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May 21, 2015
We don't have enough money to fix bridges, but we can afford about $55 million less in annual revenues from Bay Bridge tolls. No brainer: Cut the bridge tolls.
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May 14, 2015
There's no telling what voters are thinking. I should say, no telling if voters are thinking. One reason why newspaper reporters are cynical is that they've seen too many election results that defy reason.
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May 7, 2015
Last week, the Carroll County government spent some of your money to obey a law shoved through years ago and ran a notice of proposed real property tax increase. The ad is perfectly legal. In fact, it is legally required — but the prescribed language of the notice is so inaccurate that it falls somewhere between a hoax and outright fraud because of one missing word that represents a triumph of political spin and clout.
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April 23, 2015
Bart Walters is not only a world class sculptor; he's a top-notch story-teller, too.
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April 16, 2015
As Jean and John Lewis were being presented the 2015 Human Relations Commission's award, I was reminded again and what we still don't know, and how what we think we know is so far removed from what most of us truly understand.
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April 9, 2015
When I read Salon.com columnist Sidney Blumenthal's First Amendement Reflections quote on theCarroll County Times opinion page March 11, "Gradually and imperceptibly, after taking decades to establish, the standard of objectivity shifted to become the opposite of what it had once been. Objectivity became an artificial balancing act of presenting competing claims," I thought of an ongoing conversation I am having with an old friend about truth.
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April 2, 2015
Lots of magazines and web pages will tell you how to be a success in business; I will take a different approach here. I will tell you how to run a perfectly good business into the ground.
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March 26, 2015
You hear a lot these days about the middle class: Politicians want to help the middle class, marketers target the middle class, people struggle to get into the middle class. So what is middle class, anyway?
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March 19, 2015
As the politicians and others wrangle out a way to avoid the kind of freak show that played out with the local Republican Central Committee's inability to come together on selecting a successor to an elected official who has been moved out of one office and into another role, let us focus: All we have to do to avoid this in the future is pay better attention to central committee candidates, and then make sure there's a good voter turnout.
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March 12, 2015
If the current discussion about the use of body cameras on cops and cellphone videos taken at the scenes of encounters between police and people in the streets runs the apparent course, we won't need courts or judges in the future.
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March 5, 2015
Finally: The county's master plan gets an update.
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February 26, 2015
Pay for the roads and spare the workers
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February 19, 2015
Since I'm of two minds about the issue of open meetings and laws to enforce compliance, I thought it might be fun to have the ultimate insider interview showing at least two sides of the argument.
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February 12, 2015
Remember the Maine? Sunday will mark the 117th anniversary of the beginning of America's role as a world power. It all began with the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor on Feb. 15, 1898.
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February 5, 2015
Special assistants to county commissioners came about after the 2002 elections.
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January 29, 2015
On Tuesday, Feb. 3, Post 31 American Legion will pay respects to the famous four chaplains of the troop ship Dorchester, which sank in the Atlantic 72 years ago to the day.
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January 22, 2015
Maybe the world isn't any nuttier than it ever was. Maybe we just hear more about it, sooner, and with pictures.
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January 15, 2015
OK, I am at the point where I am willing to turn in my Man card, give up my claim to sports fanatic status, and retreat to a Walden Pond and read poetry.
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January 8, 2015
I keep hearing the same headline on the radio and cable TV news: The economy is improving but the average American citizen does not see it and does not believe it.
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January 1, 2015
Commissioner Richard Rothschild is hard at work carrying water for those whose plan is to ensure that there are no plans.
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December 25, 2014
I was forced to sing the only negative verse of a Christmas song put on for the school when I was in the sixth grade. It still bothers me.
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December 18, 2014
Pop quiz: Who would you trust with your vote – if you couldn't vote?
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December 11, 2014
William Winchester founded Westminster 250 years ago, and the city celebrated by bringing him back to life.
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December 4, 2014
Given a choice between a lifetime discount coupon to a mega book store or a good library, I'll choose the library.
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November 27, 2014
My daughter-in-law has taken on the tradition of cooking Thanksgiving dinner, for which I am grateful. Grandma is, too.
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November 20, 2014
Somehow, Joe Burns Jr. was appointed by the present Republican board of county commissioners to the county's ethics commission and serves as chair, a key gatekeeper of principles.
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November 13, 2014
It's easy to like Jim Ball – Dr. James Ball, if we're going to be professional and appropriately formal. It's intuitive. He's one of those people you just naturally like.
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November 6, 2014
Now that the elections are over and sanity has a chance to live again, this is a good time of year to visit your favorite farmers' market, flea market, art show or performance featuring the works and passions of our friends and neighbors.
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October 23, 2014
Elections are just around the corner and we like to think that our system ensures that the best candidates come out on top. If that were true we'd have a better county. A better country, too.
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October 16, 2014
Candidates, particularly the incumbents, seem to be lying low, waiting for those last few critical days before the election when all the mud hits the fan. Most of the mud has been in storage for days, weeks or months, and timing is everything.
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October 9, 2014
Carroll Hospital Center says job applicants who chew nicotine gum need not apply. It makes me wonder if the overall jobless rate is tied somehow to employers' perspectives on personal habits of applicants.
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October 2, 2014
Who's on your email list?
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September 25, 2014
Scenario One: Opportunistic white men serve a clientele of privileged classes by selling slaves who were taken against their will from a culture that was considered ignorant and less civilized. The workers toiled for sustenance, but their labor made their owners rich, and often they were employed to amuse the upper classes in assorted roles, from concubines to musicians and artisans, sometimes with a promise of eventual freedom.
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September 18, 2014
So, what was the inspiration for the irritating tendency for a certain generation to begin every sentence in an interview with a reporter, "So, thank you for asking."?
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September 11, 2014
Cal Bloom stepped out of his barber shop on Main Street, looking for someone to tell the news: A plane had just flown into the World Trade Center in New York. It was on television, live.
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September 4, 2014
The difference between a plan and a plot is mostly intent.
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August 28, 2014
What short memories we have. Perhaps it's a cultural defensive mechanism to allow us to delete from our collective memory debates that are never really resolved.
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August 21, 2014
You can look it up on the Internet and find facts about anything. Enough to sound like an engineer for about 500 words. But don't build a bridge with your new education. You haven't given it enough thought.
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August 14, 2014
The headline in last Thursday's paper read "Chief of staff title changed to combat misconceptions." Well, perhaps.
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August 7, 2014
If the current board of commissioners has not done anything about the county landfill by now, it's probably just better if they leave it alone until after Robin Frazier and Haven Shoemaker leave office.
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July 31, 2014
Make no mistake: I am a casual guy. I didn't write the book on dressing down, but I dog-eared the pages. I stopped wearing ties to work and social events when many of my cohorts were still wearing their Sunday best to visit a funeral home. But my navel was always covered, and I maintain the standard that you did not go out to breakfast in the shirt you slept in.
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July 24, 2014
County government is just three or four key people away from becoming even more dysfunctional than it has become over the past four years.
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July 17, 2014
America has a problem with kids from other countries showing up on the borders expecting to be welcomed.
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July 10, 2014
I have been blessed with wonderful neighbors, with whom I have lived in harmony.
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July 3, 2014
I don't need two sinks and enough room in a bathroom to have a bocce court or a rugby scrum.
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June 26, 2014
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June 19, 2014
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June 12, 2014
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June 5, 2014
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May 29, 2014
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May 22, 2014
