much all of the income that they need for life's basics without taxation would be destroyed if a socialist, pro-tax party got elected. Higher income earners do often complain about the brutality of Hong Kong taxation and the high rate of 15% that they suffer. May such a rate smite us and may we never recover.

In a sense, however, the Hong Kong system is paradoxically both the flattest and the most progressive of all tax systems in the industrialized world. The rate jumps high from zero to the maximum rate in one arguably nasty progressive leap on middle income taxpayers. While such a system probably could not be implemented in Maryland practically, I would like to see a system where low-income workers are outside the tax system up to a subsistence level of income and that the rates stay flat thereafter.

Attila went hard on the proposed rates:

I'll tell you how it can be. Governor O'Malley's argument for progressive tax rates is a phony. It's a way of punishing wealthy people for having created wealth. It's a scheme based on ideology, not economics, and on envy, not fairness.

I don't think it's envy or bad faith when you are dealing with the lower end of the income spectrum. It's envy when you are doing what the Democrats are discussing: soaking the highest producers without helping the poor through relief and without demanding that all of the "non-subsistence poor" meet the same rate.

But O'Malley was smart in the examples he picked. Angelos is at the "bowel obstruction" level of popularity due to his decade of perceived baseball malpractice in Baltimore, and it's hard and cruel not to want to help somebody who earns a modest living holding a mop and toilet brush with her face near somebody's toilet. But perhaps a better example would be: should Ravens coach Brian Billick (after a GOOD year!) or a successful restaurant owner who works 70 hours a week get soaked on their taxes marginally worse than some non-disabled citizen hump who doesn't have steady (i.e, moderate and growing) income because he got fired for screwing off or watching porn on the job or not showing up to the job?

Governor, if you tax Brian Billick, you owe it to all of us to tax all of us the same way, exempting people's subsistence survival money. Tax me right here.

UPDATE: Isaac Smith, unlike Martin O'Malley, puts forth some actual arguments for the creation of the sorts of income tax brackets O'Malley advocates in a well-written counterpoint at FSP.

Baltimore Sun: O'Malley, Franchot "At It" Again Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, July 8, 2007:

Last week's debate over an Eastern Shore land deal brought to the surface tensions that have been brewing between Gov. Martin O'Malley and Comptroller Peter Franchot for months over how Maryland's chief tax collector plans to change the structure and scope of his office, a problem some political observers believe became inevitable when voters elected the two highly ambitious Democrats last fall.

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The most recent dust-up came when Franchot questioned why the state and Queen Anne's County were paying $5 million for the land -- $400,000 more than the highest appraisal and nearly $1 million more than the average of two appraisals.

Franchot also expressed concern that Department of Natural Resources Secretary John R. Griffin, who did consulting work related to the deal before coming to the O'Malley administration, had a conflict of interest.

O'Malley was not amused. At a news conference, the governor dismissed the issues raised in Franchot's "18-question interrogatory," saying that neither they nor any facts that had come to light warranted a review of "the decision the Board of Public Works reached unanimously."

For the non-Maryland readership here, the Comptroller and Governor each sit along with the State Treasurer on the powerful three-person Board of Public Works which administers most major expenditures on contracts, projects and the like. In addition, the Comptroller has a grab bag of other minor powers and duties under specific statutes, in addition to his or her regular "day job" - collecting taxes.

Both of these men have titanic, attorney-sized egos. I am sure that each is convinced that the other is an obnoxious hindrance to getting things done well.

I am perhaps marginally less critical of Peter Franchot than is Franchot critic Kenny Burns, but he and I would probably agree that a public manifestation of Franchot's competence at, and commitment to, the unsexy "day job" of collecting and accounting for Maryland taxes would be a most welcome addition to Franchot's public portfolio.

Baltimore Sun: O'Mallet Budget Cuts Total $213 Million Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, July 7, 2007:

Gov. Martin O'Malley will propose $213 million in spending cuts next week, including many designed to reduce administrative costs or make government more efficient, but also some that would affect programs in health, education and law enforcement.

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Positions would be held vacant in the state police; Medicaid reimbursements for doctors would be cut by $4.1 million; the university system would face $12 million in cuts; signing bonuses for high-quality teachers would be cut by $850,000; 12 law clerks would be cut from the Office of the Public Defender; and the state's budget for attracting tourists would be cut by nearly $700,000.

