The 53

Maryland, now hands-free

As of the moment of this writing, Maryland is less than five hours away from joining the states where the non hands-free usage of a cell phone is illegal.  As of midnight tonight, driving while using a cell phone in a manner which utilizes your hands (and yes, between the cocked head and shoulder counts) is illegal.

That said, you can't get pulled over for it.  However, it is a secondary offense, which means that if a cop pulls you over for something else, if he/she also saw you using the phone in a non hands-free manner, you'll get a ticket for that too.

Longtime readers of this blog know how I feel about this.  It's a good idea.  I don't know how many ignorami I see not watching the road, but rather way too obsessed with talking with their whatever on the damn cell phone.  I know some comments to my prior post on this topic challenged me on this, but I can't help but think that hands-free use of a cell phone is safer.

Additionally, as of midnight it will be illegal to do any texting-related activities while driving a car.  You can no longer read as well as write messages.

Finally, a full election dance card

Yes, the general election is five weeks from today.  However, the lineup of candidates standing for election in Howard County has only extremely recently been completed. 

This article from the Sun tells us about Mr. Reginald Avery, a resident of Oakland Mills who has been selected by the local Republican Central Committee to challenge Councilman Calvin Ball in District 2.

I don't know Mr. Avery or anything about him.  Guess I'll be finding out!

Whoo-hoo! Slots in Maryland, Day 1!

Although it wasn't scheduled to open until September 30, the fine folks who run the Hollywood Casino in Perryville decided to open a few days early-- and so they did.  This article from today's Sun talks about this morning's early opening.

 

World-class tennis coming to Howard County

Longtime, complete readers of this blog know that I'm an advocate of bringing more sporting events-- both of the amateur and professional varieties-- to Howard County.  Looks as if another step has been taken in that direction, with the establishment of a Women's Tennis Association (WTA) event to be held next July at the new Troy Park tennis complex.

Here is an article from the Sun fishwrap about the event.  The venue itself sounds as if it will be fantastic when completed!  I'm not much of a tennis buff personally, but this event is something I want to try to take in.

MM personal appearance at the HCC Grand Prix!

Wanted to let everyone know that I'm going to the Howard Community College Grand Prix on Saturday!  I'm psyched!  Something's always come up that's made me miss it in the past.  Not so this year!

If you want to check out MM in action, you still can!  Here's the website.  Tickets are cheap and it's for a great cause.

Five point two BILLION?

I have a defense-oriented vibe to my posts this week-- not sure why, but these items are striking me.

This article from the Business Monthly writes about future expansion to the NSA complex at Fort Meade.  Apparently, the expansion will cost at least $2.07 billion; however, before it's all said and done, the expansion at Meade could cost about $5.2 billion!

This is an incredible, major investment in our infrastructure and in economic development in our region.  A lot of these funds will go towards building huge new buildings on the NSA campus.  Of course, since the nature of the buildings is very specialized, construction will be very expensive.  But when done, there will be 11,000 new workers at the campus.  And they've gotta live, shop, play and go to school somewhere!

I think that this has possibly, amazing implications for Howard County.  Especially with the eastern edge of the county under redevelopment.

A Howard County Veterans Commission?

Greg Fox has a very good idea, and that is to create a local veterans commission.  Hard to believe that Howard County is the only jurisdiction in central Maryland without a veterans commission, but it is.

I read the article in the Patuxent fishwrap about it and to be honest, I'm surprised at some of the comments received about the idea being actually quite negative.  I don't see this as forming another special interest group (veterans already have those) or as making county government any larger.  This is a volunteer commission, as many already exist, and the people who would serve would do so as volunteers.

I hope people aren't thinking that a veterans commission would very likely be comprised of Vietnam-era vets.  There are hundreds of thousands of veterans out there from Gulf War I and II, and the current engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan.  And that's to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands more veterans who don't serve in combat areas.  I think this commission will skew younger and will be very diverse in its membership.

With issues such as the Base Realignment (aka BRAC), veterans' health care, etc., around and affecting Howard County, a local veterans' commission makes sense.  I hope that Councilman Fox's bill passes and is enacted.

Something fantastic going on at APL

I'm a fan of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, because they have a ton of great work going on there.  Here is an awesome story from the Business Monthly about a recent, $34.5 million award that APL has received from the Department of Defense to work on thought-controlled prosthetic limbs.

