Getting Baltimore dolled up

August 17, 2008

If little girls in and around Baltimore want a doll that looks like Mommy, they're in luck, no matter if she shops all day at Cross Keys, gets lost on Columbia cul-de-sacs, works a street corner in the 'hood or lives with another mommy in Mount Vernon.

Recent columns

• Pigtown gets some airtime

  August 15, 2008

  Forget the city-financed hotel and tourism slogans. Seems all Baltimore needs to reel in out-of-towners is pigs - pigs going to slaughter. Or rather, a festival celebrating the doomed porkers.

• Good press for a free ride

  August 13, 2008

  Turns out the Bush administration hasn't cornered the market on pay-for-puff journalism.

• Levinson moved, left his name

  August 3, 2008

  Barry Levinson has come a long way from the knotty pine club room and marble front stoop. All the way, in fact, to "10,000 sf on 2 level acres, pool, guest quarters, separate studio, 7BR, 8 full & 3 half baths," just over the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.

• It's just a damyankee rodent

  August 1, 2008

  Maybe Sheila Dixon's "Cleaner, Greener" thing is working a little too well. In need of a rodent for that municipal ad campaign, Baltimore sent away to New York for a freeze-dried rat.

• Cosby's suddenly camera-shy

  July 30, 2008

  Bill Cosby comes to town tomorrow to speak at a Park Heights block party. Should we expect the genial actor/author/Jell-O pitchman or the tough-talking, black self-reliance preacher?

• A couple of irresistible targets

  July 27, 2008

  Baltimore's retail renaissance and beleaguered mayor converged this week, two Targets, together, at Mondawmin Mall.

• How much should you tip?

  July 25, 2008

  It's easier than you think to drop $70,000 on dinner for two at the Center Club.

• Just give us the loo-down

  July 23, 2008

  The political opposition researcher who illegally snooped into Michael Steele's credit history has found something else to stick her nose into: toilets.

• My brother-in-law, my boss

  July 20, 2008

  We all know the wedding etiquette: Bride's family sits on the left side of the church, groom's on the right. But what to do with the brother-in-law/direct-report? Emily Post is mum.

• No interest in Granddad's job

  July 18, 2008

  Hundreds of Maryland politicos gather on a parking lot every July to eat crabs, talk politics, sweat, sweat some more, and honor a long-gone governor.

• Top cop grabs perp on patrol

  July 16, 2008

  After a short foot chase the other night, Baltimore police arrested a guy suspected of dealing drugs. And you're thinking, "This is news?"

• BELIEVE whatever you like

  July 13, 2008

  Story going around Maryland political circles:

• A bit 'quirky' in Roland Park

  July 11, 2008

  So a country club wants to sell off 17 acres, and the people from the stately homes nearby go berserk and you're thinking that's one stirred-up WASPs' nest.

• Spin city, development-style

  July 9, 2008

  So mayoral ex-boyfriend Ron Lipscomb gets a piece of the huge Uplands housing development even though, as The Sun's John Fritze reports, a city review panel recommended another team. And that's surprising?

• Dixon plays meet the press

  June 29, 2008

  A mayor walks into a bar. It's full of reporters who've been on her case. And the joke is on them.

• Not personal, just business

  June 27, 2008

  You've heard of friends with benefits. Now, lovers with benefits.

• Send me a man who shops

  June 25, 2008

  Sheila Dixon - Baltimore mayor, ardent Sex and the City fan - found something the fictional fashionistas could only dream of: a combination boyfriend-shopping companion.

• Can't we just get along?

  June 22, 2008

  On their radio show last week, Bob and Kendel Ehrlich seemed to be in cheerful agreement with a caller named Dee that if Barack Obama is elected president, a race war will ensue.

• A tiny peek into Dixon's closet

  June 20, 2008

  Even before prosecutors started sniffing around for Sheila Dixon's fur coats, her people were worried.

• Don't go when company comes

  June 18, 2008

  Hey, Sheila Dixon, now that the state prosecutor has come to your house with a warrant, what are you going to do next?

• A mystery behind the history

  June 15, 2008

  Yes, they started with a costume ball and Queen Anne impersonator, but Annapolis is serious about its history. Maryland's capital has been marking the 300th anniversary of its 1708 charter since September. Last weekend, nine months into the yearlong celebration, it got around to a scholarly symposium on the subject.

• 'Voir dire' isn't English, either

  June 13, 2008

  Take the daily pay for a Baltimore Circuit Court judge, prosecutor, public defender, two cops, a government chemist, sheriff's deputy and court clerk. Multiply by two.

• Jenna Bush to be new city teacher?

  May 28, 2008

  Think boarding school and Bush.

• Talk to us; we know deadlines

  May 25, 2008

  And you thought Baltimore couldn't keep a police commissioner. Frederick Bealefeld hit the six-month mark this week. That's especially noteworthy because under the City Charter, Bealefeld had until then to move to the city.

• She didn't mean kitty-cat

  May 23, 2008

  Lesley Stahl used a naughty FIVE-letter word in her commencement address at Loyola College, a grad tells me. It came as the CBS newswoman came to the word "pusillanimous" in her speech.

• He looks hot, but he's taken

  May 16, 2008

  You live by the biceps, you die by the biceps. The good news for Martin O'Malley: A national magazine has put him on one of those lists of top governors.

• Maybe it's for the XXX Games

  February 17, 2008

  Michael Phelps and Katie Hoff aren't just showing off their swimming in Missouri. They're showing off their new Speedo LZR Racer swimsuits. And that means they're showing off their birthday suits, too.

• Art imitates life imitates art

  January 25, 2008

  Felicia Pearson did time for murder, then went on to play a hitman named "Snoop" on The Wire. Now she finds herself caught up in another real-life killing - this time as a witness.

• Fake newsroom, real anger

  January 6, 2008

  Forget what you've heard about the fifth and final season of The Wire, which begins tonight on HBO. Officially, what some critics have called the greatest show in the history of TV wraps up with a meditation on the evils of corporate newspaper ownership. But really, it's all about revenge.

• Halloween goes all tasteful

  October 31, 2007

  Martin O'Malley's critics say he's a spender. Can't prove it by the Halloween decorations at the governor's mansion.

• They gasp at the doorway

  September 23, 2007

  Awoman born to antiques dealers and steeped in classical music has the hippest office in town, backstage at the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

• It's a free press when you own it

  March 18, 2007

  From the pecan cabinetry to the flagstone patio, no detail about the Roland Park charmer featured in The Examiner's real estate section goes unnoticed, but for this: The guy trying to sell the place, Examiner Publisher Michael Phelps.

• Ain't the urn cool!

  September 30, 2005

  Chuck Thompson wasn't just a Hall of Fame sports announcer. He also was a husband, the kind who parked himself on a shopping mall bench while his wife roamed the stores. So his final resting place -- in the courtyard of a revamped shopping mall -- could not be more fitting.