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By far, the largest cuts - $47.5 million - are proposed for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In remarks about the budget-cutting process, O'Malley has complimented Health Secretary John M. Colmers on the vigor with which he approached the task.

Letter to the Sun Editor re: Flamingo and Jim Crow Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, June 28, 2007:

Segregation is also Ocean City's legacy

The Sun's article on the heyday of Ocean City's Flamingo Hotel in the 1950s and 1960s failed to note that the families who lodged there during Ocean City's Jim Crow decades were all white ("Families flock to Flamingo," June 24).

Ocean City's "Motel Row" and the boardwalk itself enforced strict policies against the presence of black Americans.

For many years - until Congress passed and enforced anti-discrimination laws - only one hotel in Ocean City, "Henry's Colored Hotel," served black visitors.

Many Sun readers would want to know that black residents of Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia and the Lower Eastern Shore were unable to lodge at the Flamingo or enjoy the boardwalk for many decades.

That fact is part of the "family atmosphere" of Ocean City, to some extent, even to this day - among Maryland black families who have not forgotten this history.

Bruce Godfrey
Reisterstown

Baltimore Sun: Caucasian Nostalgia at Ocean City's Flamingo Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, June 24, 2007:

Old black-and-white photos show the place back when Rose and George Brous bought it in 1963. The Flamingo Motel was a flat cinderblock rectangle, sitting on the sand. Twenty-three rooms on three floors, each with a pair of double beds and a phone - no TV - cooled only by the sea breeze.

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Everything was clean, starched and dependable. Strictly no frills, save for a leggy, 6-foot-tall pink bird perched on the roof, buzzing in neon glory, a landmark that stood out even on the 15-block strip that old-timers still call "Motel Row."

But the Flamingo is still evocative of an earlier time, before Ocean City was quite so big and crowded, and folks still come for its old-fashioned charm. "The real secret, if it is a secret, is that we know our customers and treat them like friends and family," Brous says.

Let's get to the basics.

Ocean City was a segregated town for much of its history, including the history of this motel. The Flamingo was a core part of the row of hotels and motels that refused to rent to black visitors. Black tourists were not permitted on the Boardwalk, and only one hotel - the creatively named "Henry's Colored Hotel" - rented to Black visitors. Black families who made up almost a 1/3 of the Lower Shore and a large part of the markets in Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia (and still do so to this day) could not use this icon of Ocean City; it did not exist for black people.

"Evocative of an earlier time" indeed.

This has been your "Caucasian Nostalgia for the 50s and 60s" minute. Tune in again.

Juneteenth Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Texas State Historical Society on Juneteenth:

JUNETEENTH. On June 19 ("Juneteenth"), 1865, Union general Gordon Granger read the Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston, thus belatedly bringing about the freeing of 250,000 slaves in Texas. The tidings of freedom reached slaves gradually as individual plantation owners read the proclamation to their bondsmen over the months following the end of the war. The news elicited an array of personal celebrations, some of which have been described in The Slave Narratives of Texas (1974). The first broader celebrations of Juneteenth were used as political rallies and to teach freed African Americanqv about their voting rights. Within a short time, however, Juneteenth was marked by festivities throughout the state, some of which were organized by official Juneteenth committees.

Read more...

The day has been celebrated through formal thanksgiving ceremonies at which the hymn "Lift Every Voice" [sic] furnished the opening. In addition, public entertainment, picnics, and family reunions have often featured dramatic readings, pageants, parades, barbecues, and ball games. Blues festivals have also shaped the Juneteenth remembrance. In Limestone County, celebrants gather for a three-day reunion organized by the Nineteenth of June Organization. Some of the early emancipation festivities were relegated by city authorities to a town's outskirts; in time, however, black groups collected funds to purchase tracts of land for their celebrations, including Juneteenth. A common name for these sites was Emancipation Park. In Houston, for instance, a deed for a ten-acre site was signed in 1872, and in Austin the Travis County Emancipation Celebration Association acquired land for its Emancipation Park in the early 1900s; the Juneteenth event was later moved to Rosewood Park. In Limestone County the Nineteenth of June Association acquired thirty acres, which has since been reduced to twenty acres by the rising of Lake Mexia.

