[Chat] comings and goings, random chat

[Emil Volcheck]

Hello, friends,

I've been saving up various items to write about.


Comings and Goings

Elisabeth DuVerlie finished serving as secretary at Homewood Friends
and has returned to her previous career as an independent consultant
in international affairs.  She is leaving soon for Kosovo (former
Yugoslavia) to work with journalists on a project funded by USAID.

We have a new neighbor, Joe Clarke He and his wife (Michelle? I can't
remember) moved in to 3039 Guilford recently.  Joe is an attorney who
works in landlord-tenant law representing property owners and
managers.  We met at the annual Sunday brunch for the 3000 block of
Guilford.  I talked to Joe briefly about the problems that Charles
Village has with Section 8 housing residents dealing drugs and how
hard it can be to evict them unless you catch them in the act
right on the property, and he was well aware of these legal issues.

In case you hadn't heard, our neighbors from across the street Sarah
and Joel Wilson have moved to DC.  The commute got to be too much for
them.  We miss them!  (And not just because they let us watch The Wire
on their TV.)

Also, some months back John Shields moved out of his house on the 3100
block of Guilford to an apartment in Roland Park.  He tells me that he
spends so much time at Gertrude's that he's still in Charles Village
12 hours a day!

My friend Owen Gwilliam has moved to Remington with his girlfriend Sophie
to a house around the corner from Dizzy Izzy's.  Owen, Sophie, and
Owen's mother came along with me and John Spurrier on the Old Goucher
House Tour a few months back.  They were favorably impressed by
Charles Village.  Sophie is teaching with Teach For America
here in Baltimore.  I heard that her first class had close to
40 students.  What a challenge.

By the way, while I'm thinking of education, George Soros' challenge
grant to Baltimore is still running.  If the Open Society Institute
Baltimore receives $20 million, then Soros will match that with $10
million.  Their website is

    http://www.soros.org/initiatives/baltimore  .

His institute funds the Urban Debate League among other worthy
projects.  And let's not forget the stand he took in the most recent
presidential elections.


Blogs

I seem to find more and more blogs on the net.  I come across them
when I Google search on various local things.  Here's an funny posting
from a local blogger:

http://thisisyoursignal.blogspot.com/

    America is apparently completely dogshit ugly. There's a make-over
    show somewhere for somebody all hours of the day. And I mean on every
    cable station, even during the program scroll on the T.V. Guide
    Channel. She-geeks, middle-aged moms, straight men, and even people
    who think they vaguely resemble a B-list celebrity get their buff,
    polish and fifteen minutes thanks to legions of fay stylists on
    sabattical from the Hamptons . Christ, I'm sure if I watched more
    Animal Planet, there's probably a makeover show for dogs. (A
    "make-rover", if you will.)

Liberty Waits on Your Fingers

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has a page devoted to the civil
rights of bloggers:

    http://www.eff.org/bloggers/

with a clever WWII-style poster with the text 

    Liberty Waits on _Your_ Fingers
    Keep on Blogging!




That's all for now.

--Emil




-- 
Emil Volcheck
volcheck at acm.org
http://acm.org/~volcheck