April 2014 | Howard County Beacon

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Sounding the horn for sculpture

I N S I D E …

PHOTO BY JOHN KEITH

By Robert Friedman The Merriweather Horns, an installation being prepared for the multi-milliondollar makeover of Symphony Woods in downtown Columbia, could very likely blow you away — as an imposing public art work that issues soft, melodic sounds.

The horns will be “a family of sculptures that will greet visitors and announce that the park is a different kind of place. It is primarily a work of visual art that will produce soundscapes that will pull you into a new experience,” according to William Cochran, who grew up in Howard County and is creating the project.

For the past 25 years, Cochran has been celebrated as a public artist. His works are installed around the country, including in nearby locales such as D.C., Bethesda and Frederick, where he now lives.

Four of the horn sculptures, the tallest 28 feet, will be suspended in the air over the walkways at the park’s entrances, while a fifth installation of a dozen smaller works will be “a way-finding device” inside the park, said Cochran.

Cast in structural stainless steel and fiberglass, the horns will pay homage to music and to nature, he said.

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Horns that hum Their sounds will not blast visitors out of their jeans; the sounds will be modulated and produced by special drivers inside the horns. The “melodic percussion” that will waft from the horns in confined areas will be akin to humming sounds, “the beautiful sound of the human voice,” said the 59-year-old artist.

What you will hear will be “the polar opposite” of the sounds that often blast forth from rock concerts in the nearby Merriweather Post Pavilion, said the public artist. “When you walk into the park, you leave the soundscape at the entrances behind.”

For those still fearing a breaking of the sound barrier from the project, Michael McCall, president and CEO of the Inner Arbor Trust, which is overseeing the restoration of the 16-acre park within the well-trampled-upon Symphony Woods, told the Baltimore Sun that Cochran, “celebrates horns in such a beautiful, mecha-

Artist William Cochran is creating multiple horn sculptures, as large as 28-feet tall, as part of a makeover for Symphony Woods in downtown Columbia. His other public art pieces can be found in Frederick, Md., Washington, D.C. and across the country.

nized way that they appear to almost be growing in the forest.”

McCall worked many years with Jim Rouse, the man who literally put Columbia on the map as a new community in 1967.

Columbia from the ground up Cochran, who moved to Clarksville when he was a 1-year-old, and spent his school days and young working life in and around the then-fledgling town of Columbia, said the Rouse creation and its ideals certainly had an influence on him.

He remembers as an 8-year-old being taken by his father, former County Executive Ed Cochran, to see a huge mock-up of the planned Columbia community. He was

very impressed by the idea that a city and its amenities actually could be created out of seemingly nothing.

“You mean you’re going to make lakes?” he recalls asking.

Another remembrance: working his teenage summers in and around downtown Columbia.

“I learned after working at the pavilion, the mall and the lakefront boat docks that those places were all connected and that there was just one downtown.”

The goal now, he said, “is to reshape and strengthen that connection by integrating art into the urban fabric.”

See SCULPTURE, page 29

ARTS & STYLE

The Red Branch Theatre Company offers affordable shows for a variety of audiences page 26

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A man of valor Editor’s note: Some readers may remember This was all the more admirable because my columns about my parents’ transition to as- he came from parents who had largely sisted living. I am sad to say that dropped the Jewish practices my father, Leonard Rosenthal, they had been raised with. But passed away in Austin, Texas, he was always seeking spirituon March 5. This month, in lieu al and ritual elevation in his of my usual column, I would like own personal life. to share the tribute I gave at his Because chaplains serve funeral. troops of all faiths, he also Our dad was a first-born found himself conducting son, and perhaps partly due to Protestant and even Catholic that fact, he was a leader — services on occasion, taking determined and responsible the opportunity to share les— and also a fighter. He FROM THE sons from the parts of Scripfought for what’s right, he PUBLISHER ture we share that the solfought for his family, and he By Stuart P. Rosenthal diers could appreciate and fought against life’s troubles, take comfort from. both for himself and for others.

He was popular with the ladies, and had As a child, he faced anti-Semitism at dismissed my mother, nine years his junior, school — name calling, rock throwing, after their first date, when she was only 18. threats and beatings — so he learned to But when he was reintroduced to her a few box and wrestle so he could defend himself. years later, what I call the “Gigi effect” was at He joined ROTC in high school, and work, and he was immediately smitten. She when he joined the Army, he was troubled was also raised without Jewish ritual pracby the fact that his base had no Jewish tice, but they both decided to have a kosher chaplain. So he talked his way into becom- home, and their devotion to the Sabbath and ing an assistant to the chaplain so he could keeping kosher helped bring my brother lead services and make sure there was Arnold and me back to traditional Judaism. provision for the Sabbath, Jewish holidays After college, Dad went to work in the and kosher food. meat packing plant founded by his grand-

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father (who was a cantor and kosher meat During this time, it was really my mom slaughterer, and who also started the first who was in need of help with daily activikosher market in Fort Worth, Texas). At ties, and he chauffeured her to doctor apthe time, the plant —which provided both pointments, helped prepare meals, did the kosher and non-kosher beef to the com- shopping and much of the cleaning of their munity and to communities around the apartment. country — was run by his father.

