VoB SELECTS:  INVESTIGATIVE NEWS FROM AROUND THE WEB

 
NOW-NO. 3 HAMBURGER CHAIN
ANNOUNCES MAJOR MAKEOVER

Burger King, long the world’s No. 2 hamburger chain, is going public for the second time.

After announcing a major overhaul of its menu and restaurants last week, the now-No. 5 U.S. restaurant chain — behind McDonald’s, Subway, Starbucks and Wendy’s — said Wednesday it will relist its shares on the New York Stock exchange within the next three months.

Burger King traded publicly under the “BKC” ticker between 2006 and 2010 but was taken private when the company was sold to 3G Capital Management two years ago.

On Monday, the chain launched 10 new menu items including smoothies, frappés, specialty salads and snack wraps in a star-studded TV ad campaign, representing the largest and most ambitious menu expansion since first opening its doors in 1954.

There are 10 Burger King locations in the metropolitan Baltimore area with others scattered throughout the state of Maryland.

Until last month it was the No. 2 fast-food hamburger chain — McDonald’s is far and away the leader in sales of all fast-food restaurants — but was surpassed for the second spot for the first time by Wendy’s.

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With signs and posters galore, protesters marched from Occupy Washington’s ‘home’ in Franklin Square Park, shown here, to EPA headquarters at 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW.     (VoB Photos/Kaitlin Nëwman, except as otherwise indicated)

Protest sign at Washington, D.C. demonstration Friday makes refer- ence to popular British radio series.

The protest was a combined effort by members of OccupyCongress, OccupyEPA and D.C. members of the National Organization for Women (NOW) in support of efforts to improve and save the environment. Demands ranged from “environmental justice for low-income communities” to protecting the civil rights of federal employees.
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Handmade cover by Jodi Hoover for ‘Skittering Thing,’ Baltimore poet Julie Fisher's first published book of verse.

I am just a skittering thing.
Tiny eyes ambering at the edge
of the clearing.
— Lines from ‘Skittering Thing’
 
By Anthony C. Hayes
 
Skitter:  to skip or glide lightly along a surface; to move hurriedly with frequent light contacts or changes of direction
 
Ten years ago, Julie Fisher was asked to do something she’d never done before — organize a poetry reading.

The experience of coordinating that initial event started Fisher on her own artful journey, a journey that turned another page Friday night with an event at Goucher College that drew more than 50 poetry fans for the release of her first collection of poetry, titled Skittering Thing (Furniture Press).

For Fisher, the release of her book on that particular evening seemed just right.  But for many in the local literary scene who have followed her career, both the book and recognition were long overdue.

Turning the clock back a decade, Fisher told Voice of Baltimore that at the start of the new millennium she was “working for a foundation called Parks and People.

“It was post 9-11,” she said. “A lot of events had been canceled or put on hold.  With the poetry event I organized at Leakin Park that fall, there was the feeling of trying to return to some sense of normalcy.”

The spirit of the performances that day struck a nerve with the novice poet. Her interest piqued, she set out to attend the next reading she could find.

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TWIN INCIDENTS OF ‘OVERZEALOUS BEHAVIOR’

2 Jewish brothers get their day this week in court;
shooter of Florida teen still has not been charged
 
By Alan Z. Forman
 
When the 20-something Werdesheim Brothers finally get their day this week in court for allegedly attacking a black teenager in November 2010 who they believed was up to no good, it is likely the neighborhood protection organization Shomrim will also be put on trial — if not in the courtroom, then in the hearts and minds of Northwest Baltimore residents and others for whom it exists to keep their communities safe.

The Werdesheims — Eliyahu, now 24, and his younger brother Avi, 21, both members at the time of Shomrim — are accused of beating a youth who had a juvenile rap sheet that included theft charges and whom they had identified as exhibiting suspicious behavior late in the evening as they were patrolling an Upper Park Heights area neighborhood.

One of the brothers later told police he recognized the youth as having been suspected of previously breaking into garages and stealing bicycles in the area.

But the Werdesheims overstepped their bounds. Instead of calling 911 and letting police handle the issue — as Shomrim and the Baltimore Police Department mandate — they subdued the youth, causing minor injuries in the process.

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Occupy Baltimore and Good Jobs Better Bal- timore protesters stage symbolic ‘eviction’ at Wells Fargo branch on E. Monument Street. (VoB Photos/Bill Hughes)

E. MONUMENT ST. BRANCH PICKETED
BY OCCUPY BALTIMORE PROTESTERS
 
Wells Fargo was “evicted” Thursday — symbolically — from its East Baltimore branch on Monument St. by Occupy Baltimore protesters and a Good Jobs Better Baltimore “sheriff” who gathered to serve notice on the banking giant that they would no longer accept what the group called the bank’s “negative effects” on Baltimore and other U.S. cities as an alleged corporate tax dodger and bad actor in the foreclosure crisis and housing market collapse.

Other groups participating in the “eviction” included United Healthcare Workers locals from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Occupy Our Homes: Baltimore, an Occupy Baltimore group which attempts to disrupt the foreclosure of people’s homes.

Last fall, Occupy Baltimore maintained a presence in the Inner Harbor at McKeldin Square for nearly three months until being evicted in late December by city police on the order of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

Charm City photojournalist Bill Hughes was on the scene Thursday at Wells Fargo and filed the attached photographs with Voice of Baltimore.

The event took place at noon; demonstrators numbered approximately 20 people.

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