Monday, May 14, 2012
The yeoman efforts of many Dundalk Elementary School staff members made the Mother's Day essay project possible.
It's an extremely busy time of year, with proms, weddings, picnics, cookouts and any number of outdoor projects vying for our time and attention. Most of us are booked to the hilt, and few of us need anything extra thrown at us. Teachers probably feel the strain more at this time of the school year than any other time, so I wanted to make sure I thank the kind and dedicated folks at Dundalk Elementary School. When I announced that I would publish Mother's Day essays contributed by Dundalk Patch readers, I also thought it would be great to involve local students in that effort. A friend put me in touch with Margie Lookingbill, a prekindergarten teacher at Dundalk. I floated the idea of enlisting a couple of classes to write essays, and …
Saturday, April 28, 2012
… along with more guidelines on what will keep your skin safe from harmful rays.
Don’t stock up on your sunscreen for summer just yet. This June you’ll see major changes to the labels of all your favorite sunscreen products. Effective June 14, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will be requiring manufacturers to disclose a lot more information on the labels, and to remove some misleading statements. Sunscreen will need to specify whether products protect against two classes of ultraviolet rays -- UVA and UVB -- and whether they reduce the risk of skin cancer and early skin aging or just sunburn alone. In addition, manufacturers will no longer be able to claim that their products are waterproof or sweat proof. Going forward, the labels will be able to say only "water resistant (40 minutes)" or "water resistant (80 …
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
And why should you care?
People are talking about fracking. The country’s largest fracking site, a 350 million-year-old formation called the Marcellus Shale, spans the states of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland. So what is fracking? And why should you care? Hydraulic fracturing has been around for decades. Oklahoma-based Natural Gas producer Chesapeake Energy explains that “Hydraulic fracturing is a proven technological advancement which allows producers to safely recover natural gas and oil from deep shale formations.” On the other hand, The Environmental Working Group (EWG) explains that now, natural gas producers are deploying a new gas drilling method called high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing to release gas locked in …
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Baltimore County will lose about $14 million in new budget, but several counties will lose much more.
The 2012 legislative session in Annapolis has drawn to a conclusion, at least for now. The main focus of every session, and the reason for uncertainty about whether or not there may be a special session in the coming weeks, deals with the state budget. The House of Delegates and the State Senate proposed significantly different versions of the state budget, neither of which reflected Governor O’Malley’s initial budget proposal. Under the House plan, income taxes would have been raised on those making over $100,000 individually and $150,000 jointly under adjusted gross income (calculated after taxes are taken). The Senate’s plan would have increased income tax rate by a quarter percent on almost everyone, as well as created a new, …
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Restructuring your kitchen -- with or without a construction crew -- is not nearly as difficult as you might think.
Late last year and stretching early into this one, we did a major renovation on our kitchen. In the process, we started thinking about how to better organize the space, and the result was something that functioned much more efficiently. Thanks to my husband's design skills, we discovered that it was actually a much bigger room than we'd realized. Although a renovation is a logical time to do this kind of work (a move is another), any kitchen, at any time, could benefit from the five steps below. And you may even be able to accomplish the redesign without purchasing anything new! 1) Assess. Start with the basics: how well does your kitchen work now? Make a rough sketch of where everything is kept, and you may surprise yourself by …
Monday, April 16, 2012
Healthy? Scary? What’s wrong with Enviropig?
There's a lot of talk about genetically modified foods, but we’ve been eating them for years. The history of agriculture is based in selective breeding for "better" plants and animals -- corn, apples, bananas, cows; many of the plants and animals we eat have been carefully selected over hundreds and thousands of years to be bigger, sweeter or juicer. Today, genetic alteration can be done in the lab over much shorter timescales. As opposed to the (relatively) slow process of breeding similar organisms, biotechnicians can insert the gene of one organism into the gene of another -- including an unrelated organism. Enter Enviropig. Recently, CTV News reported Canadian pork farmers decided to pull their financial support for the multimillion-…
Friday, April 13, 2012
The dream is free, but the ticket'll cost ya.
On March 30, six white plastic balls, whose fate would otherwise have landed them in a cup of beer during a college beer pong competition, rolled out of a spinning machine and changed forever the lives of three Maryland public school employees. Over the past few days my mind has often dwelled upon these lucky Baltimore folks who just hit it big in the $656 million Mega Millions jackpot. The self-dubbed “Three Amigos” purchased the winning ticket at a 7-11 in the town of Milford Mill. After the March 30 drawing, each of the amigos immediately became $35 million dollars richer, approximately 583 times more money than the average yearly salary they likely receive as public school employees. This afternoon I discussed the big local win with …
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Whether you're a chef, a gardener or just a regular old eater, these informative and engaging pieces are worth the read.
Tell the truth. How many times have you clicked on an article titled "Nature's 5 Miracle Foods" or "10 Worst Drive-Thru Choices" and been disappointed to read that, surprise, strawberries are good for you and milkshakes are not? If you're a well-read foodie like me, it's more than you care to admit. So, just to even out the score, here are a few of my favorite food lists, all accompanied by well-written and researched text that will help you make more informed choices in the future, from apple trees to Apple gadgets. Out and About In Your Own Backyard Branching Out
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Opening the season against a team like the Minnesota Twins lets Orioles fans say the team had a winning record at least once during the season!
Ah, early April—the one time of year when Baltimore Orioles fans can (usually) say the team is in the hunt. For at least the past 15 years, the promise of spring and the results of "winter rebuilding" are all we Bird fans have had to hang our baseball caps on. We've heard it all before—the stories about rebuilding, about rosters filled with "youngsters," and about how, this year, things really will be different. I half-listened to the opening day game on Friday, but made it a point to get up from my desk and watch as the team was called out onto the field. Without exaggeration, I recognized about five names—among them Nick Markakis and Matt Wieters. I sadly thought back to Baltimore's baseball glory days—actually more like glory years or …
Friday, April 6, 2012
Del. John Olszewski Jr. outlines why Maryland needed to increase the fee in order to help fund upgrades to facilities like the Back River Wastewater Treatment.
It was recently announced that the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant would be the recipient of a $10 million grant to prepare for the engineering and design of an enhanced nutrient removal upgrade. The plant, one of the largest in Maryland, processes approximately 180,000 of the nearly 500,000 gallons of daily sewage that gets processed and released into Back River and the Chesapeake Bay. For years, we have had the technology to reduce and remove harmful nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus—but have lacked the resources necessary to continue restoring and protecting the health of Back River and the Bay. The final cost of such an upgrade will cost upwards of half a billion dollars. Over half of this cost ($265 million) will …
Bruce Kahl
10:36 am on Thursday, April 26, 2012
at least John o. Jr. speaks up. How many legislative officials from Dundalk and Essex have made a stand? Talk to the people and listen. leadership = John o. Jr more ›