Bowie Living

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Weekend Events: June 19-20

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Fossil Hunting in Dinosaur Park
Dinosaur Park in Laurel is open from noon to 4pm on the first and third Saturday of every month. Click here for more details.

Joe Tichy Performs Acoustic Rock Concert in Old Bowie
Joe Tichy makes a return appearance to the Saturday Old Town Bowie Summer Concert Series from 2pm to 4pm in Town Green Park. Click here (PDF file) for the 2010 concert series schedule, and click here (PDF file) for the 2010 Music in the Parks brochure. Click here for a Google image of Town Green Park.

In the Park After Dark
Listen to a story about nature told by a Park Ranger, then roast marshmallows, and enjoy the great outdoors. Starts at 8:30 p.m. at Allen Pond Park. The program is free, but registration is required. Email amartinek@cityofbowie.org.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Bowie Farmers' Market
Open from 8am to noon in the Bowie High School parking lot. The farmers' market is held each Sunday through October 31st.

“Skate Don’t Hate” Skateboard Competition
9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Bowie Skate Park. This all day competition features a raffle, free skates, and concessions. Contestants must wear a chin strap helmet and be registered with the Bowie Skate Park (this can be done on the day of the event). Bowie Skate Park is located at 3330 Northview Drive (in Allen Pond Park). For information and registration, call 301-858-1962.

Carolyn Malachi Concert in Allen Pond Park
Carolyn Malachi is the featured performer, but Color Performing Arts Group and the Prince George's County Rhythm in Blues Band will open the show starting at 6pm. Carolyn Malachi will perform from 7pm to 8pm. The event is part of the City of Bowie's 2010 Sunday Sunset Concert Series at Allen Pond Park. Click here for a PDF file containing the 2010 schedule.

Although the concert brochure describes the music as "Blues," Malachi really has a style all her own. The following bio for Carolyn Malachi can be found on her Myspace page.

Hailing from the Prince George’s County/Washington, DC /Baltimore region, vocalist, producer and über smart chick Carolyn Malachi’s introduces music lovers to "Revenge of the Smart Chicks II: Ambitious Gods." She calls her brand of music "haute eclectic soular blues." Malachi, who is the great-granddaughter of legendary jazz pianist John Malachi, has created her own modern infectious gumbo of jazz, hip hop, and spoken word. ROTSC II is the stirring and genre bending follow-up to her 2008 debut "Revenge of the Smart Chicks." The first project spawned a movement, blog and the non-profit Smart Chicks Inc. The organization is dedicated to developing visibility and leadership opportunities for women in the arts.

Carolyn is currently a resident artist at BloomBars, a community arts space in Washington, DC.and the recent recipient of the Maryland State Arts Council 2010 Individual Artist Award.

Check out this video of a February, 2010 Carolyn Malachi performance.

Weekly News from the Bowie Star

Although the Bowie Star shows up weekly in your driveway, news stories are written and updated all week long on the newspaper's Web site. Virginia Terhune did a terrific job reporting and writing about Monday's attempted robbery and shooting at BB&T bank. Regular updates were posted as information became available. You can see the complete story by clicking here.

The following stories appeared in this week's Bowie Star:

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Bowie Swim Teams: Then and Now

Bowie area pools have been open for a few weeks now, and local kids are busy practicing for upcoming swim meets. Below are pictures from the 2010 Belair Bath & Tennis (BBT) swim team time trials and from an unknown Bowie swim event in May or June of 1975. I'm posting the pictures of the earlier swim event as part of the Bowie Blade Pic Project. Let me know if you recognize any of the people in the 1975 pictures.

May or June, 1975

Brian Bearden gets ready to dive.

Deanna Amos

Photos of Bowie Maryland 1973 through 1975 by Arnie Miles is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States
License

June 15, 2010

Belair Bath & Tennis (BBT) time trials

Two Charged for Bowie High School Beating

The Washington Post Crime Scene Blog is reporting that two boys have been charged as juveniles for the videotaped beating of a 17 year old student at Bowie High last Friday. One source indicated that the victim was able to identify the suspects by searching through yearbook pictures, but another report indicates that the attackers were identified via school surveillance footage.

The attack video was posted on Facebook and YouTube, but YouTube removed the video from its Web site. Footage can now be seen on the WJLA ABC 7 Web site.

The suspects face expulsion.