It should be noted that the Emanicipation Proclamation only freed slaves in territories in rebellion in 1863, not including Maryland since Maryland never seceded and was not in rebellion, due to a heavy U.S. Army presence and the mass incarceration of alleged pro-Confederate rioters generally without trial and without right of habeas corpus. Much of Maryland, however, was pro-Union, and not necessarily the regions you would think. Some of the southern counties of the Shore were more pro-Union than Baltimore was, perhaps due to different maritime trade relationships or other factors.

Maryland ended slavery after Juneteenth but before the passage of the 13th Amendment by act of the General Assembly.

Above, the hymn known sometimes as the Black or Negro National Anthem is traditionally titled "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," and its lyrics have been entered into the Congressional Record as the "African American National Hymn." Its author was born 8 years after Juneteenth. Performed by a high school choir here.

To all who mark the day, Happy Juneteenth.

Kevin Dayhoff: National Bohemian Commercial Classics Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Many thanks to Kevin Dayhoff for his recent link to Crablaw and a MAJOR HAT TIP for an awesome piece of Maryland history and culture: National Bohemian movie trailer ads consolidated by Atomic Books ("literary finds for mutilated minds") onto YouTube. Kevin also provides a history of the administrative and judicial proceedings involving Maryland's Board of Censors, which once had prior restraint power over all films shown in Maryland, even during my early lifetime.

National Bohemian is strongly associated with old Baltimore, hairspray Baltimore, the one back when the Orioles and Colts played at 33rd Street in old beat-up Memorial Stadium, when Chuck Thompson would exclaim "Ain't the Beer Cold!" (and you KNEW what beer he meant) and Brooks and Frank Robinson played, when the Orioles finished above .500 regularly and usually had the best 20-30 year record in baseball, better even than the infamous, disgusting Yankees.

I did not grow up in the City, but the whole area lit up in 1979 when the Orioles played the Pirates in the World Series, then won it in 1983 against the Phillies. Now the Orioles are in an 11 year drought from winning, and they don't even make Natty Boh here any more. Maybe that's the problem.

Well done, Kevin - a classic.

Barry Rascovar: O'Malley the Politician Needs to Step Aside Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Barry Rascovar in the NW Baltimore County Community Times, June 14, 2007, discussing the Front Man's penchant for demagoguery over statesmanship:

For Martin O'Malley, politics always seems to win out over enforcing the law.

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O'Malley the politician is good at blaming someone else for problems - preferably a Republican or corporation.

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Playing the blame game poisons the well of public debate. Inconsistent law enforcement shatters public confidence. The politician in O'Malley has the upper hand. Will the statesman ever emerge?

Rascovar explores the specific examples of O'Malley's block of the controversial Queen Anne's County development project and his decrying of the end of the BG&E statutory rate caps.

Crablaw Agrees with David Kyle on a State-Church Issue?? Whoa, Nelly!! Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Conservative David Kyle of The Candid Truth and I don't agree often on matters involving either religion or church-state relations from either a policy or jurisprudential point of view. We have had a few intense but friendly exchanges on such matters, here and over at Free State Politics. But I am basically with him regarding a today's letter to the editor from Delegate Rick Weldon (R-Frederick). Here's the letter:

As a Republican delegate representing southern Frederick County and southeastern Washington County and a fellow legislator who tries to attend ceremonies to recognize young men who achieve the rank of Eagle Scout, I was shocked and appalled at the exclusion of legislators from such ceremonies on the grounds that these legislators support embryonic stem cell research ("Catholic Scouts shun lawmakers over ideas," June 9).

Sen. Katharine A. Klausmeier and Del. Eric M. Bromwell are two of the most dedicated and responsible legislators in Annapolis. I have worked with both of them on a variety of issues, and both have shown themselves to be dedicated to all Marylanders, without regard to religion, race or ideology.

Monsignor James P. Farmer seems to be more interested in playing politics than in allowing the young men of St. Ursula Catholic Church's Scouting program to be appropriately recognized for their significant and life-changing achievement.

I hope the parishioners of St. Ursula will rebuke the monsignor, and teach him a lesson he apparently ignored along life's way: Mixing politics and religion is a dangerous game. [Emphasis Crablaw] Valuing a political statement above allowing everyone to acknowledge such an important accomplishment is an embarrassment.

I call on the Catholic archdiocese to end this discriminatory practice and once again ensure that these ceremonies are about the young men involved, as they should be, and not a political soapbox.

David Kyle's withering response is very strong and I am not in accord with every minor detail in it, but I may actually be more riled up about this than David is.

