Carpenters In The Forehead/

   Cruising The Alleys & Conversation With Cumberland’s Guy Noir-wannabe

Dear Readers:  We left off on the first installment of this picaresque adventure with plans to talk to Mr. Guy Noir-wannabe once again about his background and current investigation in the Cumberland area.

Recently, I was informed that my four-year-old is intellectually advanced; "gifted," if you will. Rather than being instilled with feelings of excitement, however, I was instead overcome with anxiety. My husband's and my pride for our son was tempered with worries for his future. Why? Because of the state of our public school systems.

I am faced with two options:

• Place my family under further financial strain in order to provide my son with the best education available for the longest possible period of time before my husband and I are forced to relegate him to public schooling;
• or, decide that, sooner or later, my child will have to learn to accept and cope with the disappointments and failings of a government-funded school system, so it is better to throw him ...

Carpenters In The Forehead/  Almighty Alcohol

Dear Delegate Kelly:  In reading about your total opposition to any new taxes, I would like to ask you to consider some basic facts in regard to the efforts in the Maryland legislature to raise the tax on alcohol, This is done in the hope that a review of this information might convince you to reconsider your intransigent approach to taxes.

Carpenters In The Forehead/

It’s Child Abuse, No Matter Where,

And

Egyptian Women Have A Long Row To Hoe

There was a story in the Washington Post the other day about a young woman in Egypt who had published an Arabic-language comic-book based on the writings of Martin Luther King, Jr.   His philosophy of non-violent confrontation was very appealing to her, and while the gist of the feature article was about sharing the message of Martin Luther King, Jr. with other activists, she also spoke of using the technique of Dr. King in convincing her uncle to forego having his daughter circumcised.

Say what?

The perception I had in my mind from some years back, when I first read about female “circumcision,” was that it happened only ...