When he came down with pneumonia a Dad played second fiddle for many few weeks ago, at the age of 93, he went to years, but then became its president just the hospital where he (and we) fully exas competition from the big companies pected him to recover. In the hospital, he was forcing their independent plant, and acquired a couple of additional infections others like it, out of business. (which hospitals are known for nowadays), So he reinvented himself as a business but continued to fight the good fight. broker — helping others buy and sell small In the process, he charmed all the nurses businesses of all sorts. When he retired from and aides, who fawned over him and always that business, he started up and ran several raced to answer his help calls. He was just nonprofits, together with my as dearly loved at the commother, that helped older munity where he lived, workers who wanted to rejoin where he would put on his the workforce. They taught tie and suspenders daily and them computer skills, how to go down to meals, attend write resumes, and trained events, and even go shopthem for employment in the ping and to doctor appointcontemporary workplace. ments so attired and wearing It was also at that time, a jaunty hat. when I spoke to Dad about Just 10 days ago, he was my thoughts of leaving the attempting physical therapy practice of law and going in his hospital room to keep into business, that he sugup his mobility, after lying gested I consider the senior in a hospital bed for two Leonard J. Rosenthal market as a growing niche. 5/22/1920 – 3/5/2014 weeks. He did leg exercises He also referred me to the in bed, and tried to walk a Senior Beacon of Austin, Texas, where he few steps and sit up in a chair. I think it was and my mother were on the board of direc- the difficulty of those attempts that made tors. I credit him with helping me find what him start to realize he might not get back was to become my passion. the strength to resume his former life.

In his later years, Dad suffered from a Dad, for all these reasons, you have alnumber of physical challenges: He started ways been a role model to almost everyone to lose his voice gradually, to the point who met you. You showed us all how we can where he was able only to whisper. The face reality, fight against all odds, and always paralyzed vocal cord that caused this also keep our pride and our devotion to G-d. caused him to lose the capacity to safely Every Sabbath, you read Proverbs 31, swallow food or liquids, requiring the in- “A Woman of Valor,” to our mother with stallation of a stomach tube through which tremendous feeling, as you both looked he could be nourished with liquid food. deep into each other’s eyes.

When the community where he and my Dad, you were a Man of Valor, and we mom then lived said he could not remain will miss you. there with a feeding tube because they weren’t capable of providing that service, he learned how to handle his feedings himself, and did so five times a day for years.

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TIPS FOR ONLINE RESEARCH Learn how to be a savvy researcher online, through the county library

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H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N — A P R I L 2 0 1 4

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FRESH ISN’T ALWAYS BEST Processing can boost the nutritional value of some foods ADDICTION FACT AND FICTION Separating prescription pain medication myths from reality ACCIDENT RATE DRIVEN DOWN Older drivers today are less likely to cause crashes than a generation ago COUCH POTATOES REJOICE Try simple exercises that can be done from the couch or during TV breaks

Back pain often overdiagnosed, overtreated

By Daniel DeNoon What doctors call “routine” back pain can really, really hurt. Surprisingly, the best treatment is usually quite conservative —over-the-counter pain relievers, ice and heat, and gentle exercise. Yet for decades, many doctors have been ordering more and more unnecessary tests, narcotics and referrals for surgery.

“Most routine back pain will improve on its own with conservative therapy in three months, often shorter than that,” said Dr. Bruce E. Landon, professor of health are policy at Harvard Medical School.

“Even more importantly, when we do more aggressive things — such as injections, imaging, and surgery — the longterm outcomes don’t change at all. These things have very little impact on what is going on, and they have the potential to make things worse.”

The trend of overdiagnosis and overtreatment is getting worse, according to a new study by Landon and his colleagues. They analyzed nationally representative data from 1999 through 2010 on nearly 24,000 outpatient visits for acute, new onset or chronic flare-up back pain to see if these people were treated according to established, evidence-based guidelines.

Endorsed by both U.S. and international experts, these guidelines: • Call for treatment with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS, such as ibuprofen and naproxen) or acetaminophen (Tylenol and generic).

• Call for referral to physical therapy

when appropriate.

• Advise against early referral for imaging (such as MRI and CT scans) except in rare cases where “red flags” suggest something other than routine back pain.

• Advise against prescribing narcotics.

• Advise against early referral to other physicians for injections or surgery.

Guidelines often ignored The study, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, revealed that doctors were increasingly ignoring these guidelines. During the study period: • Use of NSAIDS and acetaminophen went down, from 36.9 percent of visits in 1999-2000 to 24.5 percent of visits in 20092010.

• Prescriptions for narcotic pain relievers went up, from 19.3 percent of visits in 1999-2000 to 29.1 percent of visits in 20092010.

• Referrals to physical therapy remained low at 20 percent of visits.

