Editorial

Twelve Days of Christmas Gifts For Public Players Hard to Please

Twelfth Day: For Gov. Robert Ehrlich and The Baltimore Sun, who can’t seem to see eye to eye on journalism standards: A referral to the Anne Arundel County Conflict Resolution Center, where the motto should be Can’t we all just get along?

Eleventh Day: For the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: From creature-cuddlers everywhere, the annual Hero Award for the corps’ reseeding brainstorm to “carpet bomb” the lower Chesapeake with one million delectable baby oysters, which were devoured swiftly by a marauding flotilla of cow-nosed rays.

Tenth Day: For DNR Secretary Ron Franks, a dentist by trade: A bear-tooth necklace for reopening bear-hunting in Maryland with standards that allowed targeting of mothers with cubs and immature bears no bigger than your big black Lab.

Ninth Day: For the General Assembly and Gov. Ehrlich: For their progressive master-stroke to begin restoring the Chesapeake, a Flush Tax Monument in the form of a modern art sculpture of a giant toilet (low-flush) to be erected on State Circle between the Capitol and Government House.

Eighth Day: For Comptroller William Donald Schafer, who suffered a Big Mac Attack of xenophobia hearing foreign voices at a fast-food shop: A set of flash cards that read in Spanish, Vietnamese and Ukranian: Speak English, Doggone It!

Seventh Day: For the D.C. City Council, the exclusive staging of a thigh-slapping comedy of errors by the Peter Angelos Players entitled, How To Wait 33 Years For Major League Baseball and Blow It Overnight. We hear that there may still be a surprise final act.

Sixth Day: For the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, an oyster plate the size of a table top to hold a half-dozen of the humongous, happily adapted ariakensis oysters lost as tiny fry two years ago by cautious commission scientists during studies about the safety of planting these Asian imports in the Bay.

Fifth Day: For Annapolis Mayor Ellen Moyer: the Humbug Prize from downtown shop owners who can’t see the value in street improvements and parades in which people pass by without stopping to buy.

Fourth Day: For Baltimore Mayor O’Malley: A set of just-completed HBO series of the hard-boiled, skin-flashing The Wire, where clashing egos and Top Dog and Cop high jinx match those of the O’Malley administration.

Third Day: For County Executive Janet Owens: Pom-poms and a bulldozer, to cheer at all soccer matches and softball games at new Anne Arundel ballfields made by plowing under fragile open spaces.

Second Day: For Maryland transportation officials, An OPEC Thank-You and coupon for five drums of $55-a-barrel oil for dropping plans to include a bike trail (it made the project too expensive) along the proposed Intercounty Connector between I-95 in Prince George’s and I-270 in Montgomery.

Christmas Day: To voters in Anne Arundel and Calvert, red sweaters and holiday travel visas to drive west or north into a Blue State. Ho, ho, ho!