Secular-minded church-state separation advocates like me should be prepared to go to the mattresses for Monsignor Farmer, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with religious conservatives like David and others, when such a letter comes from a politician making vague, implied threats.

When tough-talking church-state separation advocates say church and state should ideally be separate, we need to recognize that churches (i.e. all houses and institutions of worship) should be and are PRIVATE PROPERTY. No one has the right to participate in a church service, including a church sponsorship of the Boy Scouts or awards ceremony therein. Any government that would badger a religious organization about who can take part in its business is either a tyranny or a tyranny aspirant.

Delegate Weldon's suggestion that the church's refusal to allow its moral opponents to participate in its business is a "dangerous game" is perfectly, pompously ridiculous. What is it when a Delegate considers it his business to bully a church about its internal affairs? THAT'S a dangerous game. What kind of implied threat is Delegate Weldon actually making here? Who's in "danger"? We are in danger, religious and secular alike, if Delegates are busy bothering private religious institutions rather than doing the State's and their District's legitimate business, even out of session in June. Perhaps Delegate Weldon is ignorant of Roman Catholic ecclesiastical polity if he thinks that a "rebuke" by the parish laity upon a monsignor upholding Church teaching is a likely or even possible outcome.

I have wondered why the Catholic Church does not go out of its way here as it did in Mexico to excommunicate pro-choice Catholic politicians. Mind you, I am aggressively pro-choice but the Catholic Church and its adherents should either stick to their principles or drop them. Why every loud pro-choice elected Catholic has not been excommunicated by the Archdioceses of Baltimore or Washington or the Diocese of Wilmington is beyond me. Abortion is a make or break issue for the Church. Maybe if the Catholic Church stuck to its guns on what for it is a core moral principle, Delegate Weldon would have a clearer idea about when to stay out of churches' private business.

Delegate Weldon is of course a private citizen as well as a public official and can speak his mind as either one or both. Had he sent a private letter to the Monsignor attempting to persuade him with firm but respectful language (rather than insulting him and calling for his parish to up-end him), I would have had more respect for his actions. But for a Delegate to humiliate the Monsignor with condescending, hectoring language in a public letter in the Sun - a paper that is not even widely read in Weldon's district - disregarding his church's freedom of conscience, assembly and speech, is shameless and an abuse of the very separation of church and state which Weldon purports to favor (separation being the opposite of "mixing.") David Kyle called for Weldon to resign; I am not sold on that but I get his point.

Catholic priests have dealt with the back hand of the government in prior days; they know how to stand firm on principle. While I disagree with the Church's moral and policy positions on abortion and stem-cell research, Crablaw has the Monsignor's back on this one against Delegate Weldon's petty, hectoring interference under color of public office in private Church business.

Follow-Up re the Deane v. Conaway Case - Crablaw Swung, Wiffed Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Well, folks, the end of June 12, 2007 came and went in the Eastern Time Zone, Daylight Savings Time. No word on the Deane case. I pondered, I guessed, I wiffed. Oh well.

A prediction regarding the same-sex marriage case Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

This is total speculation. I may well be dead wrong.

But the following facts are true.

1) Chief Judge Robert Bell of the Maryland Court of Appeals was arrested at a civil rights sit-in in Baltimore when he was 16 or 17. Thurgood Marshall represented him and other defendants from that sit-in on appeal of their convictions before the United States Supreme Court. Ultimately Bell prevailed after the case was remanded to state courts. Bell later went to Harvard Law School and has served at multiple levels of the judiciary during his career.

2) In Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court struck down Virginia's "Racial Integrity Act of 1921" banning interracial marriages. The Supreme Court issued that decision on June 12, 1967.

3) The 40th anniversary of the Loving decision is this Tuesday (June 12, 2007.)

4) The Court of Appeals has formally gone out of session for the summer as of last Tuesday, to reconvene in September.

5) The Court of Appeals has not yet issued its opinion regarding the same-sex marriage case Deane v. Conaway.

6) The anticipated ruling in the Deane case is attracting a lot of state-wide and national attention as evidenced by the sheer variety and number of friend-of-the-court briefs filed therein.

