Letter from the Editor

The Lion and The Lamb Play Tug of War

This week, the lion is winning

I’m stuck here in the middle with you. In this season of uncertainty, the good company is welcome. Supposedly Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan were stuck in the middle of record negotiations when they wrote those lyrics, recorded by their band Stealers Wheel in 1972. They could have been writing about March, the month that bears the double character of lion and lamb. As I write, the lion is roaring.

article – Letter from the Editor

– by Sandra Olivetti Martin – 3/7/13

Sandra Olivetti Martin

Here’s to Magic Weisner, Laura Neuman and the power of possibility

The Odd Chance In 2002, a Maryland dark horse named Magic Weisner came within a half-length of stealing the Preakness Stakes from front runner War Emblem. Local small-scale trainer Nancy Alberts believed in Magic, who she named for the vet who saved the magically resilient foal’s life. That horse could run. Cheering with the rest of Maryland, I followed the story to Laurel Racetrack, where I interviewed Alberts and Magic.

article – Letter from the Editor

– by Sandra Olivetti Martin – 2/28/13

How We Think — And Write — About Race

Reflections on black history and a Polish barber

My Monday morning began with the news that loyal reader Chuck Erskine was mad at me, at Bay Weekly and at cruciverbalist Ben Tausig.

article – Letter from the Editor

– by Sandra Olivetti Martin – 2/21/13

None of the Above

As Anne Arundel replaces a flawed county executive, it’s time to rethink how we hire our top leaders

On a scale starting with your favorite Valentine chocolate and dropping to a shot of syrupy cough medicine, where would you rank county government? Most of us, I fear, don’t place it in a heart-shaped satin box. Certainly not many of us who live in Anne Arundel County, which is one of eight of Maryland’s 23 counties governed by an executive.

article – Letter from the Editor

– by – 2/14/13

Movies to Inspire Your Hibernation

With Black History Month, remember that the Civil Rights movement swept America on television

With only 28 days, February has to hurry. Even more so on the Bay Weekly calendar, where our shortest month gets a late start this year. With January packed full of five Thursdays, our first paper of the month comes to you on February 7. So we’re already late for Groundhog’s Day, when Punxsutawney Phil and Chesapeake Chuck pop up to predict spring.

article – Letter from the Editor

– by Sandra Olivetti Martin – 2/7/13

1,000 Issues and Counting

Looking back by the hundreds that lead to Bay Weekly’s big K

In the culture of Polar Bear Plungers — about whom we write this week — our 1,000th issue puts us in the league of Super Plungers like Michelina Scotto, who return to the Bay’s chilling waters (about 41 degrees this time of year) every hour on the hour 24 times.

article – Letter from the Editor

– by Sandra Olivetti Martin – 1/24/13

Embrace the New Year’s Spirit

Feeling energized and confident? Good thing. We’ve got work to do.

It seems to be working, and aren’t we glad. The great old stories of rising from darkness into light, all synched to the winter solstice of our northern hemisphere, held the day. The battle of myths was lost by the doomsayers who predicted time’s termination on the ancient Mayan calendar’s last day. Now 12/21/12 joins Y2K in the museum of failed prophecies. In and on earth, we’re all energized and confident, behaving as if we have indeed been reborn.

article – Letter from the Editor

– by Sandra Olivetti Martin – 1/17/13

Which Way the Wind Blows

Forecasting this General Assembly’s environmental future

When your well runs dry — as Michelle Steel’s did, as you’ll read in this week’s feature story — you’re an outlier. In our part of the country, rural living is a luxury. Suddenly you’re paying for that luxury. When you live on county or city water, you’re part of a collective that shares the hidden cost of bringing this precious resource into your home in the country. When your well runs dry, you’re on your own.

article – Letter from the Editor

– by Sandra Olivetti Martin – 1/10/13

It’s a New Year

In 2013, anything is possible

Welcome back to the future! Don’t you love going though the tunnel and coming out on the other side? I find the exhilaration habit-forming. Fortunately, it’s annual. I go into the tunnel of year’s end gleefully, but I leave it dragging my feet against the re-emergence.

article – Letter from the Editor

– by Sandra Olivetti Martin – 1/3/13

My Wish for the Season of Renewal

It’s time we vow to take better care of one another

Bay Weekly’s 51st issue of the year celebrates family, the warm nest where we are born and nurtured. For this is the season of birth, which we enter each year in hopes of renewal. If it seems to you a little odd — as it does to me — that our cultural feasts of rebirth fall in the darkest time of the year, when in our cold clime is just setting in, there’s good reason.

article – Letter from the Editor

– by Sandra Olivetti Martin – 12/20/12