Click on these links for additional information:

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Bowie News and Views

This week's episode of Bowie News and Views is now on YouTube in three parts. John Rouse and Burt Oliver discuss the recent bank robberies, crime, politicians, the Memorial Day Parade and more. John doesn't hold back, and he can be seen in the video saying, "he's such a loser!" You'll have to watch to find out who.

At the end of the show, John and Burt make a plea to find Bowie residents willing to produce a show on Bowie cable television. The commitment can be as little as one show per month. Check it out.

Click here to see the entire Bowie News and Views YouTube collection, and click here to see the entire set of Bowie cable television YouTube videos.

Police Release Names of Suspects in Bowie BB&T Robbery

Tarintini Jean-Louis of Brooklyn, New York and Bernard Hasan Tyler of Mt. Rainier face robbery and other charges related to the robbery and shooting incident near the BB&T bank in Bowie on Monday. Jean-Louis scuffled with Corporal Edward King of the Prince George's County Police Department after King interrupted the robbery, and both King and Jean-Louis were wounded during a struggle for King's gun. A third suspect remains at large.

See the following links for more details:

News Channel 8 story
The Crime Scene Blog from the Washington Post
Prince George's County Police News Blog

Jim Hubbard: Delegate to the Gas Stations

The 2010 primary election in Maryland is three months away, and campaign signs have been popping up all over Bowie. It seems like the signs are up earlier than in years past, and there is an overabundance of large signs. Jim Hubbard and Michael Jackson have the most large signs, but mini billboards for Rafael Hylton, Shukoor Ahmed and Rushern Baker have been seen around Bowie as well.

Jim Hubbard appears to be the Maryland House of Delegates candidate that District 23A gas station owners are supporting almost exclusively. If an area gas station has a large political sign on display, chances are that it's a sign for Delegate Jim Hubbard.

The gas station on the corner of Laurel Bowie Road and Old Chapel Road historically displayed campaign signs for conservative candidates. Signs stood in this gas station in 2002 supporting Audrey Scott for County Executive and Paul Ellington for Mayor. Today there is an eight foot wide sign supporting Democratic candidate Jim Hubbard.

Large Hubbard campaign signs can be seen at Whitehall Shell, the Sunoco on Route 197, the former Citgo on Old Chapel Road and the Chevron at the corner of Route 450 and Route 3. There appears to be widespread support for Hubbard among independent gas station owners.

Maryland House Bill 736 (2001rs) may be the reason area station owners support Hubbard. Jim Hubbard co-sponsored HB736 in 2001 to create price controls on the sale of gasoline in Maryland. Independent gas station owners claimed that large convenience store chains like Sheetz, Wawa and Royal Farms were selling gasoline at or below cost in an effort to drive the independent stations out of business. Once HB736 was signed into law by then Governor Parris Glendening, the State of Maryland began forcing some stores to raise gasoline prices when the prices became too low.

Supporters of the bill claim that without price protections, the large convenience stores and other discount chains would offer gasoline at or below cost to attract customers, the independent gas stations would be driven out of business, and the large chains would then raise gas prices once the competition is eliminated. The net effect would be less competition and higher gas prices for Maryland residents.

Detractors of the bill point out that some retailers want to offer lower gas prices today, but they're not allowed to because of HB736. They claim that the net effect is higher gas prices for Maryland residents.

Supporters and detractors of HB736 do agree on one thing: the bill is good for the independent gas station owners, and that may translate into real estate for Hubbard campaign signs in 2010.

It's also possible that the willingness to host Hubbard campaign signs is more about the future than the past. Independent gas station owners have lobbied for a law to eliminate "zone pricing" by gasoline wholesalers. Zone pricing is the method used by the wholesalers to vary the price of gasoline by area in order to get the highest price that consumers in that area will pay. For example, gasoline in zones with fewer stations will be more expensive because there is less competition. Consumers in Bethesda will pay more for gasoline because they have more disposable income. If wholesaler zone pricing is eliminated, drivers in Bethesda will continue to pay more for gas than drivers in Bowie, but more profit would go to the station owner and not the wholesaler.

A bill was sponsored in 2008 to establish a task force to study the elimination of zone pricing by gasoline wholesaler, but the legislation did not pass, and Hubbard was not one of the sponsors. Time will tell if the Maryland legislature picks up the issue again.

See pictures of Hubbard campaign signs at area gas stations below.

Click on the following links for related information.