The Dagger marks its first anniversary this week. A year that has seen the birth of the future of news and entertainment reporting in this area. No, The Dagger is not the first site of its kind. The Huffington Post comes to mind, as well as others, but it is the first site based in Harford County, that I’m aware of, that continues to inform and entertain. Inform and entertain literally by the hour and sometimes by the minute!
My first exposure to the Dagger came as the Aberdeen elections were heating up this time last year. Watching the back and forth between the candidates and the comments by those same candidates and the readers made for interesting reading. I think we’re all a bit of a voyeur and watching the exchange made for great reading. But it was the power of the Web, the interaction of the readers and ...Continue Reading
I lost a friend on Sunday night. A friend that I’ve never met. A friend I had seen only briefly over the past 20 years but a friend that I’ve heard and listened to for hours on end. That friend was Atlanta Braves announcer Skip Caray. Skip Caray, the voice of America’s Team for the past 32 years died while napping Sunday afternoon.
You may ask why a Maryland born and bred guy like me would mourn the loss of a National League, Atlanta Braves Sportscaster. I should be following the O’s and still mourn the loss of Baltimore Broadcast icon Chuck Thompson.
The trend in Major League Baseball for players to look like bums. What is the deal with wearing your pants eight inches too long so they bunch up around your cleats or actually are under your heel?! The shirts are too big, the pants are too long and it seems most of the guys are wearing them this way. If the ballplayers don’t wear them this way, they wear their pants with the end up around the knees and baseball socks showing from the knee on down. What happened to baseball players that looked like ballplayers? Stirrup socks with white socks under them. Shirts that looked like they were measured for the player and not obtained from a baseball shirt give-away-night. You know what I mean: all t-shirts ever given away are double XL!
My guess is that these guys don’t go out on the town looking like they’ve never seen a tailor! I can’t imagine A-Rod wearing ...Continue Reading
May 2004, just a week before the WW II Memorial in Washington D.C. was to be dedicated, I took my Dad down to see it. At 85, he was a little unsure on his feet so I borrowed a wheelchair so I could push him around the Mall. My Dad was excited to be going and was even looking forward to the ride in on the D.C. Metro.
It was one of those perfect May days; bright sun, warm and not a cloud in the sky. On top of the perfect day we had a perfect tour guide with us. My friend Tom knew the Washington D.C. landmarks well, and ever the teacher, would regale us with bits of history and trivia that we weren’t aware of.
A little about my Dad: Born in St Louis, Missouri on November 7, 1918, he was drafted into the ...Continue Reading
Standing in line in the Rosenberg Gallery, (the Gallery makes up the lobby for the Kraushaar Auditorium at Goucher College) I was waiting for a friend. A friend I had made just two weeks earlier at the same venue, while listening to former General Counsel of the U.S. Navy, Alberto Mora.
I was one person of approximately 1,000 people, made up of Goucher Students, young professionals, older couples and blue collar workers of all ages. I saw Jews and Gentiles alike. Young married couples with kids in tow and a few individuals that I guessed to be of Middle Eastern descent. We were all waiting for the same thing. The doors to open to Kraushaar Auditorium so we could begin filing in to hear the speaker.
That person being the Republican Congressman from Texas running for President of the United States, Dr. Ron Paul. The free Ron Paul event at Goucher College ...Continue Reading
I’ve stocked up on milk, bread and toilet paper. I have gasoline in the generator. I’ve backed the truck onto to the driveway and brought the snow shovel in from the shed. I’m ready for the winter storm that will be “dumping 2-4 inches of snow across the area beginning after midnight tonight.”
I’m watching TV and am somewhat distracted by the weather alert broadcast by the local networks and moving across the bottom of my screen. If that weren’t enough, I notice the snowflake icon in the upper left hand corner of the picture with the word “Warning” underneath it. For the last 12 hours I’ve heard from the local meteorologists about the coming winter storm. The National Weather Service has issued a “Winter Storm Warning” for most of Maryland. Wow! This must be it! The Big One!
LAS VEGAS, Nevada – Almost 2 years to the day I was back here in Las Vegas for the CES, The Consumer Electronics Show, the World’s Largest Trade Show (140,000 attendees and 1.8 million square feet of exhibit space with over 2,700 exhibitors).
Now the CES is THE center of the Universe for 4 days every January. This is where the new technology of consumer electronics is introduced and hyped. Many of the gizmos and gadgets trotted out at the CES in January make their way to market sometime in the months that follow.
Because the CES is such a big deal it is the place to see and be seen. Celebrities galore are there either as spokespeople for the various companies or as attendees themselves. In years past I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Joan Jett, David Ortiz, Michael Irving, Randall Cunningham, Marcus Allen, Jackie “The Joke Man” ...Continue Reading
The MoBseen: Observations as seen through the eyes of Mark
The Liberal Press. A moniker used to describe America’s media. Media of all sorts; radio, print media, and TV and the Internet. For years I’ve wondered how this term came to describe the media and reporting in the United States.
In my mind, it flew in the face of what I saw and heard and read on a daily basis. The likes of Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, Imus, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Martha Zoller, Pat Buchanan, Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck and a laundry list of other talk show hosts are widely syndicated, very popular and all very conservative.
Many, such as Limbaugh, Imus and Coulter, to name a few, have become media icons. Very recognizable, syndicated in dozens of cities and consequently very rich. Many of these conservative talk show hosts also write columns in major market newspapers, are guests on TV news shows, are ...Continue Reading
The MoBseen: Life’s observations as seen through the eyes of Mark.
We, the voters of the Free State, will have the chance to vote on slots coming to Maryland.
Current polling by Gonzales Research & Marketing Strategies and the Washington Post Polling suggest that Maryland residents are in favor of Maryland slots and those favoring slots continue to outnumber those opposing slots. The question remains of course, where to put the parlors and who will be the beneficiary of the millions generated by this new gambling.
I should point out to those opposed to Maryland slots that we already have gambling in Maryland and on a very broad scale; We have The Lottery, Lotto, The Daily Pick 3, The Daily Pick 4, (twice a day!) Bonus Match 5, Mega Millions, Multi Match, Racetrax, Maryland Hold’em, Keno, Scratch-Offs, and of course horse racing. We also have Off Track ...Continue Reading
