Dock of the Bay
To Find Roots, Dig Deep
African American heritage abounds at Kunta Kinte Festival
History is mortared into the very foundation of Annapolis, in old houses with stories to tell; memorials that pinpoint nationally-recognized history right into city buildings; and familiar places like City Dock, where remembering the past has become a tradition. Its history with black roots as well as white.
Also a tradition is Annapoliss 15th Annual Kunta Kinte Heritage Festival, commemorating the enslaved arrival of Kunta Kinte to Annapolis almost 240 years ago and celebrating Marylands deep ties to African, African American and African Caribbean cultures.
This weekend at the Anne Arundel County Fairgrounds, $5 will immerse you in Africas cultures with gospel, funk, R&B, steel drum, jazz and calypso music and African dance; a marketplace with more than 60 arts and crafts vendors; story tellers and poets; mud-cloth painting, mask making and beading; and, of course, varieties of ethnic cuisine.
If you dont get your fill on art and entertainment, dive into the informal history lessons scattered throughout the festival about African American contributions, performers, artists and African culture.
23rd Annual Cancer Gala Outshines Itself
Good weather, good food, good company made for record-breaking night
Fall visited Chesapeake Country to add one more delight for the 1,800 party-goers who packed the Rod n Reel complex in Chesapeake Beach for lobster, champagne, prime rib, mountains of desserts and even more champagne and lobster.
But the surprisingly cool weather, lavish spread, open bars and live music werent the only reasons drawing the hundreds of well-heeled guests. They were there to help fight cancer.
All in all, Calvert Countys 23th annual Celebration of Life was good enough to raise more than $300,000 for the American Cancer Society far surpassing the stated goal of $275,000. It was good enough to show that life is sweet despite the long shadow of sorrow.
This is the best event weve done, said Rod n Reel owner and Chesapeake Beach mayor Gerald Donovan, who with his brother Fred, founded the Gala in memory of their father who died of cancer. It was overwhelming.
The 2004 Gala raised $80,000 more than last year and pushed the 23-year total well over the $2 million mark to $2,240,000.
Forty percent of the money benefits Calvert County directly, including programs such as Road to Recovery, where cancer patients are driven to and from treatments by volunteers, and Look Good
Feel Better, where cosmetologists help women survivors redefine their beauty.
Maryland researchers also share in the bounty, which enables them to continue hunting down the killer (see Bay Weekly Vol. XI, No. 31 and Vol. XII, No. 29).
Because of their work, Donovan says he hopes that this is the one of the last Galas hell have to host.
I hope one day not to have to do this, he said. And I hope that day is soon.
Once his wish comes true, the people who lined up for champagne and lobster year after year are likely to insist on one last celebratory Gala.
Act Five in The Seige of Calvert
Biggest box stores successfully resisted
Calvert is a county where the roots of tradition hold fast against the onslaught of change. So it is fitting that the biggest drama of this new century the countys seige by Big Box stores has played out by ancient theatrical rules.
Alien armies laid seige in Act One. The seige was Wal-Marts proposed double-pronged expansion. The existing 91,000 square-foot Prince Frederick store sought to supersize by more than 100,000 square feet. In Dunkirk a dozen miles north, a new 160,000-square-foot store would rise.
Swords had clashed in Act Three, as developers maneuvered and citizens took sides. In Acts Two and Four, the plot thickened.
Finally, in Act Five, staged at the seat of local government this week, order was restored though not without concession to the forces of change.
The forces of order were the countys five elected commissioners, who voted nearly unanimously in their August 10 meeting against supersizing the big box stores. Their decisions are now law in the fast-growing county.
In keeping with pre-20th century dramatic conventions, there was no blood letting on stage. But out of public view, said Commissioner Susan Shaw, blood was shed.
The commissioners votes on nine separate amendments to the county zoning code by and large accepted the recommendations of the countys citizen Planning Commission.
Size was the basic issue, and on that front the commissioners set different maximums for larger and smaller town centers.
Boxes can be biggest in Prince Frederick, the towns geographic and political center. There, by the meets most divided vote, commissioners voted 3-to-2 to set the maximum at 125,000 square feet. A new requirement that local businesses be co-located to such big boxes would add 20 percent to the complex, for a total of 144,000 square feet.
Im a small-town kind of guy and I want Calvert County to preserve its local base with uniqueness and quality. But Im a realist, too, said Commissioner Jerry Clark, in agreeing to bigger boxes than, he said, personally Id like.
With Linda Kelley and Shaw, Owens was on the winning side. Commissioners David Hale and Wilson Parran, the nos, would have allowed bigger boxes.
In smaller town centers Solomons, Lusby, Dunkirk 75,000 is the new max, plus 20 percent for attached small businesses. In smaller Huntingtown and St. Leonard, the new allowable base is 25,000 square feet. In Owings, the size drops to 15,000 square feet.
Outside of town centers, in the few zones allowing big stores, size is limited to 25,000 square feet.
All the bigger boxes must also meet appearance and up-keep standards for as long as the store stands, occupied or not. And they must also guarantee roads adequate to the traffic they generate.
Wal-Mart was never named on the record during the hour-and-a half discussion and vote. But the new rules effectively return both its Dunkirk and Prince Frederick plans to the drawing board.
All of Calverts existing biggest boxes but one, Sneades in Owings, fit neatly in the new order:
1. Wal-Mart, Prince Frederick: 91,400
2. Kmart, Prince Frederick: 86,500
3. Safeway, Prince Frederick: 55,300
4. Giant, Prince Frederick: 52,400
5. Safeway, Dunkirk: 48,800
6. Food Lion, Prince Frederick: 37,900
7. Food Lion, Solomons: 37,200
8. Peebles, Prince Frederick: 35,000
9, 10. Sneades Hardware in Owings and Lusby, each about 22,000.
Forestry officials in Indonesia say that whats happening is a huge orangutan smuggling operation, and there might be something to it, judging by what a police spokesman told Reuters: The monkey boxing shows have been ordered to stop because they [the combatants] are evidence in a lawsuit.
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