While this is clearly a defense-oriented project, it's obvious to see the tremendous potential for this sort of work in the civilian world.  Imagine paraplegics and quadraplegics being able to walk.  Children born without legs or arms able to have a normal life.  This is freaking cool.

I know I won't get a ton of hits with this post, but whatever.  You all need to read this article.

District 4 Primary: Enemies of Progress revealed?

Some ding-dong is still commenting over on explorehoward.com, complaining about the level of support Mary Kay Sigaty received from other local elected officials because she dare do a good job.  I almost took the bait and entered the fray, but as my grandmother taught me, when you argue with an idiot, then there's two idiots going at it.   

Second, some dope calling him/herself "Not" commented on my most recent post.  Not is in Not Intelligent?  Not Astute?  Not Awake?  Gee whizzers, Not, I didn't know you were being sarcastic.  That escaped my Howard County-educated brain.  Tell ya what, Not, before you continue bleating like a wounded pig about the "spirit of Columbia", here's some other aspects of how we treat each other in Columbia.  Or anywhere.

For starters, we don't lie about other people.  We also have enough courage to not just criticize, but to suggest alternatives.  And, Notty-Not-Notster, we have the intellectual curiosity to understand and look at things from varying perspectives, from various points of view.  I will suggest to you, Notarama, that Alan Klein not only did none of these things during his campaign, but that his entire history of local activism suggests his constant predilection towards negative behaviors.  He is a dangerous person.

Meanwhile, Wordbones has a nice post on Tale of Two Cities entitled "The Repudiation of Alan Klein" and after reading it, I was compelled to offer my last word on the District 4 Democratic primary. 

So I thought it would be fun, since I hear whining about support and the spirit of Columbia, to see who was willing to back their mouth up with dollars.  I went to the Maryland campaign database and looks up lists of Alan Klein's contributors.  Here are some names you may recognize, and the amounts of their total donations to Alan Klein's campaign committee, through August 28:

Froydis Beckerman $25.00

Mike Berla $300.00

Angie Boyter $150.00

Gail Broida $450.62

Phil Kirsch $300.00 ($100.00 of it from his spouse)

Lloyd Knowles $1000.00

Stephen Meskin $100.00

Bridget Mugane $300.00

Mary Pivar $100.00

Eva Skenta $200.00

Russ Swatek $1710.03

Joel Yesley $175.00

(PS: Go here for your own campaign finance searching pleasure!)

I appreciate these folks' backing up their beliefs with their wallets, but now that they've done so, I'll be VERY interested to see how these individuals participate in the continuing discussion regarding the redevelopment of Columbia?  Will THEY embody the Columbia spirit?

Guess I'm just a sore winner

OK, I know the polls have closed just 24 hours ago, and that there are still yet votes to be counted.  But the outcome of the Democratic Primary in District 4 is clear; incumbent Mary Kay Sigaty convincingly defeated her opponent, Alan Klein.  In this post-election environment, news stories and comments on local websites speak of conciliation, about working together for the greater good of Columbia and Howard County, about welcoming Alan Klein back to the discussion.

Well, I don't want to.

I'll start with the most basic reason.  I don't like Alan Klein personally.  I find him officious, pompous, arrogant, and only about 1/5 as knowledgeable about the issues as he claims he is.  He is the example of the person for whom the saying "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing" was created.

Second, I totally disagree with the premise for his entire campaign for the County Council.  I don't think the downtown development process has been skewed towards developers, I don't think county elected and appointed officials are in the pockets of development interests, I do think a lot of opportunity was given for people to participate in the process, and overall, I think Mary Kay Sigaty did a pretty bloody good job.  So, now that we're all giving Alan a big hug and welcoming him back into the discussion, did all those things just go away?  Does he smile coyly at us all and say, "Psyche!"  I don't think so.

Does Alan Klein, the CCD types, etc. have a right to participate in the continuing conversation to redevelop downtown?  Of course they do.  But to me, this guy has shown too much of his hand, and too much of the hand of too many other people who are very active in civic affairs here.  They are afraid of any progress, skeptical of private enterprise, unwilling to allow new generations the opportunity to reinvent Columbia as so many of them had an opportunity to help invent it decades ago.  And these things are not OK with me.

Everyone else can go put their arm around him if they want.  I'll keep my distance, thanks.