On the Record

The Town of Chevy Chase has sent out notice of a memorial service for Delegate Jane Lawton, D-Montgomery, which will take place on Sunday afternoon in Bethesda.

The town asks for contributions in memory of Delegate Lawton to be made to memorial funds in her name at The Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Montgomery County Abused Persons Program.

For additional information on the service, visit www.janelawton.org.

If you had any interactions with Delegate Lawton or views on her accomplishments, please share them.

-JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

Photo courtesy janelawton.org.

The HSV-2 Swift, a 323-foot U.S. Navy high-speed vessel, docked by the Visitor’s Center at the Inner Harbor Friday.

You can visit the ship, which is in Baltimore as part of the Army-Navy game festivities, from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. Monday. It is scheduled to leave Tuesday.

-ERIC STOCKLIN, Photographer

Maryland’s only ski resort said it will open Saturday.
The Wisp resort at Deep Creek Lake has been making snow for about three weeks and has produced enough to blanket several of its beginner and intermediate trails.

Beside skiing, Wisp has a new attraction called a “mountain coaster.” Spokeswoman Lori Epps says it’s a cross between a roller coaster and an alpine slide that allows people to ride on rails down Marsh Mountain.
-JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

Photograph by Eric Stocklin.

Being a biased University of Maryland-College Park graduate, I’ve always wondered why no local TV affiliates have ever worked out an agreement with the school to broadcast Terrapin football and basketball games. It seems like it would be a good move to grab some ratings and boost the number of viewers for whichever channel chose to be so bold.

Even despite an endless line of injuries, the football program and Coach Friedgen just clinched a bowl bid in a must-win game; the men’s basketball team and red-faced Gary Williams are always entertaining; and last but definitely not least, the Lady Terps are wearing out opponents on the hardcourt on their way to an early 9-0 record and No. 3 ranking nationwide — all with Coach Brenda Frese expecting twins very soon.

There are a lot of Terp supporters who I’m sure would like to see more airtime for their fearsome turtles, especially with the Ravens season being dead in the water and the baseball team that plays across the street from them in its usual state of disarray. Just consider that there have been multiple bowl appearances in the past five years for the football team, a men’s national basketball championship in 2002, and a women’s national basketball championship in 2006.

Am I a delusional sports fan, or do local networks really “fear the turtle” enough to make them nonexistent on the airwaves?

-FRANCIS SMITH, Special Publications Assistant Editor

State Sen. Thomas L. Bromwell, who admitted dealing in favors, got a six-month break on the start date of his 7-year prison term. But lawyers for Bromwell and his wife, Mary Patricia (who faces her own year-and-a-day term), say it’s a matter of special circumstances, not special treatment, since the couple’s two youngest children are just 11 and 14 years old.

Even Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen O. Gavin, who prosecuted the case, agreed that such an allowance for parents of small children who are sentenced to incarceration at the same time is not unprecedented.

“It happens,” she said after the Bromwells broached the idea in court Nov. 16.

William B. Purpura, Mrs. Bromwell’s attorney, said sentences have been staggered in cases with similar facts in other federal districts and in state courts. He said even business partners have been allowed to serve their sentences roughly consecutively.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to say people involved in white collar crimes get this break and those involved in drug crimes don’t,” said Herbert Better, a former assistant U.S. attorney and now at the Baltimore office of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP.

What do you think?

-BRENDAN KEARNEY, Legal Affairs Writer

When Major League Baseball’s players went on strike, the question was whether you wanted to support the millionaires or the billionaires.

Now, in the case of the NFL Network vs. Humongous Cable Companies (including Comcast, Cablevision and Time Warner), you can decide between billionaires and billionaires.

It’s really hard — at least for me — to want either side to win.

When the NFL started the NFL Network in November 2003, the big issue was on what level of service it would be carried by cable systems. Basically, the NFL wanted its network to be included on service levels that cable customers didn’t have to pay extra for. The cable operators, on the other hand, wanted to place the NFL Network on “sports tiers” that customers had to buy.