• Referral to other physicians went up, from 6.8 percent of visits in 1999-2000 to 14 percent of visits in 2009-2010.

• Referrals for CT or MRI scans increased from 7.2 percent of visits in 19992000 to 11.3 percent of visits in 2009-2010.

“It is hard to not do anything aggressive, especially when you are having a lot of pain,” Landon said. “So people ask for these more advanced things and, unfortunately, doctors are often willing to prescribe them because that’s the path of least resistance.”

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This path of least resistance for primary care providers is a treasure trove for surgeons, specialists and pain clinics. In the United States, healthcare for back pain adds up to about $86 billion each year.

When people with routine back pain are referred for MRI imaging, they’re eight times more likely to have surgery.

When people with back pain ask for offguideline treatments, it takes time to understand their expectations and to explain how conservative treatment is better suited to their situation. Doctors may not feel they have that kind of time, noted Dr. John Mafi, chief medical resident at Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Mass., and first author of the study.

“It is hard to reason with people when they’re in a lot of pain,” he said. “I’m in favor of the honesty route. I tell people with first-time back pain that narcotics don’t necessarily help and, frankly, they are a risk. Instead of reaching for the narcotics, I suggest that if they start with the acetaminophen or ibuprofen and get rest and use ice, the vast majority of the time this will get better on its own.”

Landon noted that it takes five or 10 minutes to explain things as Mafi suggests, but it takes only 10 seconds to order a test or write a prescription.

“The way our healthcare system is set up right now makes it hard to do the right thing,” Landon said. “Orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons and pain medicine doctors get paid for doing things, not for counseling.”

What to do for back pain If you have a first-time bout with low back pain, or are in the midst of another goround with it, here’s what Dr. Jeffrey N. Katz, professor of medicine and orthopedic surgery at Harvard Medical School, recommends in “Low Back Pain,” a Special Health Report from Harvard Medical School: Cold and heat. At the beginning of the flare-up, start with ice or cold packs. After 48 hours, switch to gentle heat.

Rest. If you’re in severe pain when sitting or standing, bed rest can be helpful.

But limit it to a few hours at a time, for no more than a couple of days.

Exercise. An exercise program can help the healing process during an acute flare-up, prevent repeat episodes of back pain, and improve function if you have chronic low back pain. Work with your doctor or physical therapist to develop a suitable exercise plan.

Medication. Over-the-counter pain relievers, such as acetaminophen or an NSAID like aspirin, ibuprofen or naproxen, are usually all that’s needed to relieve acute low back pain. They work best when taken on a regular schedule, rather than after the pain flares up.

If these strategies don’t work, talk with your doctor about more advanced options for treating low back pain.

Daniel DeNoon is executive editor of the Harvard Heart Letter. © 2014 President and fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.

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A P R I L 2 0 1 4 — H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N

Placebo effect strong with migraine meds

By Lauran Neergaard Talk about mind over matter: A quirky new U.S. study suggests patients’ expectations can make a big difference in how they feel after treatment for a migraine.

Boston researchers recruited 66 migraine patients in an attempt to quantify how much of their pain relief came from a medication and how much was due to what’s called the placebo effect — the healing power of positive belief.

More than 450 headaches later, they reported that it’s important for doctors to carefully choose what they tell patients about a powerful medicine: The message could help enhance its benefits, or blunt them.

“Every word you say counts, not only every gram of the medication,” said Har-

vard University professor Ted Kaptchuk, who led the new study with a team at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital.

Lies for a good cause?

Here’s how it worked. First, the patients who suffer regular migraines agreed to forgo pain relievers for several hours during one attack, recording their symptoms for comparison with later headaches.

Then for each of their next six migraines, the patients were given a different pill inside an envelope with a different message. Sometimes they were told it was an effective migraine drug named rizatriptan, a positive message. Other times they were told it was a placebo, a dummy pill, suggesting no benefit. Still other times

they were told the pill could be either one, a neutral message.

Sometimes the doctor’s message was true — they were told they got rizatriptan and they really did. Sometimes it was false because researchers had secretly switched the pills.

Mixing up the possibilities allowed researchers to tease out how the same person’s pain relief differed from migraine to migraine as his or her expectations changed.

Of course the real migraine drug worked far better than the dummy pill. But remarkably, people who knew they were taking a placebo still reported less pain than when they’d left their migraine untreated, the researchers found.

Especially surprising is how expectations can also reduce the effectiveness of a drug.

Patients’ reports of pain relief more than doubled when they were told the migraine drug was real than when they were told, falsely, that it was a fake, the team reported.

In fact, people reported nearly as much pain relief when they took a placebo that they thought was the real drug as they did when they took the migraine drug while believing it was a fake.

Placebo benefit is real “The more we gave a positive message to the patient, the bigger the placebo effect

was,” Kaptchuk said.

He said that effect probably isn’t purely psychological, saying the ritual of taking a medication may trigger some subconscious memory that could leave people feeling better even if they knew they’d taken a fake drug.

