Citizen Crime Blog

Baltimore Crime

Marcie Jones Brennan started Baltimore Crime, which tracks breaking
news and criminal-justice issues, after a possible murder near her
Hampden house went unreported. Initially intended for friends and
neighbors, it remains a go-to site for crime coverage, somehow winding a
(sharply tongued) narrative thread through it all. The blog’s Facebook
group is chock full of web, print, TV, and radio journos, as well as
officials such as city State’s Attorney Greg Bernstein. baltimorecrime.blogspot.com.

County Reporter

Bryan Sears

His outlet, Patch.com, may or may not be here to stay. But there
isn’t another reporter covering Baltimore County who has Bryan Sears’s
insider knowledge of the County Council and county government. After
years with Patuxent Publishing, the life-long county resident left for
Patch (the AOL-owned web of county news sites) in 2010, and he’s been
breaking local news ever since. It was Sears, who also serves as regular
political commentator on local radio, who reported this summer that
Dundalk Councilman John Olszewski Sr. failed to disclose his employment
with a local contractor, per county ethics rules, for two years. “I
appreciate you bringing it to my attention,” Olszewski told Sears.

Crime Reporter

Justin Fenton

Baltimore City’s 100th homicide happened in June and was recorded in a
tweet by Justin Fenton, lead crime reporter for The Baltimore Sun (and
multiple Best-of honoree). It’s not surprising, given that Fenton—in
addition to his numerous, comprehensive stories covering crime for the
print newspaper—has posted some 20,000-plus tweets and earned 11,000
followers. While social media is often a playground of babble, Fenton
has developed it into a savvy, professional, and empathetic reporting
tool. He gives us the news, sure, but also shares bits of information
about the city’s murder victims, reminding us that our fallen citizens
are more than just numbers on a police report.

Exposé

The Sun on Baltimore City Speed Cameras

Those who’ve been wrongfully tagged by one of the city’s more than 80
speed cameras owe a small debt to The Baltimore Sun reporters Scott
Calvert and Luke Broadwater. Since last November, the pair has been
shedding light on Baltimore’s mutinous speed cameras, chronicling the
stories of responsible drivers mailed erroneous tickets. Their
multiple-month investigation persuaded the city to replace the old
cameras with upgraded models, but even that wasn’t enough—as of April,
all speed cameras keeping watch over city streets have been shut down.
The entire program was suspended after fresh reports surfaced of tickets
issued to drivers who, you guessed it, weren’t speeding. Print
journalism and shoe-leather reporting today might be dragging some, but
it ain’t dead yet.

Fake Twitter Account

Not Buck Showalter

It’s hard to describe this Twitter handle. Just go to Twitter and
follow this guy. Whomever he (or she) is. He’s certainly not Buck,
though. He’s also not the anti-Buck, but rather an awesomely deranged
alter-ego of the Orioles’ generally level-headed manager. “Not Buck’s”
play-by-play and side comments—full of encyclopedic baseball
factoids—range from completely off-the-wall to 140-character mocking
satire to brilliantly off-color cracks. Sample Tweet from the series
with the Astros: “Remember when Houston’s stadium was called Enron
Field?? LOL, how’d that work out??” And, maybe our favorite: “What a
game/night . . . Woke up with my pants off in a ditch. What?” @NotShowalter.

Geek Speak

Technical.ly Baltimore

Started in 2012, Technical.ly Baltimore is a daily online news site
that covers, in general, how technology is making Baltimore a better
place. Baltimore is certainly not Silicon Valley, but it’s not just
mobile advertising giant Millennial Media either. Technical.ly Baltimore
did a five-part series on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection
Act, or CISPA, which privacy and civil-liberties groups have railed
against for some time. They also did a two-part piece on Western High
School’s RoboDoves, the all-female robotics team that competed in the
world robotics championships in April. technical.ly/Baltimore

Investigative Series

WBFF on Digicon

Fox-affiliate WBFF won nine regional Emmy’s this year—tops in the
market—including best investigative series honors for reporter Melinda
Roeder and producer Stephen Janis for their work on City Hall’s
“disconnect” over phone contracts. Fox broke the news that city
Technology Office Chief of Staff Damien Sharp failed to disclose on
ethics forms—as required by law—that he’d been previously employed by
Digicon, which had received a no-bid contract from the Mayor’s office.
Sharp was forced to resign. His predecessor, former tech chief Rico
Singleton, was similarly forced to resign after a scandal with
Singleton’s previous employer, the state of New York, came to light.

Liquor Beat

Booze News

A new Community Law Center blog, the Booze News, covers the
under-reported happenings of the Baltimore City Liquor Board—for
example, the granting of a liquor license for Baltimore’s coming casino
without proper documentation. Weekly posts are written by Law Center
attorney Christina Schoppert Devereux and also posted on the Baltimore
Brew’s homepage with additional commentary. For years, the Law Center
has been representing neighborhoods in hearings at the Liquor Board,
which received a scathing audit this spring from the General Assembly’s
legislative services arm. The report found, for example, that 202
licensees received no inspections at all in the past year. Something
tells us they’ll be more diligent now.

