STATE  DELEGATE  HEATHER R. MIZEUR
THROWS HAT IN RING FOR GOVERNOR
IMMEDIATELY BEFORE ANNUAL EVENT

Would be first openly gay governor elected in U.S.
 
By Alan Z. Forman
 
Except for Spiro Agnew in the late 1960s and Bob Ehrlich near the beginning of the new millennium, Maryland has elected only Democrats to the Governor’s Mansion in Annapolis since the GOP’s Theodore R. McKeldin served two terms from 1951 to ’59.

What’s more, they’ve all been men, and white. But next year’s election could change all that, or at least some of it.

A frontrunner for the Democratic nomination is Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, an African-American Harvard-educated lawyer who is finishing out his second term as Gov. Martin O’Malley’s No. 2 and has gotten the jump on other hopefuls by running for more than two months since announcing his candidacy in early May.

He made a big splash at Wednesday’s J. Millard Tawes Crab and Clam Bake in Crisfield on the Eastern Shore (see photo), a political must-attend event for Maryland politicians that is billed as equal parts seafood, sweat and schmooze.

But a dark horse female candidate for governor appeared at the annual event as well.

Enter State Del. Heather R. Mizeur, an out-of-the-closet lesbian who hopes to be not only Maryland’s first non-male governor, but the first openly gay person to run and be elected governor in the United States.

Mizeur announced her candidacy by email immediately prior to the Tawes namesake event, a political gathering open to all factions despite being named for a governor of the old school variety, a conservative Democrat of the 1950s and 1960s, who was a longtime state comptroller prior to serving two terms as governor before he was succeeded by then-liberal Republican Spiro T. Agnew, a one-term Baltimore County executive.

Women have run for governor of Maryland before, albeit unsuccessfully; Mizeur is not unique in that regard.

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VOICE OF L.A. DODGERS
STILL GOING STRONG
AFTER  64  YEARS
 
Games available on MLB
Extra Innings package
 
By David Maril
 
There’s no end these days to the programming that sports fans can purchase on satellite and cable television or for their computers.

If you’ve got the time, interest and money, telecasts of every NFL game can be brought into your home.

If you are an Orioles’ fan living outside The Land Of Pleasant Living, most of the team’s broadcasts are available on the MLB Extra Innings package [click here for schedule].

One of the best parts of the baseball package is you hear the broadcasts with local announcers.  This means when the Los Angeles Dodgers are shown, you experience the greatness of Vin Scully if the Dodgers are home or on the West Coast.

Listening to Scully announce a game is a rare privilege for any baseball fan.

At age 85, the only concession Scully has made in his 64th season with the Dodgers is to cut back on his travel schedule.

He primarily broadcasts from Dodger Stadium and restricts his travel to the cities on the West Coast. But when he broadcasts, he works the entire game without a partner, whether nine innings or 25 innings, calling every pitch.

It’s ironic it takes the futuristic technology of cable and satellite television to make it possible for fans all over the country to receive a taste of old-fashioned baseball announcing. While Dodger games have the typical modern-day overblown production values, with distracting graphics and annoying background music, Scully’s eloquence remains the focus of the broadcast.

He shows no signs of slowing down. His voice sounds very much today as it did back in 1966 when he shared TV and radio network World Series duties on NBC’s coverage of the Orioles winning their first World Championship, sweeping the Dodgers in four games.

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BALTIMORE CITY POLITICIANS
HOPE  WATER-RATE  HIKES
WON’T DAMPEN SPIRITS

When you comin’ back, Lone Ranger?
— with apologies to Red Ryder
 
By David Maril
 
While wondering if the 40 percent increase in Baltimore water rate fees over three years would have been necessary if the more than $10 million still owed the city by some businesses, nonprofits and government offices had been collected, it’s interesting to note the following:

  It’s hard not to believe that the tax and fee hikes Marylanders will be facing this year, including gasoline and stormwater, would be lower, or even unnecessary if finances were managed more responsibly and agencies supervised more stringently. No matter how much more revenue is generated out of the pocketbooks of taxpayers, it will never be enough if the elected politicians don’t manage the finances better.

