Stephanie Bowen was named the first ever ‘Voice of Baltimore’ last year at Padonia Station. The contest resumes next Monday, June 3rd, at the popular Timonium sports bar and restaurant. (VoB File Photo/Bill Hughes)

TIMONIUM SPORTS BAR AND RESTAURANT
WILL AGAIN SPONSOR  ANNUAL CONTEST
TO  RAISE AWARENESS OF CHILD ABUSE

Event benefits charitable Ed Block Courage Awards

LAST YEAR’S WINNER TO BE CELEBRITY JUDGE
 
By Maria Amoruso
 
Think you can sing?  Professionally?  And win a vocal competition in front of an SRO audience at a popular sports bar/restaurant in Baltimore County?

Stephanie Bowen thought she could, but she wasn’t sure; she tried and failed three times. But like they say, the fourth try can sometimes yield gold.

And for her it did.

After taking a year off from Padonia Station’s annual singing competition in 2011, Bowen registered for the inaugural “Voice of Baltimore” contest in 2012 — and won. And now, a year later, the determined songstress returns as a celebrity judge to the contest in Timonium that ignited her singing career.

Bowen attests that without the competition she probably wouldn’t be a lead singer with two bands or getting ready for her second national anthem performance at Camden Yards. The 26-year-old winner of last year’s contest and those who won in previous years got to sing at an Oriole game as one of their prizes from the competition.

Many of the previous winners and runners-up have returned to judge the contest in subsequent years as well.

Bowen encourages others with similar dreams to compete in this year’s Voice of Baltimore event that kicks off at 9 p.m. Monday, with registration beginning at 8 p.m.

The fee to register is just $5, which goes directly to the Ed Block Courage Award Foundation to raise awareness and fund prevention of child abuse. Paul Mittermeier, the foundation’s director of communications, told Voice of Baltimore — dot org, the watchdog website, which is a co-sponsor of the competition — that Padonia Station and its staff have been “supporters of ours for a long time and they are always looking for new ways to raise money for us.”

Mittermeier will host the event along with legendary local musician, guitarist Eddie DePaola, a/k/a Zack Chainj.

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Americans are obsessed with daily/hourly weather forecasts.

Memorial Day Weekend
focuses new attention
on cool temperature

Talkin’  ’bout  Bob Turk…
— 1980s weatherization of
the Temptations’  1965 hit
 
By David Maril
 
Why are we Americans so obsessed with television, radio and Internet weather forecasts?

It’s as if we crave details on factors we have no control over. We are so used to being able to customize things any way we want, with all of our technological advances, weather remains an alluring mystery.

When people take trips to getaway places, such as the Eastern Shore, weather forecasts are an even bigger deal during Memorial Weekend and other holidays.

For years, when I was living and working in New England, we used to joke that the meteorologists must be getting paid by the Chamber of Commerce and tourist/travel industry to advertise decent weather even when there was evidence there would be nothing but rain.

We love to complain about the weather; it’s an easy talking point.

I thought the cool, dry and breezy weather at the outset of this Memorial Weekend was perfect. But when I mentioned it to a roofer I know, he said the weather was horrible and too windy for him to get anything done.

Weather and temperature can be even more divisive than politics.

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Gov. Martin O’Malley nuzzles noses with the Dalai Lama May 7 at Uni- versity of Maryland, College Park. (Photo/The governor’s FB page.)

POLITICIANS  SHOULD  HAVE  TO  BUY  ‘PODIUM TIME’
TO SPEAK AT HIGH SCHOOL, COLLEGE GRADUATIONS
 
By David Maril
 
High school and college commencements represent significant milestones. Why, then, on such an important day for graduates and their families, are so many keynote speakers duds?

Too often colleges and high schools settle for tiresome hacks who are only interested in promoting themselves and pushing their personal agendas.

Whether good or bad, I can’t even remember who spoke at my graduation from Park School in Baltimore (at Brooklandville, near Pikesville). However in college, at Clark University, in Worcester, Mass., I do recall Kevin White, a former mayor of Boston, launching into a forgettable cheerleading session about politics.