Prediction: a reasonably cautious person might conclude that the Deane opinion will emerge on Tuesday, both for its anniversary symbolic value AND because it will allow the storm from this prominent case to blow over early in the summer recess, reducing its impact on the commencement of new case business, the departures and entries of law clerks for each judge and the general order of business of the Court. Employees of courthouses including judges take vacations more or less like other state employees, and I suspect that a lot of the Judges (and their staff) would as soon be on the beach, in the cottage or in a boat in the Bay holding a fishing rod, inaccessible by cell phone, when this storm hits. Especially when the response to unpopular rulings includes trespass and home invasion by wing-tip and impeachment motions.

J. Millard Tawes Crab and Clam Bake Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

On the third Wednesday of every July, the Crisfield Chamber of Commerce holds its famed Tawes Crab and Clam Bake, named after a former governor of the state. It is a major political event, even in so-called non-election years. I would expect that this year's festival would be exceptionally large, but tickets are capped at 5,000.

My current day-job project is likely to last up to right around that date. I cannot commit to going, but I could commit if I thought there were a reliable secondary market for a ticket. Tickets may already be sold out. I would want to go to cover the event from a political perspective; it's not only politicians, of course, but it takes a particular type of individual to go: someone committed to enjoying the heat or suffering it stoically, someone who can afford to lose a full day of work unless he or she lives on the Lower Shore, Crisfield lying 122 miles from the Shore-side foot of the Bay Bridge. Or someone who just loves a great crab feast or a fairly new (30 years) Maryland tradition.

I don't even eat crabs or shellfish due to allergies, though I guess fried fish and corn would be OK. But the goal would be to provide coverage of the event here. It's about 30% likely that I would be able to make it due to scheduling. I would also enjoy covering a region outside my own narrow commuter-clogged there-and-back. Frankly, I have wanderlust.

Crisfield is about as far from my house as Princeton, NJ is. But the trip is likely to be far more pleasant than the runs up the Turnpike that I recall from my college days, especially mid-week when the OC traffic across the bridge is moderated somewhat. We'll see.

Baltimore Sun: Gay Adoptive Families Calling Maryland Home Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, June 10, 2007:

Cynthia Garnette and her partner have two sons - one born to Garnette, one her partner adopted at birth - but Virginia law made it impossible for them, as a same-sex couple, to both be legal parents of both kids. It occurred to Garnette one day, as she was taking her 5-year-old son to play baseball, that she could run into trouble registering him because of her tenuous legal situation.

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Maryland's appeal is bolstered by the reputation of the Baltimore City Circuit Court, which was the first in the state to grant a second-parent adoption to a gay partner. It is well-known in certain circles as a friendly and efficient place for gay couples to complete adoptions and has, as a result, become a popular jurisdiction for such proceedings. Gay families also say they are drawn to Maryland because of the climate of acceptance they've found in the state.

...

Using the 2000 Census, researchers from the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy, a UCLA think tank, and the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan research organization, determined that 2,142 of the 32,269 adopted children in Maryland were living with gay couples.

That report presented a snapshot only, but anecdotally, there are signs in courts, family clinics, law offices and adoption agencies that those numbers are climbing. In the Baltimore City Circuit Court, where many of the state's gay adoption cases land, a third of the parents on any given adoption day often are same-sex couples, said Mark Scurti, a Baltimore lawyer who concentrates on gay family law. The day Garnette was there, she says, most of the other families looked like hers.

Mark Scurti is not an acquaintance of mine but he is a known leader in the Baltimore City Bar community. I know of one Princeton '91 grad who is in a committed relationship with his partner and who moved to Bolton Hill with their children due the City's and neighborhood's friendly appeal, though whether they were pursuing adoption proceedings in the City I do not know.

Fuss and bebother Virginia and its family-hostile anti-gay rulings and statutes. All that Virginia's anti-gay policies do is to increase the procedural burdens on both de facto parents, and provide a class of new loving parents and taxpayers to Baltimore and the more liberal Maryland suburbs. On second thought, maybe Virginia's anti-gay policy isn't all bad. If more gay couples with kids moved into the City (or the DC suburbs) from Arlington, Fairfax, etc., their respective tax bases would increase. DC should not hog all of the economic boom that came in substantial part from an inflow of GLBT residents beyond the traditional "Gay Village" of Dupont Circle into Logan Circle, Columbia Heights, etc. When I was a kid growing up near Baltimore, we made fun of Washington as the ultimate hell-hole. Now Marion Barry is out and we have gone from Mayor Williams to Mayor Fenty, and property values in DC are skyrocketing.

