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Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll - 12/30/10

Basking in the Sun’s Rays

While Old Sol is seven percent stronger this week, it’s unlikely you’ll need to break out the sunscreen

While we commonly mark the first week of January as the commencement of the new year, it also marks two significant milestones in the passage of the earth’s journey around the sun. You wouldn’t know it by winter’s chilly grip, but January 4 marks perihelion, earth’s closest approach to the sun. On this day, 92.187 million miles separate us from the sun, compared to aphelion, around July 4 each year, when the two are 93.375 million miles apart. Sunlight hitting the earth...

Article - Special Editions; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 12/30/10

Best of the Bay

We asked you to choose your favorites of 2010. Here’s how your votes tallied.

Standing out as the Best of the Bay is no accident. Championship is essential, but it’s not enough.In a competition so wide, to stand out you’ve got to be a champion in your field — whether that field is Best Restaurant, Best Cheap Date, Best Place to People Watch or Best Place to Pick up Bay Weekly. Just as important is the chemistry you spark with the voters, for it’s got to making energy to get out the vote — make that many votes — in your favor....

Article - Letter from the Editor; by Sandra Olivetti Martin - 12/23/10

What’s Up with bayweekly.com?

Success is a heavy burden

bayweekly.com is not the Emerson College Lady Gaga lipdub. (Find that link below, in Correspondence.) Considerably fewer than a million people read Bay Weekly online. Nor are we the viral video How to Wrap a Cat for Christmas, which brought the Hartford Current 3,800,442 viewers on You Tube. (See for yourself at http://www.courant.com/news/breaking/sns-viral-video-wrap-a-cat,0,135253....) But we’ve got enough viewers to crash the server that hosted Bay Weekly’s own web site. That...

Article - Correspondence; by Liz Manning - 12/23/10

What a Not-So-Old Bay Weekly Intern is Up To

Dear Bay Weekly: This lipdub, as it’s called, was done by over 400 Emerson College students. Daniel Manning [Bay Weekly 2010 Calverton High School intern] is not a main character, but he managed to be in a fairly visible place, at 2:54. The video was posted on December 9; as of December 11, it had already received almost 46,000 hits. This many hits tells me that this is a new genre that people will copy; you’ve heard it here. The lipdub made me want to go to the school myself, and...

Article - Correspondence; by Ron Phipps - 12/23/10

Thanks for Featuring Orphan Grain Train

Dear Bay Weekly: I want to thank you for the terrific piece in the December 16 issue regarding Orphan Grain Train. It contained a great deal of information with human interest. It really captured what we are all about! I really appreciate writer Lane Page focusing on the dedication of so many of our volunteers. –Ron Phipps, Maryland vice-president: Orphan Grain Train

Article - Correspondence; by Sara Hourihan-Taylor - 12/23/10

Please Don’t Keep Us Puzzle-Solvers Waiting!

Dear Bay Weekly: Every week I read Bay Weekly, and I say yes to puzzle answers being in same issue as the puzzles. –Sara Hourihan-Taylor, Edgewater Editor’s note: Hourihan-Taylor is weighing in on Severna Park reader Pauline Koch’s request in last week’s paper. General manager Alex Knoll — who says he has no stake in keeping puzzle-solvers honest or in delaying gratification — promises to make that change with the new year.

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 12/23/10

Clean-Up Time

Over winter, the most innocuous fouling turns into hardened deposits

This year Old Man Winter arrived with an especially frigid blast. Closing the rockfish season almost two weeks early for most of us, the 20-degree nighttime temperatures have since turned our tributaries to ice, denying even pickerel anglers their bitter weather pleasures. Fish Are Biting But not around here. Rockfish season is officially closed on the Chesapeake. However, if you still have a hankering to tangle with old linesides, the season remains open year-round oceanside. Ocean...

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll - 12/23/10

On the Inside Looking Out

The Great Winter Circle beckons you to come outdoors

With solstice behind us, we’re in the full throes of winter. Long nights with little or no humidity make for great star-watching, even as the cold saps the desire to stay outside. As if to further lure us into the conundrum, winter skies are alight with some of the brightest stars in the heavens, contained within the Great Winter Circle and all neatly gathered in a ring surrounding the familiar figure of Orion. By 9pm, this grouping is above the southeast horizon, stretching nearly one-...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 12/23/10

Black Swan

Natalie Portman pirouettes to the dark side in this ballet thriller

When watching ballet dancers leap and spin across a stage, it’s hard to remember that these dedicated athletes punish their bodies to create such grace. Director Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler) is happy to remind you. His psychological dance thriller (which may be the best new genre in years) — Black Swan is awash with close-ups of battered toes, bony arms and raw bloody flesh — and that’s just the normal ballerinas. The real gore starts when timid, emotionally...

Article - Earth Journal by Gary Pendleton; by Gary Pendleton - 12/23/10

My Christmas Bird Count

Plus official counts you can join

It is hard to remember a transformation such as we just had, when the season seemed to change suddenly, with the decisiveness of a no-nonsense business executive. November was pleasant and mild, warm but not unseasonable, with enough rain and cold to bring out the sweaters and not fool us into thinking we had all been transplanted to Georgia. Then December came along and it was winter. The calendar might haves said not quite yet, but the thermometer said Now! I like early winter because the...