Scientists have long known that some people report noticeable improvements in pain and certain other symptoms when they’re given a placebo — which can be a sugar pill or sham surgery or some other benign intervention. Some studies even have documented that a placebo actually can spark a biological effect.

But scientists don’t know why the placebo effect works or how to harness its potential benefit.

The new research is an interesting attempt to answer some of those questions, at least for one kind of pain, said Dr. Mark Stacy, vice dean for clinical research at Duke University Medical Center, who wasn’t involved with the work. And learning how much of an impact it makes could help design better studies of new drugs, to ensure the phenomenon doesn’t skew the results, he added.

For now, it shows “the power of positive thinking may be helpful in taking care of your migraine,” he said.

— AP

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H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N — A P R I L 2 0 1 4

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Naproxin carries lower risks than its rivals naproxen drugs the first choice for patients with a higher risk for heart problems, according to Ira Loss, a pharmaceutical analyst with Washington Analysis.

But he added that all NSAIDs will continue to carry warnings about internal bleeding and ulceration — a serious side effect that is blamed for more than 200,000 hospital visits every year.

able cardiovascular risk profile of naproxen.”

Bayer spokesman Chris Loder said in a statement that naproxen’s safety and efficacy is “based on clinical trials, observational studies, and clinical and real world use for more than 38 years.” The Germanbased conglomerate was one of a halfdozen pharmaceutical manufacturers presenting at the February FDA meeting.

Resolving decade of concerns

Ongoing study may stop

The FDA meeting is the latest chapter in an ongoing safety review of NSAIDs that stretches back to 2004, when Merck & Co Inc. pulled its blockbuster pain reliever Vioxx off the market due to links to heart attack and stroke.

Vioxx was part of a subset of newer NSAIDs designed to be easier on the stomach. But in the wake of the Vioxx recall, the FDA beefed up warnings about heart safety risks on all drugs in the class, including Motrin, Advil, Aleve and Celebrex. Pfizer’s Celebrex is the only drug from the same class as Vioxx that remains on the market.

Current labeling warns that taking NSAIDs long-term can increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. Patients and doctors are advised to take the drugs for the shortest time period possible.

But FDA staffers now say that labeling should be changed “to reflect the more favor-

The FDA also disclosed that it is considering halting a long-term study comparing the safety of naproxen, ibuprofen and Cele-

brex, the prescription painkiller from Pfizer.

Given that recent data show a lower rate of heart attack and stroke for naproxen, FDA staffers say patients in the trial are being “exposed to an undue risk.”

Launched in 2006 by Pfizer, which makes both Celebrex and Advil, the PRECISION study is expected to be completed by late 2015. The company said in a statement that “current evidence does not support” changes to the labeling of its drugs.

Celebrex was New York-based Pfizer’s fourth-best-selling drug last year, with sales of $2.92 billion.

— AP

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By Matthew Perrone Federal health officials say the pain reliever in Aleve may be safer on the heart than other popular anti-inflammatory drugs taken by millions of Americans.

A Food and Drug Administration review said naproxen — the key ingredient in Aleve and dozens of other generic pain pills — may have a lower risk of heart attack and stroke than rival medications like ibuprofen, sold as Advil and Motrin. FDA staffers recommend relabeling naproxen to emphasize its safety.

The safety review was prompted by a huge analysis published last year that looked at 350,000 patients taking various pain relievers. The findings suggest naproxen does not carry the same heart risks as other medications in the class known as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs. The agency released its memo ahead of a public meeting last month where outside experts discussed both the new data and whether naproxen should be relabeled.

The agency is not required to follow the group’s advice, though it often does.

If ultimately implemented, the labeling changes could reshape the multibilliondollar market for drugs used to treat headaches, muscle pain and arthritis.

The change could make Aleve and other

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A P R I L 2 0 1 4 — H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N

Say you saw it in the Beacon | Fitness & Health

H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N — A P R I L 2 0 1 4

Health Shorts Heavy drinking ages men Middle-aged men risk a faster mental decline as they age if they’ve been drinking heavily for years, new research suggests.

The study of about 5,000 British civil servants found that, over a decade, the added decline was the equivalent of about two extra years of aging (for a combined measure of mental abilities like reasoning) and about six years for memory. The heavy drinkers’ abilities were compared to those of men who drank moderately or abstained.

It’s no surprise that heavy alcohol consumption can affect the brain, but the study focuses on an age range that has received much less attention from alcohol researchers than the elderly and college students.

Researchers found no such effect in women, but the study included too few female heavy drinkers to test the effect of drinking the same amount as in men, said Severine Sabia, a study author from University College London.

She said it was not possible to identify a specific minimum level of consumption at which the risk begins in men.

Her study used data from over 20 years.

Using questionnaires, researchers calculated the men’s average daily intake of alcohol for the decade up to when they were an average of 56 years old. Then, they tracked decline in mental abilities over the following decade from tests administered every five years.

Accelerated decline was seen for the heaviest-drinking group, which included 469 men with a wide range of alcohol intake. The minimum amount was the equivalent of about 13 ounces of wine a day or about 30 ounces of beer. The maximum was about three times that.