When's Baltimore going to get its gay economic renaissance? While there is a substantial GLBT presence in downtown Baltimore in Mount Vernon and to some extent in the northeast in Lauraville with lesbian couples, the City needs gay money, even if couples only stay in the City until the kids reach middle school.

They ought to mount mural of Dora the Explorer holding a big rainbow flag on MD 295 near Camden Yards. Please, Virginia, keep it as redneck and hostile as possible. Please rename Route 50 through Fairfax and Arlington as the "Jerry Falwell Memorial Highway" after your recently departed Virginian patriarch, gay-basher and erstwhile segregationist. Baltimore and Maryland need you to step up, Virginia; Maryland has a budget deficit projects and needs the cash.

Baltimore Sun: Franchot Seeking to Expand Comptroller Bailiwick Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, May 28, 2007:

It is customary at the start of Board of Public Works meetings for members to make personal comments, so Comptroller Peter Franchot took advantage last week by introducing his daughter. In case those in the packed State House reception room couldn't locate her, Franchot noted that Abbe, 25, was modestly "hiding behind the television cameras."

Gov. Martin O'Malley, sitting at Franchot's side, grinned broadly and said, "A quality she got from her mother."

...

[Comptroller Franchot] has issued statements about divesting state pension money from Darfur. He has railed against the possible implementation of slot machine gambling to mitigate a looming budget crisis. He supported a doomed House of Delegates health care plan. He led the successful charge against a Kent Island development that environmentalists argued would harm the Chesapeake Bay. And he has cast himself as a chief advocate for expanding Maryland's biotechnology industry.

Hardly matters of usual concern to Maryland's chief tax collector.

I wonder what would happen if Comptroller Franchot started focusing primarily on the constitutional duties of his office, rather than worrying about the biotech industry or environmental policies on Kent Island.

What are the constitutional duties of the Comptroller of Maryland? Article VI, Section 2 of the Constitution of Maryland:

The Comptroller shall have the general superintendence of the fiscal affairs of the State; he shall digest and prepare plans for the improvement and management of the revenue, and for the support of the public credit; prepare and report estimates of the revenue and expenditures of the State; superintend and enforce the prompt collection of all taxes and revenue; adjust and settle, on terms prescribed by law, with delinquent collectors and receivers of taxes and State revenue; preserve all public accounts; and decide on the forms of keeping and stating accounts. He, or such of his deputies as may be authorized to do so by the Legislature, shall grant, under regulations prescribed by Law, all warrants for money to be paid out of the Treasury, in pursuance of appropriations by law, and countersign all checks drawn by the Treasurer upon any bank or banks in which the moneys of the State, may, from time to time, be deposited. He shall prescribe the formalities of the transfer of stock, or other evidence of the State debt, and countersign the same, without which such evidence shall not be valid; he shall make to the General Assembly full reports of all his proceedings, and of the state of the Treasury Department within ten days after the commencement of each session; and perform such other duties as shall be prescribed by law.

Someone please show me where "biotech" or "business development" or "consumer protection" or "petroleum regulation" appear on that list. Sitting on the Maryland Board of Public Works, which authorizes most major State expenditures within the budget, is indeed one of the Comptroller's duties. One might hope, however, for a wiser sense of proportionality and at least a fig leaf of commitment to the core functions of the job. Franchot is ours for the next 44 months.

I am not a big fan of Senate President Mike Miller per se, and might in another context be sympathetic to some of Franchot's policy positions, but I agree with Miller's withering criticisms of Franchot for refusing to focus on his day job. I would add, the day job for which Franchot receives and cashes (ahem) a paycheck from the Treasury of Maryland presumably bearing his signature twice as both maker and as endorsee when he cashes it. It should be noted that the General Assembly has the power to remove the Comptroller upon a finding of incompetency or willful neglect of duty under Article VI, Section 6 of Maryland's Constitution. For some reason, I have the feeling that Mike Miller is going to get very familiar with that section in the coming months and years.

Baltimore Sun: Lousy Reporting Lives Long And Prospers Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Read the headline "But 12 Md. voters look to GOP for safest choice in '08 White House race" regarding a 12-member focus group and you would think that 12 means 12, i.e. 10+2. In fact, two members of the twelve-member Maryland focus group conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center explicitly preferred Democratic candidates, and others expressed an interest in learning more about Democratic candidates such as Bill Richardson or leading candidate Hillary Clinton.

