Friday Round Up: Birthday Edition

No, not my birthday, and not my wife’s, either. We’ve both had too many to make a big deal out them. Who am I kidding? I still make a big deal out of my birthday. But this isn’t about me.

Instead, we today celebrate the birth of Mr. Finch, the perfect embodiment of the old cliché about dogs and men. While he’s not intensely loyal like a Lab or protective like a German Shepard, his intelligence, personality, sensitivity and wit (yes, wit) more than make up for his lack of subservience. Also, he’s freaking adorable.

As a baby:

And today, waiting for the blogging to end.


Although he strangely wanted one of these for his birthday, a new squeaky toy, a whole slice of cheese and a hiking/swimming trip tomorrow will have to suffice.

Anyway, enough about the Husky. Here’s a quick Round Up to keep you occupied until Sunday.

The action-packed primary battle for the Republican nominations in District 9 is profiled in this piece. For those who don’t know, there are two seats in this almost-guaranteed-Republican district and the current incumbents, Gail Bates and Warren Miller, are running as a slate and are being opposed by Melissa Ridgely Covolesky, a relative newcomer to the political scene.

The whole story is worth a read, but I want to highlight just one piece of it.

"I don't have anything personally against Melissa," [Senator Allan] Kittleman said. "She just came out of nowhere. In a Republican primary, people are going to want to see what you have done for the party and the community. She's a very nice person. She should have run for the central committee."

This mindset is, put simply, stupid. The idea that you need to pay your dues to a party before you can run for office is a horrible way of finding the best person for the job. The most loyal, perhaps, but is that what we really need? More politicians who are loyal to their party above all?

Needless to say, party loyalists agree with Kittleman.

For purely superficial reasons, I’d vote (if I could) for Covolesky. I mean, her birthday’s the day after mine, she has a Siberian Husky, and she likes chestnut trees, a trifecta!

The managed deer hunts taking place on public land in Howard County are expanding. Why?

The deer population at these parks has exceeded the ideal capacity of 15 deer per square mile, Norman said. In a survey of the land last winter, officials found an average of 75 deer per square mile.

Wowser, and you thought the county was crowded for people. Imagine being a deer.

It sounds like the first meeting of the BRAC task force was largely about the committee and the process. Which is good – I didn’t miss much.

I’m heartened to see in this article that the chair of the task force is emphasizing citizen involvement. I’m also a little surprised to read this:

Donna Thewes, a candidate for County Council seat in District 3 who attended the meeting, said the county should be aggressively courting businesses that may relocate to support Fort Meade.

“We are in a prime location,” she said. “The question really should be, what are we doing on the commercial end.”

Politicians and others seem to think that commercial developments are unmitigated goods: tax returns from them greatly outweigh tax expenditures. But this is a false supposition. Commercial and residential development cannot be separated. One without the other leads to all sorts of problems, just as too much overall development does, as well.

Moreover, many of the problems of growth in general – traffic, taxed infrastructure – are found regardless of whether you’re building homes or offices. To see a politician at this time ostensibly supporting more aggressive growth is, well, a little jarring.

That’s all for now!