Wednesday, May 11, 2011

This week in The Tentacle: http://www.thetentacle.com

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Kevin E. Dayhoff

The fourth chief executive officer of Walmart, and Georgia Institute of Technology graduate Michael Terry Duke has challenged the Spring 2011 graduating class of Georgia Tech to follow three key ingredients to leadership and use three guideposts as they embark on their lives and careers.

Wonderment at Tuscarora High

Norman M. Covert

Yes, I was not at the Frederick Fairgrounds Saturday. If it was running you wanted to see, Tuscarora High School was the place to see more than 800 young athletes. Word about the Frederick Striders’ 2011 Track and Field Invitational must have been in the classified section, as if it mattered.

Time to Come Home

Tom McLaughlin

Kuching, Malaysian Borneo – First he was a politician. He wanted to create an empire that began with Pakistan and Afghanistan, and then spread worldwide. He tried in Saudi Arabia and Sudan but was asked to leave both of those countries. His own family, the bin Ladens, disowned him. Maybe.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Unseemly Celebration

Roy Meachum

Monday’s Washington Post front page ran two stories; inside, a column, an article on SEAL Team 6 and even a cartoon drawn after Osama bin Laden was killed. The New York Times was more restrained: reviews of books about the Special Forces team.

First on the Minds of Our Countrymen

Shawn Burns

Spending cuts are a good thing. Addressing and cutting government waste is also a good thing. Who doesn’t get annoyed about hearing that a couple hundred thousand dollars was spent to study the mating habits of salmon?

Content is the Engine

Nick Diaz

The problem begins in elementary school. What I have found in 40-plus years of teaching upper elementary and middle school math is that students’ difficulties in high school and college math stem from their failure to understand the most basic mathematical concepts.

Monday, May 9, 2011

King of the Straw Men

Richard B. Weldon Jr.

Some politicians thrive on bold, brash action. Others create their political success on grand visions and the ability to share that insight with voters.

Hiding in Plain Sight?

Steven R. Berryman

Ian Fleming could have written the script. Our Navy SEALs could have been portrayed by Chuck Norris, Steven Segal, Charles Bronson, and Vin Diesel.

65 Roses

Michael Kurtianyk

May is Cystic Fibrosis Awareness Month. It’s time our local community shines a spotlight on finding a cure.

Friday, May 6, 2011

My Best Friend’s Spring

Roy Meachum

Pushkin turns the human equivalent of 91 years on July 9, a little over two months from now. He was born in 1998, twelve weeks before I turned 70.

Living and Reliving History

Joe Charlebois

I wept. I wept all alone in a Residence Inn in Marietta, Georgia. I was in a week-long training class when the news reached us. It was September 11, 2001; and, after being dismissed from our class early, I spent the next seven hours in my hotel suite overcome with disbelief.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Getting Priorities Straight

Amanda Haddaway

I’m always amazed at what the mainstream media deems relevant, newsworthy and important. With so many things going on around the world each day, producers and editors have very difficult jobs in determining what makes the cut.

Back to Work Building Schools

Blaine R. Young

During the summer and fall of 2010 I campaigned from one end of Frederick County to the other. I knocked on doors, talked to people at fire halls, picnics, carnivals and just walking down the street. What I heard most was that we need to put the people back to work in the private sector.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Gunfight at the Abbottabad Compound

Kevin E. Dayhoff

In the dark depths of a moonless night, at 1 a.m. Monday morning, Osama bin Laden, 54, the elusive leader of the global terrorist cabal al-Qaeda was brought to justice by an elite U.S. Special Forces team in Pakistan’s Abbottabad Valley.

Schools Health & Safety – An Empty Tool Kit

Norman M. Covert

It is difficult to imagine that Frederick County Public Schools (FCPS) facilities Services Division Director Ray Barnes can’t wring enough budget fluff from the $506 million operating budget to make simple repairs at schools like North Frederick and Emmitsburg Elementary or Frederick High School where health and safety is a genuine issue.

A Trump from the Donald

Tom McLaughlin

Kuching, Malaysian Borneo – Donald Trump, the current front runner for the Republican nomination according to this morning’s Borneo Post via theAssociated Press, has blasted Barack Obama for not doing enough to have China adjust its currency. According to him and many others, the president should continue to apply pressure on Beijing to make the Renminbi more expensive.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Baksheesh and bin Laden

Roy Meachum

The world almost universally praised Barack Obama for accomplishing the elimination of Osama bin Laden in a little more than two years, accomplishing a feat George W. Bush failed to pull off in eight years.

Challenging Flawed Legislation

Farrell Keough

Let’s cut to the chase – the bill passed last month by our General Assembly, Public Institutions of Higher Education – Tuition Rates – Exemptions (SB 167/HB 460), not only contravenes federal law, but it harms all citizens in the State of Maryland – both personally and financially.

Repercussions for Tight Fiscal Fists

Earl 'Rocky' Mackintosh

"Heartless, inhumane, and cruel" are just a few of the words used to describe the Frederick Board of County Commissioners as they have come closer to finalizing the budget for fiscal year 2012.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Dumb Games

Richard B. Weldon Jr.

At the April 26 Board of County Commissioners work session, Board President Blaine Young and long-serving Commissioner David Gray got into a little manhood contest over the budget.

The Simple Folk

Steven R. Berryman

What do the “simple folk do,” as Robert Goulet and Richard Burton asked in the musical, “Camelot?” Seems that two-billion of us “commoners” happily basked in bloody old England’s glory days.

Of Birthers and Certers

Michael Kurtianyk

So, at long last, President Barack Obama has released his birth certificate. Now will the “birthers” and “certers” please shut up?

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