By: Danny Jacobs
I began last week by blogging about my search for people wearing the suits of summer, specifically white linen and seersucker.
Tips slowly trickled in throughout the week, which is all the more impressive considering the weather hasn’t exactly been conducive for summer suits.
I also received a e-mail from Ellicott City lawyer Terry McAndrews with a photo of him in his white linen suit. (He’s above, giving an award to outgoing Howard County Bar Association President Jack Willis.)
McAndrews wrote he wears the suit throughout the summer, mostly for weddings and similar special occasions, although you might see him wearing it to court in the days surroundig the various summer holidays.
“Old-fashioned fashion survives,” he wrote.
Please keep sending me pictures to make it thrive.
By: jackie.sauter
To snitch, or not to snitch: that’s the $30 question, if you’re a student at Wilde Lake High School in Columbia.
The principal offered a $30 reward for the names of the students who started a food fight in December, creating a mess of complaints.
The AP reports, “While the controversy lacks the grit surrounding the “Stop Snitching” street video produced in nearby Baltimore, which warned against cooperating with police in drug investigations, the principal’s offer prompted a discussion over the propriety of such offers.”
Howard County does not have a policy on the issue, but cash rewards have been offered in the past for information on vandals, graffiti incidents and theft.
Baltimore County schools allow cash rewards, if the school superintendent and county police agree. Baltimore city, Anne Arundel and Carroll counties don’t offer them.
JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor
By: jackie.sauter
When I visited Chicago last month, my colleague and I noticed reports of theft of stainless-steel appliances from residential construction sites. My colleague shared that in his hometown of New Orleans, residents often complain of copper pipe thefts from home sites under construction.
Turns out the theft of this valuable metal doesn’t always happen so far from home.
Patuxent Square, a new commercial/residential development in North Laurel, Md., is hiring a night watchman after $10,000 of copper pipe fittings were ripped off at its construction site, the HoCo Times reported last week.
And the Patuxent Square development is just one of many. According to the story, the Howard County Police say copper thefts from county construction sites tripled in October (14 reports) and November (13 reports). At scrap dealers, copper yields about $3.20 per pound.
JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor
By: jackie.sauter
I was on Route 175 in Columbia last week when I saw an odd bumper sticker on the car in front of me: “Choose Civility in Howard County.”
At first, I thought it was imploring Columbians to be more racially tolerant.
Since the (albeit small) sample of Howard County residents I asked didn’t know, I turned to the local blogosphere.
Sure enough, Hometown Columbia was able to point me in the right direction: Choose Civility is an initiative led by the HoCo Library that “intends to enhance respect, empathy, consideration and tolerance in Howard County.”
Their strategy for doing so? Recommended reading (“Choosing Civility” by P.M. Forni of the Johns Hopkins Civility Project), a Facebook group and car magnets.
At least they’re aiming near and far.
Anyone out there involved in this initiative care to comment? Are people in Hoco becoming more civil, or are those involved already the pillars of civility?
I, for one, will honk for joy if area drivers truly mend their ways.
-JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor
By: jackie.sauter
A Filene’s Basement opened Wednesday morning in Columbia.
In yet another area where many of the residents seemingly can afford to pay full-price, the new designer-discount store will offer Ralph Lauren sweater sets and the like for just $29.99.
Although it’s been six years since I lived in Howard County, when I visit now, it looks like a rival sibling of a Montgomery County town.
You know what I mean — how you can’t walk 25 yards without passing a Panera Bread or seeing a little kid decked out in Crocs.
It used to be a refuge, with less traffic, less development, less pressure, less people.
Anyone love the new Columbia?
-JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor
By: jackie.sauter
The immigrant population in the Baltimore area grew by almost 40 percent between 2000 and 2006, the Baltimore Sun and the Census Bureau reported Wednesday.
In those same six years, the immigrant population in Howard County alone increased by a whopping 59 percent.
With all the talk of development due to BRAC, has the state been preparing for the infastructure changes that this increase in population demands?
Is the state of Maryland really prepared to handle this massive influx of new residents?
-JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor
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