Media Maven

Z on TV

The Baltimore Sun’s lost a lot of talent, but thankfully not David
Zurawik. “Z” covers media in way that is both meaningful and a good
read. Armed with a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of
Maryland, Zurawik thoughtfully examines the narratives that shape news
coverage. He’s been a panelist on CNN’s Sunday talk show, Reliable
Sources, for years. He’s also been heard on WYPR since 1994 on Thursday
mornings. Whether discussing coverage of the NSA leak scandal and Edward
Snowden, MASN’s Orioles broadcasts, the death of James Gandolfini, or
the way Netflix is changing television with shows such as House of
Cards, Zurawik remains a rare journalist whose work is compelling across
print, social media, TV, and radio.

Radio: Old School

WEAA’s The Marc Steiner Show

This year marks the 20th anniversary of The Marc Steiner Show, a
remarkable achievement in a fickle industry. Steiner has mastered
nonprofit media with his Center for Emerging Media, allowing him to
pursue in-depth journalism.

Radio: New School

The City that Breeds Podcast

Like the blog, which epitomizes snark, the podcast is more than
frivolity. It’s serious Baltimore news cracked open with a six-pack of
Natty Boh, which gives Evan and co-host Dennis the Cynic room to tell it
like it is.

TV Journalist

Deborah Weiner

The WBAL weekend anchor and I-Team member possesses that rare
combination of professionalism, versatility, and institutional knowledge
of Baltimore and its culture. Weiner grew up here and eventually
returned after earning her master’s degree from Northwestern’s Medill
School of Journalism. Nominated for a regional Emmy this year for her
work exposing a Timonium “pill mill,” she won an Emmy for her overall
writing. Last year, she produced “Rebounding From Loss,” a documentary
that followed the Benjamin Franklin High basketball team after the
shooting death of one of its players. Whether anchoring or covering
Preakness, she never hits a wrong note (cover photo).

New Column

“City Folk”

Launched a little more than a year ago, City Paper’s “City Folk”
column, offers a slice of Charm City life through Baltimore’s work-a-day
characters—the cops, con men, costume makers, and funeral workers—of
which there is no short supply. Whether it’s about a recovering drug
addict who now works for the same courts that once sentenced him to
jail, a 70-year-old former Romper Room teacher, or an Under Armour
marketing department employee taking a shot at Nashville fame, the
pieces provide insight into not just the person profiled but the city
itself.

Play-By-Play

Jim Palmer and Gary Thorne

Doubt how good these guys are? Listen to Washington’s announcers when
the O’s and Nats mix it up during inter-league play. If there’s a knock
on Palmer, it’s that he’s an over-explainer. But there’s no question
the Hall-of-Famer knows his stuff. He also knows his way around a
metaphor, describing a hanging curveball to Manny Machado earlier this
year as “churning like a cement mixer.” Sure, the broadcasts are fun
again because the team is playing good ball, but listening to
Palmer—with the team for nearly 50 years—and Thorne has also become a
real pleasure for O’s fan.

Zine: Old School

Smile, Hon, You’re in Baltimore!

Published 16 times by Eight Stone Press since its launch a decade
ago, Smile, Hon, You’re in Baltimore! harkens back to when cheap
photocopying and punk rock came together in a burst of DIY creativity
and publishing. But that’s only one reason to love this zine. Issues are
built around Baltimore-centric themes—like alleyways, the harbor,
crime, and ghosts.

Zine: New School

What Weekly Magazine

Documenting the city’s renaissance, What Weekly’s collective of
artists, entrepreneurs, educators, and writers produce media “dedicated
to telling the positive stories about Baltimore.” The mission: “to
create positive social change by amplifying the good stuff.” What we
really like about What Weekly are the killer images and photography.

Political Marriage

Lisa Harris Jones and Sean R. Malone

Lawyers in love—it’s the stuff of TV melodrama, right? But when news
broke that Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake officiated the Las Vegas
wedding of friend and longtime lobbyist Lisa Jones to fellow lobbying
partner Sean Malone this summer, the story opened Baltimoreans’ eyes to
the kind of behind-the-scenes personal relationships, and yes, even
marriages, that shape city politics. The Brew reported that in 2011,
Jones and Malone—long part of Gov. Martin O’Malley’s circle of
friends—combined to pull in almost $1.5 million just in state-level
lobbying work. Their clients read like a “Who’s Who” of companies doing
business in front of the City Council and Maryland General Assembly.

Political Website

Maryland Reporter

Edited and published by Len Lazarick, the nonprofit website Maryland
Reporter covers state politics and the General Assembly with unusual
breadth and depth. A former Washington Post national copy desk editor,
Lazarick later served as State House bureau chief for the Baltimore
Examiner until its demise. Maryland Reporter provides original
reporting, roundups of political news, a blog, and newsy podcasts—all
done with professionalism.

Provocateur

Baltimore Brew

A glance at the Baltimore Brew will tell readers the online pub is
unapologetic about throwing punches in its commentaries and reported
pieces. For the most part, those punches—questioning Harbor Point
development tax credits and calling out Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s
support for the now failed “Superblock,” for example, are above the
belt. The Brew’s at its best tackling the city’s underreported stories.
baltimorebrew.com.