  Have the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives ever had two more ineffective leaders at the same time than Harry Reid and John Boehner? Reid, abrasive and condescending, has all the charm of a telemarketer. Boehner is in over his head and can’t keep his party in line.

  How skewered is our financial structure when signs of a better than expected economic recovery cause a dip in the stock market because of the fear that if things improve quickly there will be less control over interest rates by the feds?

  The way things are done in Washington, it’s surprising that Congress, which refuses to address the U.S. Postal System’s growing deficit by dropping costly Saturday delivery, doesn’t counter by demanding seven-day-a-week service.

  The big news coming out of the Whitey Bulger trial in Boston isn’t about the conduct of the alleged mob boss and murderer. Bulger is not really on trial. Everyone assumes, even before the verdict is delivered, he’s guilty. The big story is that this case puts the FBI on trial and under the microscope. The level of corruption in the law enforcement agency’s dealing with Bulger is the interesting part of the case. It wouldn’t be surprising if there are many in the FBI who hoped Bulger would never be caught and all this unsavory information would have disappeared with him.

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RENOWNED JOHNS HOPKINS NEUROSURGEON
WOULD BE ILL-ADVISED  TO RUN FOR OFFICE

Should stick to medicine and helping people
 
By David Maril
 
I’ll never forget the only time I ever met Dr. Ben Carson.

It was on a tension-packed late-night visit to the intensive care unit of Johns Hopkins Hospital a long time ago, back in May of 1983.

My father, artist Herman Maril, had undergone surgery several days earlier and the procedure had not gone well.

He had decided to try a new carotid artery surgical procedure that seemed extremely promising. He’d only be in the hospital several days and then be less susceptible to suffering a stroke in his later years . He was 74 at the time but had longevity in his family, with three sisters and two brothers, all older, who lived into their late 80s and early 90s.

But everything seemed to go wrong once he entered the hospital.

He turned out to be allergic to the dye used in testing before the surgery and had a severe reaction. Then after the surgery he came down with pneumonia.

During the week following the surgery, I was called down from Massachusetts, where I was working at the time, twice, because it didn’t look as if he was going to make it.

On my first trip down, it appeared he’d suffered a heart attack, but fortunately those symptoms subsided. The second time I jumped on a flight to rush down, he was extremely weak and struggling with his breathing.

My mother, Esta Maril, was maintaining round-the-clock visiting duties. A psychiatric social worker, she’d bring a book, notecards to write letters, and folders of work with her, spending the whole day in the waiting room, forcing her way in to see him the few minutes allowed for visiting in the intensive care unit.

When I arrived on my second emergency trip, at around 8 p.m., my father’s condition seemed to have worsened, and my mother had been there all day and didn’t want to go home.

That was when a distinguished looking, very composed young black doctor approached us in the waiting room.

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REMEMBERING  SKIPPER,  A BLACK LAB
WHO UNDERSTOOD HOW TO GET OVER
WITHOUT EVER HAVING TO ROLL OVER

TYDTWD, a/k/a Take Your Dog To Work Day
 
By David Maril
 
One thought  crosses my mind every year when I hear of special event dates similar to last Friday’s Take Your Dog To Work Day:  I wonder how, even with the best-trained dogs in the world, order is maintained with so many breeds in closely confined public workplaces.

I can just picture the tremendous chaos that would have ensued if I’d ever brought my dog to the office on a “TYDTWDay.”

Reflecting on my own limited experience in dog training increases my appreciation that these type events can take place without ugly, noisy dogfights in the office.

However, it’s a different world than when I was a kid growing up with, first, a sloppy, always sniffing but gentle Beagle named Golly (Goliath) and later a gregarious, brilliant Labrador Retriever we called Skipper.

In those days, dogs ran loose in the city. Golly had free reign, making his daily rounds around the Mount Washington neighborhood and often returning home with a bag of discarded food he’d picked up after knocking over someone’s metal garbage can.

Poop bags had not yet come into vogue. There were not nearly as many dogs, less traffic and fewer rules and restrictions.

But one thing hasn’t changed — most family pets are intelligent enough to not let you know how smart they are. It works out better for them this way because your demands and expectations are not as controlling. They know how to make you work for them.

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