— AP

New drug for Type 2 diabetes The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a new diabetes drug from Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca that uses a novel approach to reduce blood sugar.

Farxiga is a once-a-day tablet designed to help diabetes patients eliminate excess sugar via their urine. That differs from older drugs that decrease the amount of sugar absorbed from food and stored in the liver.

The drug is the second product approved in the U.S. from the new class of medicines known as SGLT2 drugs. Last March, the FDA approved Johnson &

OF ELLICOTT CITY

tion with other common diabetes treatments, such as insulin and metformin.

— AP

Four bogus weight-loss aids Makers of a weight loss additive called Sensa will return more than $26 million to consumers to settle federal charges that the company used deceptive advertising, claiming that consumers could lose weight by simply sprinkling the powder on their food.

Sensa Products LLC promoted the powder through major retailers like Costco and GNC and with infomercials on the Home Shopping Network and other television networks. The company sold a onemonth supply of Sensa for $59 and urged consumers to “sprinkle, eat and lose weight.”

Federal Trade Commission officials See HEALTH SHORTS, page 8

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A P R I L 2 0 1 4 — H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N

Fresh food isn’t always best nutritionally “Fresh is best” has long been the mantra when it comes to choosing the healthiest foods. But recent studies are challenging that age-old mindset with some very revealing findings.

It turns out that processing actually can boost the nutritional benefits of some foods.

Tomatoes Canned tomatoes were one of the first food products to highlight this phenomenon, with a study dating back to 2002 in the Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry. The study showed that thermal (heat) processing, involved in canning tomatoes, elevated total antioxidant activity and lycopene content, enhancing the overall nutritional value, even though vitamin C was lost.

Lycopene — a carotenoid antioxidant

Health shorts From page 7 said the company used bogus clinical studies and paid endorsements to rack up more than $364 million in sales between 2008 and 2012.

The government’s settlement with California-based Sensa is part of a broader crackdown on four companies peddling weight-loss products — including food ad-

thought to reduce the risk of certain cancers and to protect against heart disease — is also found in other red-hued foods, like red bell peppers and watermelon. The heat, through cooking, helps break down the walls of the plant cells, releasing the nutrient.

Corn and spinach Further studies have shown that other antioxidants also respond to heat, both in cooking and thermal processing. Lutein — found in corn, spinach and kale, and known to protect the eyes from age-related macular degeneration — is one of them.

A 2003 study that compared the carotenoid content — mainly lutein and zeaxanthin — of fresh, canned and frozen corn found increased levels in canned and frozen versions, both of which were processed with heat. ditives, skin creams and dietary supplements.

“The chances of being successful just by sprinkling something on your food, rubbing cream on your thighs, or using a supplement are slim to none — the science just isn’t there,” said Jessica Rich, director of FTC’s consumer protection office.

The FTC will also collect $7.3 million from LeanSpa, a company that promotes acai berry and “colon cleanse” weight loss

Canned peaches Last year, canned peaches were shown to have significantly higher levels of vitamin C, antioxidants and folate compared to fresh peaches. The canning process did decrease vitamins A and E and total carotenoids, but levels were deemed comparable to fresh peaches throughout a three-month shelf life.

Peanuts Apparently, it’s not just fruits and vegetables that benefit. Boiling peanuts, which are legumes, ramped up the antioxidants to four times those of raw and roasted peanuts or peanut butter. Even roasted peanuts showed heat-related benefits via an antioxidant increase in their skins.

Based on this new finding, researchers no longer throw out the skins after roastsupplements through fake news websites.

Also swept up in the January action are skin cream maker L’Occitane and HCG Diet Direct, which sells unproven hormones for weight loss. The companies will together return about $34 million to consumers to settle the federal charges.

Regulators acknowledged that they were able to collect only a fraction of what the public paid for the products in recent years.

In the case of Sensa, FTC officials said much of the revenue was quickly spent on advertising, including infomercials.

— AP

Antioxidant supplements may carry risks Antioxidant vitamins are widely assumed to be cancer fighters, even though

ing these tasty legumes, but are testing them mixed into peanut butter to enhance its nutritional value.

The findings are important, but not because they disprove the concept that fresh is always best. Rather, they expand the choice of nutritious food options, especially when fresh is not available.

Of course, fresh, seasonal offerings are always a good way to go, but they’re not always available or as convenient as a canned or frozen counterpart. And now you can rest easy when you choose these preserved alternatives.

Reprinted with permission from Environmental Nutrition, a monthly publication of Belvoir Media Group, LLC. 800-829-5384. www.EnvironmentalNutrition.com. ©2014 Belvoir Media Group. Distributed

by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. research in smokers has found high doses may actually raise their risk of tumors.

Now a new study may help explain the paradox. Swedish scientists gave antioxidants to mice that had early-stage lung cancer, and watched the tumors multiply and become aggressive enough that the animals died twice as fast as untreated mice.

The reason: The extra vitamins apparently blocked one of the body’s key cancer-fighting mechanisms, the researchers reported.