Public Campaign

Ray of Hope

It’s hard to find a pro-football player who can speak believably
about being bullied, but with Ray Rice—all 5-foot-8 of him—students
relate to the undersized kid who made it big. Last year, he brought his
free Ray of Hope event to Merriweather Post Pavilion and he continues
his pro-kindness, anti-bullying efforts. Rice also provided written
testimony to the Maryland House Judiciary Committee in support of an
anti-cyber-bullying bill, nicknamed “Grace’s Law,” after a 15-year-old
Howard County girl who committed suicide.

Redesign

Johns Hopkins Magazine

Alumni mags aren’t always the first thing we pick up, but we really
like Johns Hopkins Magazine, especially since its redesign. It’s clean,
using proverbial “white space” for a sharp, sophisticated look. And it
seems the art, from cover photographs to inside illustrations, has taken
a leap forward as well. The magazine is strongest when its
features——such as recent cover stories on Hopkins grad Loren Stein
taking over at The Paris Review connect Hopkins alums or Hopkins-related
work with the larger world.

Scandal

Jail Sex

Of all the unfathomable news that lands on our radar, reports that an
inmate at the Baltimore City Detention Center impregnated four female
prison guards remains in a class by itself. We knew of smuggling
contraband and corrupt guards, but we had no idea of the amount of
sexual “contact” between inmates, particularly between one Tavon
“Bulldog” White, and staff. Beyond the salaciousness, the scandal
highlighted the control of the prison by the Black Guerilla Family,
whose handiwork in Baltimore has been well chronicled by the City
Paper’s Van Smith.

Journalist-In-Exile

Scott Shane

Each week, a tribe of Baltimore journalists boards the Washington
MARC train to report on national, even international, events. For
example, Julie Bykowicz, who covered state politics and government for a
decade at The Sun, reports on money and influence for Bloomberg News,
while longtime City Paper editor-in-chief Lee Gardner serves as senior
editor at The Chronicle of Higher Education. But no one does more
essential reporting than former Sun reporter Scott Shane in The New York
Times’s Washington bureau, where he’s established himself as one of the
leading U.S. journalists on intelligence and national security issues. A
Pulitzer Prize finalist for his work on torture and interrogation,
Shane’s byline is on the Times’s front page regularly, with stories on
everything from drone strikes to the National Security Agency leaks.

Talking Heads

Square Off

Four years ago, and after a dozen years off the air, Richard Sher’s
award-winning Square Off returned to TV—this time on WMAR-TV. (The
show’s original 19-year run was on WJZ-TV.) And it’s been a welcome
return. Every Sunday morning, Sher tackles national crises—or city
issues—with local guests. There simply aren’t that many venues in which
to see someone such as city State’s Attorney Gregg L. Bernstein, former
Mayor Sheila Dixon, or Sen. Ben Cardin mix it up for 30 minutes with
area attorneys, clergy, and activists.

Watchdog

Carol Ott

For four years, Carol Ott has exposed the owners of boarded-up,
vacant homes and buildings around the city through her Baltimore
Slumlord Watch blog, digging deep into housing records to discover the
landlords ignoring their dilapidated properties. Now, she has launched a
new project, the nonprofit Housing Policy Watch, partnering with
Baltimore Neighborhoods Inc., through which she will work on safe and
healthy housing-policy issues and legislation.

Winning Cause

Scrapping the New Juvenile Jail

A sustained effort by youth advocates convinced the O’Malley
administration not to build a new $70 million, 120-bed jail for
Baltimore youth offenders, believing more youth jail space inevitably
leads to more incarcerated youth. Led by religious leaders—alongside
groups like Advocates for Children and Youth, and Leaders of a Beautiful
Struggle—protests reversed what seemed like a done deal. Ultimately,
the goal is to pump more funds into programs that help kids avoid
trouble in the first place. Short-term, the state is working on
alternative programs for nonviolent youth offenders—and ways to keep
violent youth offenders out of adult prisons.

Exposé: City Paper’s “Keeping Secrets”

City Paper’s shocking story about a Fells Point barkeep accused of raping two young girls shed a harsh light on the disconnect between mental-health services in Maryland and the justice system. Suffering from dementia, Douglas Lester Sexton of the JHJ Saloon had remained free despite the allegations because he was deemed unfit to stand trial. However, the sickening stories from his accusers, as described in Edward Ericson Jr.’s unblinking exposé on the case, forced the state to reevaluate. Sexton was deemed fit to stand trial by a group of psychiatrists and his trial date, set for this summer, reminds us all of the impact of good journalism.

Farce: The General Assembly’s budget talks

The last day of the legislative session is usually a joyous occasion. Legislators in Annapolis work until midnight passing a long list of last-minute bills. When the clock strikes 12, the General Assembly adjourns to cheers and a balloon drop. Not so this year. With the House of Delegates and Senate butting heads over the state budget and a bill to expand gambling, time ran out on the legislature. Both houses failed to pass a final budget, by default triggering millions in cuts, largely to education, and leading Gov. Martin O’Malley to fume to reporters at 2 a.m. about the legislature’s failure. A special session was eventually called in May and the budget resolved, but it was a prime example of bureaucratic gridlock at its worst. Next year, bring back the balloons.

