Well Done to the Whole Staff
Dear Bay Weekly:
The past Thursday, as every Thursday, I eagerly picked up my new copy of Bay Weekly to enjoy the nowadays rather rare experience of reading an independent, creative, fresh and highly informative treatment of the week’s news and views on a broad range of environmental and Bay-related issues.
As the new year arrives, I cannot pass up the opportunity to give my thanks and admiration for everything that Bay Weekly gives us. As an elected official over the last four years, I came to rely on and appreciate the even-handed reporting on the action and inactions of our legislature and governor on Bay issues, and the commendable streak of investigative journalism that editor Sandra Martin regularly exhibits.
Readers across Anne Arundel County, I am sure, appreciate the tasteful and attractive cover page that always graces Bay Weekly. And it comes free of charge, highlighting the fact that approval by advertisers and the hard work of a frugal staff can still sustain a valuable piece of independent journalism in this increasingly mindless video day and age.
A well done job to the whole staff, and I look forward to more to come.
— Dick D’Amato, Annapolis
Oregon Disses Blue Crabs
Dear Bay Weekly:
I was in Portland, Oregon, visiting my brother and family over the holidays. Besides rain, Dungeness crabs were in season. You know, the big fat crabs most people see piled high on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, weighing in at about two pounds.
I rather like fresh Oregon Dungeness crab, which is not at all like our Chesapeake Bay blue crab. The best meat is in the claws, where, even so, it’s somewhat stringy, but better than the meat in the body.
The Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission outdid itself announcing the crab in season with cute ads at New Years like “Know your limit, eat responsibly.” My only beef was the advisory tacked on to those ads, “just remember, Oregonians don’t let friends (and family) eat blue crab.”
Being from the Chesapeake Bay area, proud blue crab country, where, sadly our beloved local fishery is struggling for its economic and biological survival, and where “a beer and a bushel” is more than just a song by Mary Chapin Carpenter, it’s a way of life, I couldn’t help but fire off a letter to the Oregon Commission.
I told them I’ve always been impressed by the friendliness of Oregonians, whether you meet them at the fish market or on the highway, and hoped they would put their claws back in and leave that quote about the blue crab out of their next seasonal campaign.
I’ll let you know if I get a response.
— M.L. Faunce, Churchton
