We welcome your opinions and letters – with name and address. We will edit when necessary. Include your name, address and phone number for verification. Mail them to Bay Weekly, 1629 Forest Drive, Annapolis, MD 21403 •E-mail them to [email protected]. or submit your letters on-line by clicking here.

Thumbs Up on Movie Reviews

Dear Bay Weekly:

My family and I are avid readers of Bay Weekly and have been for a long time. We read it at Donut Shack in Severna Park.

While we glance through the entire paper, each of us has the sections we read religiously.

My wife reads the movie reviews and News of the Weird.

My son is an avid reader of the movie reviews and wants to know what they have to say about movies he is planning to see.

I read the movie reviews, News of the Weird and do the Sudoku.

I read the reviews to be informed about current movies without having to see any bad ones, and occasionally to pick a movie to see. I like your current reviewers best because they do not pander to the movie industry (like the daily papers seem to do) and give you an honest review.

–Paul Wiedorn, Severna Park

Loving Chesapeake Eats

Dear Bay Weekly:

My husband and I really enjoyed the Bay Weekly [dining guide Chesapeake Eats: Jan. 28] last night with all those wonderful restaurants! What a great assortment. We can’t wait to go try some we didn’t know existed! Super issue.

–Linda DeLuca: Cottage Chicks, Deale

Loving 8 Days a Week

Dear Bay Weekly:

I saw that you have even placed a picture I had emailed you on the [Jan. 7] front page! And in 8 Days a Week! It shows me and five of my belly dance students.

Thank you very, very much. I love what you did!

–Carmen Nolte, Chesapeake Beach

Dear Bay Weekly:

Wow! Many thanks for your lovely listing for Fairhaven School’s open house in the calendar of Jan. 21. Who wouldn’t want to come?

Thanks for all of your support through the years. You’ve nurtured the school and this fledgling writer in ways that can only be called steadfast.

–Mark McCaig, Fairhaven

Hang Up and Drive

Dear Bay Weekly:

This year it is time for the state of Maryland to pass meaningful legislation to help save many needless deaths on our highways.

First we need to strengthen our text-messaging-while-driving ban to include the reading of text messages and ban this practice forever.

Second we need to ban hand-held cell phones while driving in Maryland.

Many studies have proven that the use of cell phones while driving is as dangerous as driving while intoxicated. It is estimated that 2,500 deaths per year and 330,000 injuries can be attributed to driving while on a cell phone. Drivers talking on cell phones have been shown to be 18 percent slower to react to brake lights and also took 17 percent longer to regain normal speed after braking. 

On the first day of this year’s legislative session, Sen. Mike Lennet once again took the lead to ban this dangerous practice by introducing SB 19 that would prohibit the use of hand-held cell phones while driving. I applaud Sen. Lennet and urge all readers to contact their state representatives in Annapolis and urge them to support this bill in 2010.

These fatalities are totally preventable, while the pain of losing a loved one is forever. I know this pain since it was two years ago that I lost my daughter Heather to a text-messaging tractor-trailer driver who failed to notice 10 vehicles stopped at a traffic signal and plowed into and over the vehicles.