Grace Under Pressure: Gerry Sandusky

For almost a year, longtime Baltimore sports personality and Ravens announcer Gerry Sandusky has been in the unenviable (to put it mildly) position of sharing the same name (minus one letter) as convicted child sex offender (and former Penn State coach) Jerry Sandusky. To complicate matters further, both men work in football; Gerry’s father, who played for the Cleveland Browns, is named John; and Jerry’s son, who works for the Cleveland Browns, is named Jon. Despite receiving more than his fair share of hate mail, Sandusky has handled the situation with equanimity and grace. He hasn’t gotten angry over dirty looks when he introduces himself nor annoyed by the recurring question of whether or not the two men are related. Instead, Sandusky has taken the ordeal in stride, posting on his website the 20 lessons he learned from the experience and writing to his Twitter followers: “I really do appreciate those of you who have helped me inform the world of the powerful difference between the letter G and the letter J.”

Investigative Series: “Judging the Judges,” WBAL-TV

When lead investigative reporter for WBAL-TV, Jayne Miller, comes calling, it’s probably not going to be your best day. That was the case when Miller and her team trained their sights on derelict judges who get away with serious ethics violations. What they found was a system shielded from the public, in which judges remain on the bench with nothing more than a slap on the wrist for actions such as drunk driving. The investigative series didn’t go unnoticed either. Legislators in Annapolis took notice, including Baltimore City Sen. Lisa Gladden, who questioned why there was such little transparency, as did the Radio Television Digital News Association, which awarded the station this year’s national Edward R. Murrow Award for Investigative Reporting.

Live Tribute: Jim Palmer on Mike Flanagan

When word began to spread that former Orioles pitcher Mike Flanagan had committed suicide at age 59, Jim Palmer was calling the Orioles game. It was August 24, and there was still about an hour left to go. Despite the loss of a close friend and former teammate, Palmer stayed at his microphone until the very end, only allowing himself to cry during a candid live moment after the game. “I can’t tell you how much he’ll be missed,” Palmer said, averting his bloodshot eyes from the camera. Palmer went on to share anecdotes about his colleague and friend in one of the most touching moments of live television ever.

Meteorologist: Tim Williams of WJZ-TV

You know those old Westerns where the mayor is also the sheriff and the banker? That’s sort of how Tim Williams operates at WJZ-TV. Not only does he know how to work a green screen like a champ, he’s a personable and authoritative anchor as well. Beginning at 6 a.m. every weekend, the broadcast veteran juggles breaking news and the weather as he puts on his anchor hat and readily switches it for his meteorologist hat, without breaking a sweat.

Media Columnist: David Zurawik

Of course, there’s no shortage of media columnists at national publications or on the latest shout-fest on cable news, but The Sun’s David Zurawik has carved a niche for himself with his take-no-prisoners approach. Having laid into NBC’s hiring of Chelsea Clinton as a special correspondent (calling it “journalistic bankruptcy”) and blasted Fox News as “shamelessly political,” Zurawik trains his sights on both left and right. Although more conservative than most commentators at The Sun, he’s no ideologue. And when Ron Smith was dying of cancer last year, Zurawik wrote about the radio giant’s career with eloquence and compassion. He has become a must-read at the paper.

New Website: Baltimore Fishbowl

Mining Charm City beneath the surface, this news-and-lifestyle website covers everything from money and power to culture and shopping. Updated daily and with a sleek design, Baltimore Fishbowl (baltimorefishbowl.com) has a lively and chatty tone that’s ideal for an online magazine. It’s also introduced us to the hilarious Marion Winik, whose “Bohemian Rhapsody” column——on sex, parenting, and entering middle age with grace——is an absolute hoot.

Parenting Guide: (cool) progeny

Sure, you could read the national parenting websites, but you’re cool enough to be a parent in Baltimore! Enter (cool) progeny (coolprogeny.com). With a colorful design and easy-to-navigate tabs, local parents can find everything from tips for healthy eating and style advice for the kids to networking opportunities for parents. The team of editors and writers (full disclosure, our own Baltimore Bride editor, Janelle Erlichman Diamond, is among them) are parents themselves and know the importance of keeping the little ones busy, so there’s a regular listing of family fun events in the region, as well.

Play By Play: WBAL Radio

Spend some time listening to play-by-play in other cities and you’ll come to appreciate the subtle, authoritative voices on WBAL. It’s the lack of overt homerism we like best. These guys—Joe Angel and Fred Manfra for the O’s and Gerry Sandusky and Stan White for the Ravens—are professional but fair. Yeah, they get appropriately excited when the Orioles hit a homerun or Flacco throws a TD pass, but there’s no grousing about how the refs have it in for us and no insane outbursts of overt emotion. Don’t take these pros for granted: It’s a rare and wonderful thing in sports to have such dignified voices on the air.

Political Website: MarylandReporter.com

This online news site has given traditional media outlets a run for their money. Edited and published by the former Annapolis bureau chief for The Baltimore Examiner, Len Lazarick, MarylandReporter.comhas made waves with its coverage of issues that largely fly under the radar of the traditional press. Its reporting focuses heavily on issues dealing with transparency and ethics. To wit: Its series of stories on one state agency’s mishandling (and subsequent coverup) of $38 million in funds earmarked for the disabled earned MarylandReporter.com a nod from the Society of Professional Journalists.