It sticks out in my mind because the weather was hot and his rambling speech was so boring. At the time (1972), White was considered a promising liberal Democrat who might rise to national prominence. It never happened. One of his downfalls was probably too many speeches like the one I heard at Clark.

To me, the worst choice for a commencement speaker will always be a politician who is either in office or planning to run. These people jump at the chance to speak at such events because it’s an opportunity to promote themselves as caring individuals who are supporting education, positive values — and the next generation of voters.

When politicians address graduates, the focus subtly shifts into campaign mode and the talk is primarily about them and their so-called accomplishments.

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No heads-up, no warning:  In late spring and summer the lawn blowers launch their attack.

GASOLINE POWERED GRASS-CUTTING NOISE
REPRESENTS UNWELCOME SIGN OF SPRING

Who decided rakes and brooms should be obsolete?
 
By David Maril
 
How often has this happened to you?

Arriving home early from work and a little weary, you find the house empty and decide to take a nap to catch up on a couple hours’ sleep.

But just as you begin drifting off into a peaceful dream, the Attack of the Lawn Blowers begins.  If you live in the suburbs, you know what I mean: it’s the unwelcome sign of spring.

There’s no heads-up, no warning. The maintenance crews and gardeners who launch the attacks never fire any short volleys before turning these noisy landscape weapons on full blast.

You hear them roaring away outside, blowing around leaves, dirt and grass, and try to get back to sleep. Even turning on fans, the air conditioner and burying your ears in a pillow won’t drown out the noise. Once your frustration turns to anger, a nap becomes an impossibility.

Perhaps the worst part is you never know when you’re going to be attacked. If there was a set-time when you knew the torture was going to take place, you could run some errands or plan to be away from the house or apartment for that part of the day. At the very least, you could mentally prepare for the disturbance.

Frequently, these noise-pollution assaults will occur early on Saturday mornings when you don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn and head in to work. The deafening buzz will begin a few minutes before 8 a.m., just late enough to not be considered an illegal noise disturbance by the police.

You can rationalize roaring lawnmowers and the grinding and screeching of wood being cut. Certainly it would be impractical for people to cut big spacious lawns with old-fashioned push-mowers or cut wood planks with hand-saws.

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Maryland gives away nearly twice as many cellphones as there are residents eligible to receive them.

FREE STATE DISTRIBUTES NEARLY TWICE AS MANY
PHONES TO PEOPLE ON PUBLIC ASSISTANCE
AS ARE QUALIFIED TO RECEIVE THEM

ONLY OKLAHOMA’S RECORD OF ABUSE IS WORSE
 
A controversial program that provides free cellphone service to Americans on public assistance came under intense scrutiny Thursday as a congressional subcommittee overseeing the Federal Communications Commission’s “Lifeline” telephone program cited Maryland as one of the biggest abusers of the government giveaway.

Officials testifying before the committee told members the Free State distributes almost twice as many free cellphones as there are qualified people in Maryland to receive them.

Other leading state offenders are Oklahoma, Alaska, Louisiana, Arkansas and Georgia.

Members of the House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications and Technology heard testimony from a variety of experts who said Lifeline had experienced explosive growth due in part to lax oversight and abuse.

The number of recipients of free phones in Maryland was nearly twice the total that should be eligible, the experts said, ranking the Free State as the second highest target, behind Oklahoma, for fraud and waste in the country.

Lifeline is a government benefit program that provides discounts on monthly telephone service, landline or wireless, for eligible low-income consumers to help ensure they have the opportunities and security that telephone service affords, such as being able to connect to jobs, family, and 911 services.

It is supported by the federal Universal Service Fund (USF), which was created in 1997 by the FCC.

Lifeline’s budget has swelled from $800 million in 2008 to $2.2 billion in 2012. The program is financed by a charge on private cellphone bills generally referred to as a universal access fee. The giveaways were originally limited to landlines, but cellphones were added to the program in the late 1990s and became ubiquitous in 2008 when prepaid carriers such as TracFone won approval to distribute cellular handsets.

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