So it is irritating and sometimes budget-crushing to pay more than $3 a gallon for gas. Are you drinking $7.80-a-gallon Dasani bottled water while you drive? Or a cup of $20-a-gallon Starbuck?s coffee? (Starbuck?s will sell you a five-gallon container, if you like, for $90). Drinking Starbuck?s latte? $30-plus a gallon.
Barbaro?s tragedy
The tragedy for Barbaro, the gallant favorite, his owner, trainer and jockey, marred, of course, a beautiful first horse race day experience. The leg break was horrifying and sad to watch. Offsetting that only a tad, however, was the beginner?s luck we experienced with our careful, handicapping-based choice at the betting window of Bernardini (my dad?s name is Bernard) to win and Hemingway?s Key (Adrienne?s a big Papa fan) to show.
Preakness hats
As an adult lifetime admirer of how women look in hats, the Preakness on Saturday, my first ever attendance at a Triple Crown race, was a special treat from which I emerged without disappointment with my behatted wife, Adrienne, looking even more smashing than usual.
The company we keep
Capital punishment is an issue with which people have struggled forever ? me, too. Deterrent or not, there are some cases where the convicted just ought to pay in Old Testament eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth fashion, right? Our governor is a capital punishment proponent, and we can understand why.
But poisoning and electrocution are irreversible and the sometimes DNA-supported exonerations of what seems like more than a few death row residents in the past few years should give all of us pause.
Adding to the pause for me came in reading last week?s New Yorker and learning (Amnesty International report) that 94 percent of executions take place in Iran, China, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Are we comfortable in that company?
The New Yorker essayist noted that in “the democracies of Europe, American capital punishment is a source of puzzlement and disgust.” First of all ? so what? And, not so coincidentally, isn?t “guillotine” a French word?
Wrong number
The Calvert Street Gang Wednesday advertised for newspaper delivery drivers, asking applicants to call Mike Barnum at 443-277-1898. Wrong number. Michael Barnum, Examiner vice president, circulation, started here May 4 and can be reached at 410-878-6166.
L-U-R-K
From a reader: “I think you ought to start checking on your red boxes in Baltimore. I live in Fells Point and notice the delivery guy at one of my local boxes on Broadway every morning during my run. Three times now, the box has been cleaned out of newspapers in the span of five minutes. Two of those times, I noticed the Sun?s delivery guy lurking around the box.”
Lurking (a great word, lurking!), of course, isn?t against the law and our newspaper racks do empty out fast in the morning, but we do favor the one-to-a-customer rule and would counsel lurkers to look for video cameras before going beyond the casual lurk.
Waters recommends
“It?s hard to find a corner bar in Baltimore that hasn?t been affected by real estate porn, but The Shamrock is still untouched by tapas menus and deejays.” So writes John Waters, Baltimore?s own movie/film writer-director. “You might have [a] bad night at The Shamrock, but you?ll still have fun. I love it, but I wouldn?t go there if I were you,” concludes Waters in the June edition of Esquire. The Shamrock is at 6044 Harford Road.
Michael Phelps is president and publisher of The Baltimore Examiner.