PR Move: Denise Whiting goes on TV

Two years ago, it would have been easy to peg Denise Whiting as one of the most-hated people in Baltimore. The owner of Hampden’s Cafe Hon had racked up a number of enemies after her absurd attempt to trademark the word “hon.” Reaction was so negative that her business began to falter, and her staff began to question her leadership. All that changed when celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay brought his reality TV show, Kitchen Nightmares, to town last November. After revamping the restaurant and menu, Ramsay and Whiting went on the radio to announce she was dropping her right to the “hon” trademark. Whiting looked foolish throughout much of the episode that aired earlier this year, but when all was said and done, it put a human face on a woman who loves Baltimore just like the rest of us.

PR Move, political division: Sheila Dixon enduring harsh roast

It was hard not to cock an eyebrow when Sheila Dixon agreed to sit onstage at the Comedy Factory in Power Plant Live! and endure a barrage of jokes and insults about her disgraced reign as mayor of Baltimore. Around 100 turned out to watch the skewering, including many veterans from the Dixon administration. And yet, despite the many jabs at the scandals that brought the former mayor’s career crashing to the ground, Dixon took it in stride, smiling and scribbling notes for her (spirited) rebuttals. She has yet to fully recover from the uproar that ended her political career, but her ability to poke fun at herself——hardly a quality she was known for when in office——is certainly a step in the right direction.

Reporter on Twitter: Justin Fenton

Does Justin Fenton ever get any sleep? When he’s not gracing the pages of The Sun with his exhaustive stories on crime, Fenton is on Twitter, ready to field a tip from one of his more than 8,000 followers or share all manner of breaking news. He doesn’t just Tweet and write about crime, he analyzes the data and puts it in context. He also, poignantly, has been known to retweet RIPs from friends and families of victims of violent crime in Baltimore. The city is a more plugged in——and more compassionate——place because of him.

Return: The TV and Movie Industry

If you provide incentives, they will come. For a while, such prominent voices as John Waters and Barry Levinson insisted that if Maryland had competitive—or at least better—tax incentives for filmmakers, the state would reap the benefits. They were right. Thanks to the Film Production Employment Act of 2011, production companies are here in force, proving there is life after The Wire. With the political drama House of Cards filming all around town (including scenes in The Baltimore Sun building) and the HBO comedy Veep confirmed for a second season—plus the upcoming Olivia Wilde comedy Better Living through Chemisty—show biz in Baltimore is baaaack, baby.

Save: Washington Jewish Week buys the Baltimore Jewish Times

Maryland’s largest Jewish weekly, the 93-year-old Baltimore Jewish Times, was saved in the nick of time in a court-ordered bankruptcy auction that ended with a (surprisingly high) bid of $1.26 million from the publisher of Washington Jewish Week. The Baltimore Jewish Times, published by the family-owned Alter Communications, was already weakened by the effects of a shaky publishing industry, but got deeper into trouble when its bankruptcy filing——designed to get out of a printing contract——backfired in a countersuit by the printer. It was a dramatic save of one of Baltimore’s oldest publications, one that was backed by assurances that the weekly would remain a Baltimore-based paper. It’s a mitzvah.

Shout-Out: Vanity Fair calling Diner “the most influential film of the last 30 years”

There are many movies Vanity Fair could have deemed the most influential of the last 30 years——Pulp Fiction, Goodfellas, even Toy Story. But when they gave that plaudit to Barry Levinson’s iconic 1982 dramedy Diner, it made perfect sense. After all, the film was about nothing——just friends hanging out, giving each other grief, kibitzing. Sound familiar? Yeah. The film was the antecedent to TV shows like Seinfeld, Friends, and The Office and made stars out of actors Mickey Rourke, Ellen Barkin, and Kevin Bacon. Baltimoreans have long worshipped Diner (as evidenced by this year’s sold-out 30th anniversary screening at Shriver Hall)——it’s good to know we aren’t alone.

Stunt: John Waters’s cross-country hitchhiking trip

The Pope of Trash is the gift that keeps on giving. The 66-year-old Baltimore filmmaker and author has shown no signs of slowing down with age, and so it wasn’t entirely surprising when word began to spread that John Waters was hitchhiking across America. Taking rides from an indie band in Ohio and a married couple in Kansas, Waters made his way to San Francisco in eight days, all the while collecting material for his next book, tentatively titled Carsick. Waters didn’t need to publicize his stunt: As viral word spread that the director of Hairspray was making his way to California, drivers kept a lookout for a man with a pencil-thin mustache heading west.

Viral Video: The Wire: The Musical (Funny or Die)

David Simon’s revered Baltimore crime series The Wire was many things: gritty, harsh, addictive. What it wasn’t was particularly funny——that is until the folks at the website Funny or Die got their hands on it. The Wire: The Musical, a short parody of the show, took the Internet by storm when it was released in June. Some of the show’s original cast even reprised their roles from the series, including Michael K. Williams as Omar. The four-minute video even got the attention of Simon, who called it “Hilarious. Just great.”

