Thinking About Bridges

We always enjoy stories about interesting people and companies in our midst. Frederick Gottemoeller, president of Bridgescape LLC in Columbia, is one such person. According to the Sun, the bridge architect recently was recognized by the International Bridge Conference for his work on a new bridge in the city of Hamilton in southwestern Ohio -- earning him the Eugene C. Figg Jr. Medal for Signature Bridges. There, he worked with the community to come up with a design they could be proud of.

Cool enough. But what caught our eye was this:

"The best bridges mix science with aesthetics," he said.

As the architect of the recently completed Woodrow Wilson Bridge over the Potomac River - a 12-lane replacement project that was highly an issue within its communities - he employed similar techniques, he said.

"That bridge connects Alexandria, Va., to Prince George's County, Md. - two somewhat disparate communities with different viewpoints," he said.

Residents settled on a raised bridge with two-thirds of its openings able to accommodate the passage of recreational vessels, but kept a drawbridge that opens during restricted hours.

"I got a lot of satisfaction out of defusing that tension," he said.

We wonder if Mr. Gottemoeller has any ideas about that bridge General Growth would like to build over Lake K. as its grand new entrance downtown?

Rites of Summer: The Beach Towel Cape

One of Columbia's famous, Michael Chabon, the Pulitzer-winning novelist of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay wrote an essay for the New Yorker a while back on the role of the superhero costume.

My favorite part was his description of his own caped crusader transformation during those lazy, hazy summer-day visits to the neighborhood pool. If ever there was an argument for why we should save the community swimming pool it is this:

I became Aztec in the summer of 1973, in Columbia, Maryland, a planned suburban utopia halfway between Smallville and Metropolis. It happened one summer day as I was walking to the swimming pool with a friend. He wore a pair of midnight-blue bathing trunks; my trunks were loud, with patches of pink, orange, gold, and brown overprinted with abstract patterns that we took for Aztec (though they were probably Polynesian). In those days, a pair of bathing trunks did not in the least resemble the baggy board shorts that boys and men wear swimming today. Ours were made of stretchy polyester doubleknit that came down the thigh just past the level of the crotch, and fashion fitted them with a sewn-on, false belt of elastic webbing that buckled at the front with a metal clasp. They looked, in other words, just like the trunks favored by costumed heroes ever since the last son of Krypton came voguing down the super-catwalk, back in 1938. Around our throats we knotted our beach towels (his was blue, mine a fine 1973 shade of burnt orange), those enchanted cloaks whose power Mr. Spector had failed to understand or to recall from his own childhood. They fluttered out behind us, catching the breeze from our imaginations, as Darklord and Aztec walked along.

Darklord carried a sword, and wore a Barbuta helmet, with a flowing crusader cloak and invulnerable chain mail of “lunar steel.” Aztec wore tights and a feathered cloak and wielded a magic staff tipped with obsidian. We had begun the journey that day, through the street-melting, shimmering green Maryland summer morning, as a pair of lonely boys with nothing in common but that loneliness, which we shared with Superman and Batman, who shared it with each other—a fundamental loneliness and a wild aptitude for transformation. But with every step we became Darklord and Aztec a little more surely, a little more irrevocably, transformed by the green-lantern rays of fancy, by the spider bite of inspiration, by the story we were telling each other and ourselves about two costumed superheroes, about the new selves that had been revealed by our secret skin.

Talking, retying the knots of our capes, flip-flops slapping against the soles of our feet, we transformed not only ourselves. In the space of that walk to the pool we also transformed the world, shaping it into a place in which such things were possible: the reincarnation of an Arthurian knight could find solace and partnership in the company of a latter-day Mesoamerican wizard. An entire world of superheroic adventure could be dreamed up by a couple of boys from Columbia, or Cleveland. And the self you knew you contained, the story you knew you had inside you, might find its way like an emblem onto the spot right over your heart. All we needed to do was accept the standing invitation that superhero comics extended to us by means of a towel. It was an invitation to enter into the world of story, to join in the ongoing business of comic books, and, with the knotting of a magical beach towel, to begin to wear what we knew to be hidden inside us.

Middle Schoolers Need More Class Time

That's according to a Maryland education panel looking into the performance of students in grades 6-8.

Here's Nelson Hernandez's account in WaPo:

To improve middle schools, a Maryland education panel proposed yesterday giving students more class time, ensuring they are ready to complete algebra by eighth grade and enrolling them in a foreign language course by sixth grade.

The Maryland Middle School Steering Committee, a 55-member panel of experts that was launched in 2006, delivered 16 recommendations to the state Board of Education to solve long-standing academic challenges reflected in local initiatives and test scores.

In Maryland, about 81 percent of third-graders show proficiency or better on state-sponsored reading tests and 79 percent in math. Among eighth-graders, 68 percent score at least proficient in reading and 57 percent in math. Educators said they think that students who have trouble in middle school are also at greater risk of dropping out when they reach high school.

Other committee proposals to raise academic performance include providing all students with instruction in fine arts; giving students more practical experience with science, technology, engineering and math; and giving teachers more time for collaboration and planning.

The report's suggestions were broad and included no cost estimates.

Here's a link to the full report (pdf).

Two Injured In Fall At Patapsco

From the Associated Press via WJZ's Web site:

Fire officials say a couple was seriously injured when they fell about 50 feet from a rock outcropping at Patapsco Valley State Park.