The dispute caused the NFL Network to be originally carried only on DirecTV and a handful of small cable systems.

Eventually, the NFL and the Humongous Cable Companies struck an agreement, and for a couple of years the NFL Network was available on lesser tiers. This summer, however, Humongous Cable Companies moved the network to premium services, which cost customers an extra $2 to $8 per month.

(I left out many details, but, believe me, you really don’t care about them.)

So now you’re up to date.

And, unless you’re paying extra for it, you’ll need to listen to tonight’s game between the 10-1 Dallas Cowboys and the 10-1 Green Bay Packers on WBAL radio or go to your favorite sports bar.

What’s your opinion on who’s to blame?

—ED WALDMAN, Managing Editor/Business

A new study (PDF) says female equity partners earn a lot less than male equity partners — nearly $90,000 a year less than their male counterparts’ median of $625,000. Though to someone making a reporter’s salary, $537,000 a year is a princely (princessly?) sum, this is still really not cool.

Anyone out there have any thoughts on the disparity, its causes and possible fixes?

-CARYN TAMBER, Legal Affairs Writer

A group of researchers has concluded that if Maryland legalized same-sex marriage, the state would benefit to the tune of $3.2 million.

The researchers are affiliated with the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law, and they have done analyses on other states before, concluding that legalizing gay marriage or extending domestic partner benefits to same-sex couples would bring in money and/or cost the states little.

According to a press release on the study, some of what makes up that $3.2 million figure are these factors:

“— Extending marriage rights to same-sex couples would reduce the State’s expenditures on means-tested public benefit programs by about $1.5 million annually.

— The net impact on the State’s income tax revenue resulting from same-sex marriages would be small: the State would experience a decrease in income tax revenue of about $132,000 annually….

— The State would incur some revenue loss from transfer taxes as a result of same-sex marriage, approximately $1.4 million annually.

— With same-sex marriage, annual expenditures on state employee benefit programs would increase between $400,000 and $1.3 million….”

The researchers also postulated that if same-sex marriage were legalized, 7,800 gay couples in Maryland would wed. All those nuptials would give the wedding and tourist industries a major boost, resulting in a net gain to business of $88 million per year in the first three years, the study says.

On page 25, they’ve also got an interesting chart listing the Maryland companies that offer domestic partner benefits. Highlights include DLA Piper, Johns Hopkins, and BGE.

-CARYN TAMBER, Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer

In an ironic twist, a museum in Salisbury that housed wildfowl art is suffering from standing water.

The Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art is being cleaned today after an equipment malfunction required the entire collection to find a new habitat.

From the AP:

It took more than 36 hours to transfer the collection of paintings, carvings and other pieces, but museum officials say nothing was lost.

The museum will meet with an insurance company in coming days to assess the damage and see when the museum can reopen. Interim director Lora Bottinelli says it appears the water damage caused only minor damage to the collection.

Selected works include a piece entitled “Shootin’ Rig” (Rick Johannsen, Port Clinton, OH), a collection of Long Island cork decoys and interpretive wood sculptures.

-JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

In our most recent Uncover story, Nintendo and Microsoft are put under the microscope by Greenpeace for toxic chemicals used in manufacturing their game consoles.

Eighteen leading electronics companies were ranked on a 10-point scale, with Nintendo being the first and only company to score zero.

The creators of Mario and Luigi provided no information to consumers on the substances it uses in manufacturing or on its plans to cut hazardous materials. Those aren’t the Mario Brothers I grew up with! And my folks thought playing the cutting-edge game Pitfall on Intellivision was bad for my health.

With all the recent recalls of toys with lead in them, do holiday shoppers really need any extra worries at this point when shopping for the gamers in their family?

Anyhow, the chemical culprits to be aware of are a vinyl known as PVC as well as fire retardants that can be a hazard when released into the environment.

Of course, your children could be a hazard when released into the environment this holiday season if they don’t get their Xbox or Wii from Santa.

-FRANCIS SMITH, Special Publications Assistant Editor