The scientists stressed that they can’t make general health recommendations based on studies in mice, but said their work backs up existing cautions about antioxidant use.

“You can walk around with an undiagnosed lung tumor for a long time,” said study co-author Martin Bergo of the UniSee HEALTH SHORTS, page 9

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Too few cancer patients enroll in studies

By Marilynn Marchione One of every 10 clinical trials for adults with cancer ends prematurely because researchers can’t get enough people to test new treatments, scientists report.

The surprisingly high rate reveals not just the scope and cost of wasted opportunities that deprive patients of potential advances, but also the extent of barriers such as money, logistics and even the mistaken fear that people won’t get the best care if they join one of these experiments.

“Clinical trials are the cornerstone of progress in cancer care,” the way that new treatments prove their worth, said Dr. Matthew Galsky of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

When an experimental drug or other treatment fails to make it to the market, people often think it didn’t work or had too many

side effects. But the inability to complete studies can doom a drug, too, Galsky said.

Reasons for halting trials Galsky helped lead an analysis of 7,776 experiments registered on Clinicaltrials.gov, a government website for tracking medical experiments, from September 2005 to November 2011. All were mid- or late-stage studies testing treatments for various types of cancer in adults.

About 20 percent of the studies were not completed for reasons that had nothing to do with the treatment’s safety or effectiveness. Poor accrual — the inability to enroll enough patients in enough time to finish the study — led to nearly 40 percent of premature endings.

Also, company-sponsored studies were less likely to be completed than those

Health shorts

health effect of extra-high doses in pill form.

Studies in people have shown mixed results, but haven’t proven that vitamin supplements prevent cancer. A few have suggested the possibility of harm. One study in the 1990s found beta-carotene increased the risk of lung cancer in smokers. Nor are smokers the only concern: A 2011 study found Vitamin E supplements increased men’s risk of prostate cancer.

As for people who already have cancer,

From page 8 versity of Gothenburg. For someone at high risk, such as a former smoker, taking extra antioxidants “could speed up the growth of that tumor.”

Antioxidants are compounds that help protect cells from certain types of damage, and antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables certainly are healthy. The question is the

Some doctors do not strongly encourage

patients to participate in studies, and sometimes patients fear they’ll get a dummy treatment (placebo) instead of real medicine.

However, in cancer clinical trials, ethical standards require that all patients get the current best care, plus a chance at an experimental treatment.

“Patients still have concerns about getting a placebo, but they’re always going to get, at a minimum, the standard of care,” said Shelley Fuld Nasso, head of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, a patient advocacy and education organization.

Doctors need to encourage more patients to participate, and clinical trial designers need to make sure they are testing key questions and treatments to honor the contributions of study participants, Nasso — AP said.

the National Cancer Institute says: “Until more is known about the effects of antioxidant supplements in cancer patients, these supplements should be used with caution.”

But biologically, scientists couldn’t explain why antioxidants might harm. The report in the journal Science Translational Medicine is a first step to do so.

The research doesn’t examine whether antioxidants might help prevent tumors from forming in the first place — only

what happens if cancer already has begun.

The researchers gave Vitamin E, in a range of supplement doses, or an antioxidant drug named N-acetylcysteine to mice engineered to have lung cancer.

The antioxidants did prevent some cell damage. But doing so also prevented a well-known tumor-suppressing gene named p53 from getting the signal to do its job.

— AP

sponsored by the government or others, probably due to cost reasons.

Late-stage cancer trials can cost companies “tens to even hundreds of millions of dollars,” and that money is wasted if no clear answer on the drug’s value is gained, said Dr. Charles J. Ryan, a cancer specialist at the University of California, San Francisco.

Ryan and Galsky said they hoped their study would spur additional research on why more patients don’t participate in clinical studies. In most cases, the treatment being tested is provided for free, but there can be other costs such as lab tests. Some states require insurers to cover these additional costs, but others do not, so money may be one hurdle for patients.

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Pain pills and addiction — fact and fiction

By Holly Thacker When it comes to prescription pain medications, there’s a lot of misinformation out there. Whether you’re searching for information about how such drugs can help you relieve pain, or reading the latest tabloid tale of a celebrity addict, separating fact from fiction can be tough.

Dr. Richard Rosenquist, chairman of pain management at the Cleveland Clinic, debunks six common myths about prescription painkillers, such as oxycodone and hydrocodone.

Myth 1: The more you take, the better they work.

More does not equal better. It’s true that in the short term, after a severe injury, for example, two pills may be more effective than one at relieving pain.

But over time, taking too much backfires. Research suggests pain medications may do something to desensitize the way your brain and spinal cord interpret pain signals, Dr. Rosenquist noted.

“You develop a tolerance to the medication over time,” he said. “Sometimes, if you take chronic pain medications for a long time, your pain may actually get worse.”

Myth 2: If you take them for a valid reason, you can’t get addicted.

It can’t happen to me. I’m a good citizen.