Wisenheimer: The Baltimore Chop

When it comes to the truth, few deliver it more bluntly than The Baltimore Chop (thebaltimorechop.com). This blog about daily life in Baltimore, authored by “The Chop,” a self-described “regular dude. with a blog,” comments on the city’s indie culture and social scene with a no-nonsense style that mixes humor with a healthy dose of snark and sometimes even a touch of righteous outrage. Whether he’s commenting on the latest chic restaurant to open on The Avenue in Hampden or world politics, no one is safe from The Chop-ping block.

Wild Goose Chase: Mirlande Wilson’s claims to have won the Mega Millions

It didn’t take long for the national media to descend on Baltimore after it was announced that one of the winners of the record-breaking Mega Millions lottery had bought their $105 million ticket at a Baltimore County 7-Eleven. A day later, the face of Mirlande Wilson was plastered on the front page of the New York Post, claiming to have been the lucky winner. Wilson’s Westport home became media headquarters as a controversy stormed over whether she had to share her winnings with 15 of her McDonald’s co-workers who pooled their money to buy tickets. After several days of dodging questions and slipping out of her home in various wigs, three local school teachers who chose to remain anonymous, put an end to the controversy when they turned in the winning ticket to lottery officials. Mirlande, we hardly knew ye.

Congressman Roscoe Bartlett doesn’t have an entourage.

Almost every morning, around 6 a.m., the 20-year veteran of the House of Representatives, who will turn 86 in June, drives his Toyota Prius three miles from his Buckeystown, MD, farm to his office in Frederick. He shares the small building, which sits between a Chuck E. Cheese and a Wal-Mart, with a pediatric dentist’s practice.

Once there, he usually situates himself in a cramped conference room, reading a packet of clippings from various newspapers that have been compiled by his staff. He meets with constituents, has conference calls, and drives or carpools down to Washington, D.C., when Congress is in session, but always just for the day—he hasn’t spent the night there since he was first elected in 1992.

“The problem now is that your Congress is 90 percent run by professional staff,” says Bartlett, who wears an oversized navy-blue suit with a House of Representatives pin on his lapel. “Congress people have very little skill set. It’s run by faceless bureaucrats. I don’t need to rely on staff.”

In many ways, Bartlett, the second-oldest serving congressman after Texas’s Ralph Hall (who’s 89), is a throwback to an earlier era of citizen-politicians. He didn’t assume office until five years after he retired from a long and varied career that included stints as an engineer with the U.S. space program, the owner of a construction business, a professor at the University of Maryland and Howard University, and a farmer.

As a Representative, he’s let his conscience be his guide. He holds fast to constitutionalist principles of limited government—he keeps a copy of the Constitution in his breast pocket at all times, and quotes from it frequently—but he also has obsessed over issues far outside mainstream political thought, among them “peak oil,” the controversial idea that the global supply of oil is running out. (He founded Congress’s “Peak Oil Caucus,” which now has nine members, including six Democrats). He, along with Newt Gingrich, also frequently warns about the dangers of electro-magnetic pulse attacks on the U.S., which most experts consider far-fetched, and initiated Congressional hearings on the matter.

In general, Bartlett has not been afraid to buck his party’s line on a wide array of issues: He has consistently opposed the death penalty, the Patriot Act, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and describes himself as “far and away the greenest Republican in Congress,” boasting that he was the first person in Maryland—and the U.S. Congress—to buy a Prius.

“I was green before it was cool to be green,” he says. “My construction company was and is the largest home solar-equipment builder in Frederick County. I built 41 solar-powered homes.”

In 1992, Bartlett won his seat in the solidly Republican 6th district—which then included all of Western Maryland and the rural northern parts of Carroll, Baltimore, and Harford counties—by an eight-percent margin. Bartlett went on to win each of his subsequent nine elections by at least 12 percent. The Cook Partisan Voting Index (PVI), which predicts the depth of a district’s party leanings, rated the 6th district “R+12” in the last election, meaning that a generic Republican presidential candidate could expect to win the district by 12 points.

But last October, the state legislature wrecked Bartlett’s cozy Republican district. In a plan proposed by Governor Martin O’Malley’s redistricting panel and passed by the Democratic-majority General Assembly, the 6th district lost its rural, right-leaning sections of Frederick, Carroll, Baltimore, and Harford counties, and instead had a large chunk of Montgomery County, including heavily Democratic D.C. suburbs like Potomac, added to it. Democrats officially say that the re-districting was the result of new census data. But it’s widely accepted that state legislatures gerrymander districts to maximize a favored party’s seats.

“It’s not personal,” Bartlett says, with a shrug, of the redistricting. “They just needed another Democrat seat. The Democrats only control, I think, six states and the District [of Columbia]. Republicans control, I think, four times that. So they had to find pick-up opportunities anywhere they could.”

Bartlett may be philosophical about the motivations behind the redistricting, but he’s not naïve about the challenge he faces in holding onto his seat. Since the redistricting passed, Maryland’s 6th district has been one of the most hotly contested races in the country—Congressional Quarterly has named it one of the top-ten most competitive—and will help determine which party has control over the House of Representatives. Money has poured into the district from both national parties, and Bartlett himself has been thrust into the largely unfamiliar role of steadfast campaigner.