To quote the article further:

"As for [Senator] Clinton, voters couldn't seem to get beyond concerns about her personality, her husband and her single-minded drive for power."

The phrase "single-minded drive for power" is appropriate to a political battle blog; I agree with the sentiment and am no fan of Senator Clinton. But this is supposed to the journalistic reporting of an event, not a reporter's characterization of a candidate. The adjective "perceived" is missing from this reporter's sentence:

"From voters in both parties, there was a strong desire for a president with qualities very different from George W. Bush's."

Yet the first qualification of George W. Bush is that he is a Republican; the reporter's claim is undercut by the headline about "twelve" supporting GOP candidates, which itself seems more like 7 or 8 out of 12 after the individual accounts in Paul West's article favoring or leaning Democratic are counted. The precise final tally is not provided, nor are any leaners itemized. Conclusion: the article appears to prove that its headline is incorrect and misleading.

I understand that reporters don't always get to choose their headlines or sub-heads. But this is "underwear on the outside of your pants" embarrassing, and it's Paul West's name on it. And some of these reporters (perhaps not Mr. West) are the first to look down at us common low-bred outcast bloggers for our lack of professionalism.

Maryland Conservatarian on the Preakness and Slots Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Crablaw Maryland Weekly does not follow horse racing intensely. While the Preakness is the single biggest annual event in Baltimore, my perspective is that of a former Mt. Washington resident who got tired of the traffic and blowback from drunks walking through the neighborhood just north of Pimlico. Watching from a distance a relative of mine spend too much time and money following the horses at Laurel probably inoculated me against any interest in the sport. While I don't oppose gambling per se, I have never placed a bet on a horse or visited a horse race.

But Maryland Conservatarian knows the sport in detail from the economics to the betting to the horses themselves. Check out his Preakness Day analysis of both the race itself at Old Hilltop and his perspective on gambling and subsidies of this complex and often troubled industry.

Baltimore Sun: Pasadena Man Seeking to Set Record for Eating Crabs Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, May 18, 2007:

Keith Hare is confident he will break the world record tomorrow for most blue crabs eaten in four hours.

If only he knew there's no such record.

But friends of the Pasadena man have posed the challenge to raise money for a scholarship established in the name of a 1995 Chesapeake High School classmate who died on Easter after a car wreck.

For those not familiar with hard crabs, they are not the most easily digested food on the planet. Leaving aside the serious likelihood of taking down some absolutely non-digestible shell fragments during a Guinness Book of World Records-level gorging, the traditional method of eating crabs is with Old Bay (R) Seasoning. Old Bay is quite pungent and in large doses (i.e. sprinkled/caked onto a massive pile of crabs for the virtuoso competitive eater), it will (ahem) burn you twice.

Then there is the crab meat itself. The same thing that makes eating shellfish an unpleasant experience when you have the flu is what makes eating a massive quantity potentially, well, explosive. I don't want to get graphic, but there's a reason that they use Old Bay: without it, the product is a bit nasty and foul. Nothing stinks like the left-overs of a crab feast. In World War Two, the Department of Defense spent millions of dollars creating "Who Me?" as a military olfactory assault. They could have extracted the essence of two-day old crab feast from the newspapers that traditionally line the tables of crab feasts; good patriotic watermen in Dorchester County would have been grateful to contribute them to the war effort rather than let them remain within 50 yards of the house in a poorly sealed trashcan.

Snark aside, it appears to be for a decent cause.

Baltimore Sun: Maryland Amish Using 21st Century Alternative Power Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, May 18, 2007:

As solar panels become more available, affordable and easy to use, the technology has been embraced by Amish communities here in Southern Maryland, in Pennsylvania, Ohio and elsewhere. While connecting to the public power grid is generally frowned upon as an unhealthy intrusion on their simple lifestyle, the Amish have long considered energy sources such as diesel and gasoline engines -- and now solar power -- a legitimate way to fire up buggy lights and sewing machines and meet the rest of their modest electrical needs.

...

Spratley likes to tell a story about a friend who was on the verge of ordering solar panels from Australia when he heard about a solar dealer in the center of Ohio's Amish country who catered to Amish customers. The friend drove at length down windy back roads to get to a store in Holmes County that had, he said, the best supply of solar equipment in the state.

Recently, when Spratley went to Holmes County to give an educational presentation on renewable energy, he found that a significant part of the audience was Amish. He met three Amish men who install