I’m a normal person. I couldn’t possibly get

addicted. Thinking this way is dangerous.

Even if you start taking a prescription pain medication for a legitimate reason, you run the risk of addiction. This has nothing to do with moral character and everything to do with the highly addictive nature of these drugs.

Myth 3: Everyone who takes them gets addicted.

On the flipside, just because you take a prescription painkiller does not mean you will become addicted.

It depends largely on your own personal risk of addiction. That’s why Dr. Rosenquist and others in pain management screen for risk factors: a family history of addiction, a personal history of alcohol and drug abuse, or certain psychiatric disorders.

“If I’m considering prescribing opioids, I’m going to do drug screening and make sure you’re not taking recreational drugs,” Dr. Rosenquist said. “If somebody uses recreational drugs, the likelihood they’re going to use pain medications inappropriately is really high.”

Not everyone gets addicted, but everyone who takes painkillers for an extended time period will experience symptoms of withdrawal when they stop. It’s a natural reaction.

Myth 4: There are no long-term consequences.

Addiction is not the only risk that comes

with prescription pain medications. When taken for extended periods of time, they also can harm your body’s endocrine system and throw your hormones out of whack, affecting everything from your libido to your risk of osteoporosis.

“There are a lot of bad things that can happen, but people don’t always hear you when you describe them,” Dr. Rosenquist said.

Myth 5: You should avoid painkillers altogether.

Obviously, there’s plenty of scary information about painkillers. However, there are certainly legitimate uses.

In addition to treating the pain from acute injuries, a small fraction of chronic pain patients see improvements in both pain levels and function from taking pain medications, especially when other pain management techniques fail for them. For most people, though, prescription pain meds should be a short-term treatment at most.

Myth 6: Pain medication can fix your pain.

This may be the biggest myth of all. Pain medications simply mask your symptoms; they don’t treat the root cause of your pain.

That’s why Dr. Rosenquist focuses on how you function rather than just how you feel.

Are you moving better? Are you able to get back to work? These are important questions about function.

So is the question of whether you’ve been making efforts to get better. For example, have you been following doctor’s orders and doing physical therapy to recover from an injury? Have you been losing weight if you’re suffering from weightrelated back pain?

“If you’re not doing the other things you need to do, I’m not going to keep prescribing those drugs,” Dr. Rosenquist said. “On their own, they’re not therapeutic.”

For more health tips and information, visit HealthHub from Cleveland Clinic at www.health.clevelandclinic.org.

Source: Cleveland Clinic WhatDoctorsKnow is a magazine devoted to up-to-the minute information on health issues from physicians, major hospitals and clinics, universities and health care agencies across the U.S. Online at www.whatdoctorsknow.com. © 2014 Whatdoctorsknow.com. Distributed by Tribune Content.

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Accident rates decline for older drivers

By Joan Lowy Safety researchers expressed concern a decade ago that traffic accidents would increase as the nation’s aging population swelled the number of older drivers on the road. Now, they say they’ve been proved wrong.

Today’s drivers aged 70 and older are less likely to be involved in crashes than previous generations, and are less likely to be killed or seriously injured if they do crash, according to a study released last month by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

That’s because vehicles are getting safer, and seniors are generally getting healthier, the institute said.

The marked shift began taking hold in the mid-1990s and indicates that the growing ranks of aging drivers, as baby boomers head into their retirement years, aren’t making U.S. roads deadlier.

licensed driver fell 42 percent for older drivers and 30 percent for middle-age ones, the study found. Looking at vehicle miles traveled, fatal crash rates fell 39 percent for older drivers and 26 percent for middle-age ones from 1995 to 2008.

The greatest rate of decline was among drivers age 80 and over, nearly twice that of middle-age drivers and drivers ages 70 to 74.

“This should help ease fears that aging baby boomers are a safety threat,” said Anne McCartt, the institute’s senior vice president for research and co-author of the study.

“No matter how we looked at the fatal crash data for this age group — by licensed drivers or miles driven — the fatal crash involvement rates for drivers 70 and older declined, and did so at a faster pace than the rates for drivers ages 35 to 54,” she said in a report on the study’s results.

Elders driving more, too Fatality rates drop generally Traffic fatalities overall in the U.S. have declined to levels not seen since the late 1940s, and accident rates have come down for other drivers as well.

But since 1997, older drivers have enjoyed bigger declines than middle-age drivers (those 35 to 54) as measured by fatal crash rates per driver, and per vehicle miles driven.

From 1997 to 2012, fatal crash rates per

At the same time, older drivers are putting more miles on the odometer than they used to, although they’re still driving fewer miles a year than middle-aged drivers.

This is especially true for drivers 75 and older, who lifted their average annual mileage by more than 50 percent from 1995 to 2008.

“The fact that older drivers increased their average mileage… may indicate that they are

remaining physically and mentally comfortable with driving tasks,” the institute said.

When older drivers reduce the number of trips they take, it’s often because they sense their driving skills are eroding. They compensate by driving less at night, during rush hour, in bad weather, or over long distances.