“This year has been drastically different than anything we’ve ever had before,” Bartlett says, slouching behind his conference room table. “I mean, we’ve never really even had a professional campaign before.”

The competitiveness of the district has brought new scrutiny to Bartlett and his office. The mustachioed congressman was briefly the subject of ridicule earlier this year when a staff member took seriously a mock bill sent in by a group calling itself “The American Mustache Institute,” that called for a $250 tax deduction for facial hair grooming. The staff member sent the bill on to the House Ways and Means committee, apparently without Bartlett’s knowledge, leading to guffaws around the political blogosphere and attacks from Bartlett’s opponents. State Delegate Kathy Afzali, who challenged Bartlett in the Republican primary, said the situation showed that Bartlett had lost control of his staff and “is out of touch with voters.”

In the primary, Bartlett beat back several challengers, including state legislator David Brinkley, who claimed the Congressman was responsible for an e-mail late in the campaign that included audio of 911 calls related to domestic disturbances at Brinkley’s house (Bartlett denies any involvement in the e-mails). But things could get uglier—and even more competitive—in the general election, where Bartlett faces the Democratic nominee, businessman John Delaney.

Delaney, who founded financial services company CapitalSource, has poured more than a million dollars of his own money into his campaign, helping him soundly defeat state legislator Rob Garagiola, who was favored by the national Democratic party, in the primary. He’s proven to be a smart campaigner, repeatedly touting his proven record as a job creator—a crucial selling point in an economy-obsessed electorate.

“We need new leadership,” Delaney says, echoing the concerns of many in the district who think that Bartlett has been in Congress too long, and that he’s too old to conceive of innovative solutions to a complex set of new issues. “I’m an advocate for infrastructure investment, national energy policy, things that I think are important in leading us into the next generation, and I think there just haven’t been those voices in Congress.”

For his part, Bartlett isn’t looking to update his policy agenda or alter his tried-and-true methods in the face of a new campaign reality.

“We had a campaign consultant who wanted to program me,” Bartlett says. “I said ‘It’s too late!’ I’ve been here 20 years, I’ve been saying all this stuff, I have all these votes—I am who I am. If I’m not electable, I’m not electable, but I am who I am.”

A week before the primary election, Roscoe Bartlett is strolling down Frederick’s quaint East Street. Lined with antique shops, cafes, and boutiques, the block oozes the kind of small-town charm that has made Frederick a tourist destination for weary Baltimoreans and Washingtonians.

Bartlett, having carpooled with co-chief of staff Sallie Taylor, slowly walks toward a restaurant, stopping to greet a few passers-by who recognize him. “Hey, Roscoe,” one man shouts.

Bartlett and Taylor are headed toward Shab Row Bistro and Wine Bar, one of the more swanky establishments on East Street, where Bartlett will speak at a lunch hosted by a senior citizen group. Just inside the door, there is a table with place cards. One reads, “Congressman Roscoe,” and underneath, his choice of entrée, “Ravioli.” There is no punctuation or last name, making it seem that the congressman is the hero in a spaghetti western, Roscoe Ravioli. He even looks the part, with his pointed mustache and swoop of white hair.

“It seems no one around here ever uses my last name,” he says, showing off the place card to chuckling reporters. “It’s okay. I like ‘Roscoe.’ It’s a unique name.”

Bartlett spends a half-hour circling the room, talking to each table of guests. Most are in Bartlett’s age bracket, and health issues are a frequent topic of discussion. At one table, a woman is wearing an oxygen mask because she has emphysema. The congressman details his brother’s health struggles and offers encouragement. At other tables, he spends most of his time listening intently.

After a brief break to eat, the congressman stands up and offers his loose version of a stump speech, which echoes the themes of fiscal and personal responsibility he’s hammered throughout his political career, mixed with folksy anecdotes, tangents, and a sampling of quotes from the likes of Winston Churchill and Thomas Jefferson.

“Government is too big—it spends way too much, it taxes too much, it regulates too much,” he says. “We have wandered a million miles from the government our founders wanted.” He underlines the point by quoting Jefferson: “The government which governs best is the government which governs least.”

Bartlett grew up in Depression-era rural Kentucky, where he attended a one-room schoolhouse and endured extreme poverty. “It really changed my life,” he says. “I decided my kids would not go through what I went through.”

He says his political evolution closely mirrors the quote, often attributed to Churchill, “If you’re not a liberal when you’re 20, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative when you’re 40, you have no brain.”

“When I was a kid, I looked around and saw problems and thought, somebody needs to fix this—there are people really hurting,” he recalls. “I looked for some entity that was big and powerful, and it was the government.”

But, a precocious kid, Bartlett said he wised up ahead of schedule. “I wasn’t 20 before I figured out that government wasn’t the solution,” he says. “It finally dawned on me that government doesn’t have any money. They just take or borrow the money. All the government needs to do is make sure that we have the environment that our founding fathers envisioned.”

Bartlett went on to become the first member of his family to graduate from college, with a degree in biology and theology, and came to the University of Maryland, where he earned a master’s degree in physiology in 1948 and a Ph.D. in 1952. He married Ellen Bartlett and the couple ultimately had 10 kids, including Joseph Bartlett, who was a member of the Maryland House of Delegates for 11 years. The congressman now has 18 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

In 1961, Bartlett bought his current farm in Buckeystown, and while his career has taken him all over the country, he seems most proud of his work on the farm.

