My Washington apartment on P Street N.W., in what was the residence of the tsar's 19th century ambassador, cost $57 a month.

The Federal Pollution Control Act of 1972 was a landmark decision to control pollutants pouring into our waterways from commercial and farming operations. So, why is Maryland rolling over for the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Rain Tax” when Virginia successfully fought and won?

You've heard it before. "Government should run like a business." Conservative candidates and office-holders cite it like a mantra. It's often used as an excuse to cut jobs or programs, drawing a parallel with the private sector's focus on shareholder return.

Plumbers and technicians are hard at work all over America today. No, not part of some economic recovery, these tradesmen are the guys who stop the other kinds of leaks; the ones that bring down corrupt administrations.

F. Scott Fitzgerald was “HOT” before and after my time. I know two ladies who “adore” his writings on the Jazz Age, which he helped to name. They are respectively 25 and 50.

Baseball is full of jargon and terms that are used in common parlance these days, such as “right down the middle” or “grand slam;” but what about the terms in baseball that are the most common and how they can put an ironic twist on the names of some of the players in Major League Baseball history.

It seems like every day now there is something about the Golden Mile in the local newspaper. I drive this stretch of road every day to and from the radio station.

Miss Marple, one of the best fictional detectives, says “tell the truth and shame the devil.” She is also known to remark that “Americans have a lot to answer for,” even if meant tongue in cheek.

Anti-Immigration efforts and activities are the 21st century version and return of 20th century eugenics. The term eugenics comes from the Greek roots for "good" and "generation" or "origin" and was first used to refer to the "science" of heredity and good breeding in about 1883.

Last month my wife and I left our house in the wee-hours of the morning and joined other households in Carroll County for the shared experience of putting box after box of old documents in a large ravenous shredder-truck which devoured the paper voraciously.

Malta Colony, Montana – “When shall we three meet again,/in thunder lightening or in rain. When the hurlyburlys done /when the battle’s lost and won.”

The lieutenant governor stopped here on Saturday; it was a part of his announcing formally that he will run for Maryland’s top job. He is a Democrat, which means he won’t carry the county in 2014. But the rest of the state?

A number of emails have been received (and forwarded – please check before you do this) that claim President Barack Obama has signed over 900 Executive Orders with additional emails claiming one of these orders institutes Martial Law.

September 11, 2012, once again showed the United States, for all its strength, is still not impervious to attack. U.S. soil overseas was violated by a group of heavily armed terrorists and four Americans were killed, including our ambassador to Libya. What happened next only magnifies the tragedy of that day.

Extreme political positions seem to be the norm, more and more, especially as viewed through the mainstream media lens. Of course, our media, our politicians, and even the government itself benefit from firing people up. Causing the chasm of disagreement brings candidates, voters, volunteers and block captains alike out of the woodwork.