The incident occurred about 8 p.m. Monday, according to Fire Department spokeswoman Elise Armacost. The couple was sitting on the outcropping in a remote area of the park overlooking the Patapsco River, Armacost said, when the woman stood up, slipped, and her male companion grabbed her. They both fell about 50 feet.

A team of doctors from Shock Trauma was flown to the scene and treated the couple. The victims were flown to Shock Trauma in critical condition, Armacost says.

More Folks Carpool, But Where To Park?

The Sun says the commuter parking lots are filling up, prompting county officials to scramble for options. Commuters are complaining that there are no free spaces by 8 a.m. at the 300-space lots on Broken Land and Route 32. Meanwhile, the County Executive Ken Ulman wants to expand a lot on Snowden River and Route 175.

The plan would add 50 spaces, said county spokesman Kevin Enright. The lot has 210 spaces now.

Though the lots are state-owned, the county is willing to pay for the changes so that they can be completed in the next few weeks, Ulman said.

"The issue from my perspective is that gas prices are over $4," he said. "This is the time that we should be encouraging mass-transit ridership and finding more opportunities to increase that ridership in any way we can."

The State Highway Administration has given the county permission to install bike racks at the Snowden River lot, Ulman said, and the county's Department of Public Works has agreed to hasten a project approved in the capital budget to close a gap in the sidewalk leading up to the lot so that people can walk to it.

And while we are on the subject of parking, here's a reminder: Parking fines in HoCo for violating handicap rules go up from $150 to $350 on July 1.

Police To Target Repeat Offenders

After the spate of shootings and other mayhem comes this response from the PD.

From WaPo:

By Lori Aratani
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 19, 2008; HO03

Career criminals in Howard County: Be aware. The police will be watching you more closely.

The Howard County police department plans a special unit that will focus on repeat offenders in hopes of reducing the county's crime rate. "We want to focus on career criminals," Police Chief William McMahon said. "We know that there's a few people who are causing a lot of problems in our community, crime-wise."

Although Howard's crime rate is relatively low compared with other jurisdictions in the Washington region, the county does experience periodic spikes in certain categories.

McMahon said focusing on repeat offenders will be particularly useful in crimes such as robberies and burglaries, for which perpetrators tend to have higher rates of recidivism. The unit initially will include five officers, and officials expect it will be operating by the end of the year.

Officers will try to identify repeat offenders through surveillance, by being more familiar with the terms of an offender's parole and by working with prosecutors to ensure that repeat offenders get appropriate sentences, McMahon said.

According to two frequently cited studies on recidivism by the U.S. Justice Department, more than two-thirds of released prisoners were arrested again within three years. The studies, conducted in 1983 and 1994 by the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics, show that rates of repeat arrest for offenses involving property, drugs and public order were particularly high.

Police departments as diverse as Detroit and San Antonio have created similar units to help weed out career criminals. Locally, Montgomery and Prince George's counties have units for repeat offenders.

Cpl. Stephen Pacheco, a spokesman for the Prince George's police department, said the unit works on some of the department's highest-profile cases. The group has been part of the department's operations for more than 20 years and works within the criminal investigation unit.

He said officers have collaborated with the auto crimes team to target thieves and recover stolen vehicles. In 2005, members of the unit assisted with the arrest of a rape suspect 20 years after the crime.

Experts such as Todd R. Clear, a distinguished professor of criminal justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, say cracking down on repeat offenders won't necessarily stop crime because other criminals will replace them. The key might lie in which types of repeat offenders are targeted, Clear said.

He said getting a repeat sex offender off the street, for instance, could have a permanent effect on a community's crime rate.

Howard's repeat-offenders unit is one of several new policing strategies included in the county's budget for fiscal 2009. The department, which has 423 sworn officers, expects to add 24 positions, including personnel to its child abuse and domestic violence units and a second officer in the gang awareness unit, McMahon said.

The police chief said he knows the repeat-offenders unit won't be a panacea, but it will send an important message to career criminals.

"We should be smart about how we police, and we should focus on those people causing the most problems," he said.

Rites Of Summer: BMX

Columbia Compass has a fun post on the joys of being a BMX pioneer.

Twenty years, no make that twenty-five years ago, I was deep into Bicycle Moto-Cross (BMX). Like most that grew up in the 1970’s, I learned to ride a bicycle with a banana seat and a sissy bar. As I grew up, I progressed to a Schwinn Sting-Ray with five-speed gear shifter, front shocks, and a rear disc brake. That thing weighed, I would guess, 70 pounds. During this time, it was commonplace for us Wilde Lake neighbor kids to cobble together cinder blocks and plywood to emulate every young boy’s hero, Evel Knievel. Over time, I graduated to the ten-speed.

Then something happened. I found my way back to the smaller 20” single speed bikes. These bikes were made of stronger, lightweight metals. They could take a pounding. They were highly maneuverable and FUN TO RIDE.

Boy that takes us back. We were never into BMX per se, but we lived on our bikes. We rode all over town, and even took a trip or two along sleepy 108 to Tridelphia Reservoir (don't try that today kids). Recently, we pulled the bikes out of the garage to ride over to the club in the cool mornings.

Baby, there's nothing like it.