“At one time, I had the largest pure-bred sheep flock on the East Coast,” he boasts, adding that he also had goats and cows, and that, when he was farming full-time, “I personally handled 10,000 bales of hay a year.”

Bartlett’s easy, friendly demeanor and his country background are exactly what have endeared him to the voters in the 6th District for the past 20 years.

“He’s as human as anyone can be,” says Dana Smith, 59, a guest at the Shab Row lunch. “I mean, we’ve seen him in his overalls. You can’t get more real than that.”

And Bartlett’s friendliness extends beyond his constituents. Another way the congressman seems to be of a different era is that he proudly talks about his deep friendships with colleagues on the other side of the aisle. In particular, he’s a close confidante of Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat originally from Baltimore, who has become enemy number one in the eyes of many Republicans. Bartlett calls her “a very committed woman,” and has accompanied her to the last two State of the Union addresses.

“I hate the partisanship,” says Bartlett. “At the end of the day, we want the same things: We want better schools, we want good jobs, we want safe streets, we want a military adequate to defend out country. It’s just that we have very different ideas about how to get there.”

As Bartlett takes questions at his campaign event, it becomes clear that his friendly attitude toward Democrats is not shared by all of his supporters. One worries that after the election, if Obama wins, he’ll order everyone to turn in their guns. Bartlett, a strong defender of the Second Amendment, deflects the question by criticizing gun-control laws.

A woman wonders if tax dollars are going toward the effort to legalize gay marriage. Another supporter suggests that gay people are being given special marriage benefits unavailable to straight people. Bartlett, who is opposed to gay marriage, says it’s primarily a state issue, but claims that, years ago, he first coined the phrase, “It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” and suggests that legalizing gay marriage may lead to legalized marriage between people and animals.

Bartlett’s peculiar array of positions have allowed him to be the rare GOP congressman on both the Republican Main Street Partnership, a collection of moderate Republicans, and the Tea Party Caucus. “I’m probably the luckiest person in the Congress,” he says. “I vote my conscience. And that, so far, has been okay with the district.”

But observers say Bartlett’s maverick streak might not work in the new 6th District, especially against an outsider like John Delaney.

“His independence probably would’ve helped him more if Rob Garagiola had ended up winning that race,” says Alex Isenstadt, a blogger at politico.com who’s been closely following the 6th district. “It would’ve been easier for him to portray Garagiola, fairly or not, as a creature of Annapolis. Right now, he’s running against John Delaney, who’s an unknown, and it’s going to be harder to brand him as an insider. He’s a job-creator, someone who made millions of dollars in the business sector. It might be harder for Republicans to run against that.”

Lala Mooney is pacing next to her car outside of Frederick County’s Ballenger Creek Middle School. Today is primary day, and Mooney is here to get out the vote for Bartlett, whose campaign stickers cover her bumpers.

“I hope you’ll vote for my guy!” she shouts at voters, as they enter the school gymnasium, and waves two “Elect Roscoe Bartlett” signs.

Mooney, a Cuban-American from Frederick, is the mother of state GOP chair Alex Mooney, who served in the state legislature for 11 years and briefly considered challenging Bartlett for the nomination, but instead threw his support behind the Congressman. Lala Mooney says the redistricting has upset a lot of people in the district and that it motivated her to volunteer for Bartlett.

“It’s been a big issue,” she says. “It’s really skewered the democratic process, eliminating voices that have traditionally been represented.”

She’s confident that Bartlett will pull out the election in November, but admits that the race will be “competitive.” She says local peoples’ resistance to Obama’s agenda will drive them to the polls to vote for Republicans.

“I know that socialism, the way Obama’s pushing it, isn’t going to work,” she says, adding that two Democrats had already told her today that they plan to cross party lines to vote for Bartlett in November. “Government is not going to solve our problems.”

Deborah Lundahl, a local Republican heading out of the polls after casting her vote, agrees with Mooney that the redistricting has upset a lot of people—“it destroyed a rural district, with rural concerns,” she says—but adds that she voted against Bartlett in the primary. “He promised to run for two terms, then step down,” she says. “The longer he stays, the more he seems like just another politician.”

It’s a feeling that seems to have some resonance in the district. Many expected Bartlett to step down after the redistricting and allow a younger Republican to take up the challenge, but he has soldiered on, seeking his 11th term in office.

“It’s going to be a tough race for him,” says Isenstadt, who thinks Delaney will come out on top in November. “It’s tough for a guy in his mid-80s, who’s been around for as long as he has, to run in a new district, let alone one that’s very Democratic.”

Indeed, most analysts now say the district “leans Democratic” and Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call has listed Bartlett among the 10 most vulnerable members of Congress. “It’s possible that all of the ingredients could come together for Bartlett . . . to pull off a win,” they wrote in March. “But it just doesn’t seem plausible at this point.”

For his part, Bartlett says if he loses in November, it’ll give him more time to spend on the farm, where he still keeps a garden and some cows. “We’re trying very hard to get acquainted with the new members of the district,” Bartlett says. “If it doesn’t happen in time for November, so be it. I am who I am.”