I think that it’s a ridiculous sign of my insensitivity and dorkness that when I read this story the line that outraged me and made me say (aloud) “That’s completely ridiculous!” wasn’t ‘Police say [Jason] Griffith first assaulted his wife in the kitchen, then tried to drag her upstairs. The two argued in a bedroom there.’ No, what got my attention was ‘Griffith fired a .40-caliber bullet into the computer.’

I mean, that poor defenseless computer …

(And that woman with the violent husband needs to move, right quick. Where was he at two AM? I bet he didn’t shoot his girlfriend’s computer!*)

*Sheer speculation on my account.

I grew up just outside of DC, and maybe that’s why I’ve always had this irrational fear of “big cities.” But this isn’t about my fears, rather, how I’m coming to think that it isn’t irrational to be afraid of Baltimore City. Maybe I’m just being reactionary, maybe my soft suburban self is just whiny and scared. I know that crime and random violence can touch my life up in Timonium as easily as it can across the city line, but things like this certainly don’t help convince me that Baltimore is a safe town. (more…)

If you could make one generalization about the crime problem in Baltimore from watching TV shows like “The Wire”, it’s that a whole lot of people are doing a lot of craaaazy chemicals. Of course, you can’t force someone to clean themselves up, but Stone Hawk is a drug rehabilitation and alcohol detox clinic staffed by ex-addicts who are trying to give back because once, someone cared enough about them to help break their addiction. Yeah, it might not be the closest place, but when you’re trying to break someone from an addiction, you’re probably more concerned with quality of service, not location.

I think I’ve had to read “A Rose For Emily” half a dozen times for various English classes. Great story about a divorced-from- reality fat former Southern socialite with a penchant for keeping corpses in her house, and this article in yesterday’s The Baltimore Sun calls it to mind: (more…)

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