By 2050, the number of people in the U.S. age 70 and older is expected to reach 64 million, or about 16 percent of the population. In 2012, there were 29 million people in the U.S. age 70 and over, or 9 percent of the population.

“The main point is that these 70- to 80-

year-olds are really different than their predecessors,” said Alan Pisarski, author of the authoritative “Commuting in America” series of reports on driving trends.

“They learned to drive in a very different era. They are far more comfortable driving in freeway situations. This matters immensely for the future, because we are seeing dramatic increases in older workers staying in the labor force and continuing to work and commute well past 65.”

For more information from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, see www.iihs.org.

— AP

BEACON BITS

Apr. 1

PTSD DISCUSSION

Dr. Charles Hoge, author of Once a Warrior — Always a Warrior and a national expert on post-traumatic stress disorder and mild traumatic brain injury presents the latest knowledge about combat stress and physiological reactions on Tuesday, April 1 at 12:30 p.m. at Duncan Hall of Howard Community College, 10901 Little Patuxent Pkwy., Columbia. For more information, call (443) 518-1420.

Apr. 9

HOW TO RECORD MEDICAL HISTORY

Dottie Aleshire, instructor at Howard Community College and the Family History Center in Ellicott City, will address the first steps in preserving potentially life-saving family medical history on Wednesday, April 9 at 2 p.m. at the Charles E. Miller Branch Library, 9421 Frederick Rd., Ellicott City. For more information, call (410) 313-1950.

12

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Health Studies Page

A P R I L 2 0 1 4 — H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N

THE PLACE TO LOOK FOR INFORMATION ON AREA CLINICAL TRIALS

Can a blood pressure drug keep you strong?

By Carol Sorgen Have you lost strength and mobility as you’ve aged? That’s not uncommon. According to WebMD, for approximately the first 30 years of our life, our muscles grow larger and stronger. After that, however, we begin to lose muscle mass and function, a condition known as age-related sar-

copenia or sarcopenia with aging.

People who are not physically active can lose as much as 3 to 5 percent of their muscle mass per decade after age 30. Even if you are active, however, you will still experience some muscle loss. In general, sarcopenia typically accelerates around the age of 75 (though it can happen earlier or later).

Muscle loss has multiple symptoms, such as weakness, slowness and fatigue.

Older adults with muscle weakness have a higher risk of falls and disability. In addition, the loss of independence for older adults can lead to a poorer quality of life.

The reasons for muscle loss can be attributed to one or more factors, including medical and neurological conditions, cognitive decline, non-supportive social and/or environmental settings and frailty.

Frailty is a multi-system syndrome of age-related decline that is characterized by weakness, weight loss, fatigue, low levels of activity and slowness. Frail older adults have a higher risk for serious complications such as hospitalization, disability and even mortality.

Treating muscle loss

Are You Experiencing Memory Problems?

Enroll now in a clinical study at the NeurExpand Brain Center.

In this study, participants will be asked to take losartan or a placebo to see if losartan can help prevent loss of muscle strength. Those randomly selected to take losartan will receive a 25 mg tablet of losartan daily for eight weeks, then increase to 50 mg daily for another eight weeks, and finally increase to 100 mg daily for the last eight weeks of the study.

Participants will be randomly selected to take losartan or a placebo. Those in the placebo group will a pill with no active ingredients to take for 24 weeks total. The study will take place over 24 weeks in the Clinical Research Unit on the Hopkins Bayview Medical Campus.

You may be eligible to participate if you are age 70 or older and experience problems with strength or walking. The study doctor will assess other criteria to make sure that you’re eligible to participate.

If you take part in the study, you may receive at no cost study medication, study-related care from a local doctor and reimbursement for time and travel.

For more information, call (410) 550-2113 or visit www.MuscleLossTrial.com.

CHERRY BLOSSOM CRUISE

The Department of Recreation and Parks presents an Odyssey cruise down the Potomac River to see the cherry blossoms on Tuesday, April 1. The bus leaves at 9:30 a.m. and returns at 3:30 p.m. The $90 fee includes lunch on board the ship. For more information, call (410) 313-7279.

To be eligible you must: t #F CFUXFFO BOE ZFBST PME t )BWF NJME NFNPSZ DPNQMBJOUT t #F JO HPPE IFBMUI BOE IBWF B primary care physician

Have You Fallen?

Seeking Men and Women to participate in a research study at the university of Maryland & veterans Affairs of baltimore to better understand balance and the prevention of falls in aging individuals.

Compensation will be provided to eligible participants for their time and also for referring other participants who enroll.

you will receive: SM

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www.NeurExpand.com

Taking part in the study

BEACON BITS

Apr. 1

Principal Investigator and Medical Director, Dr. Majid Fotuhi, is conducting a clinical study evaluating the effects of two dietary supplements, Fruitflow® (Tomato extract) and Resveratrol (Grape extract) on memory, blood flow to the brain, and fitness.

For more information, please call 410.494.0193

The primary treatment for sarcopenia is exercise, specifically resistance or strength training.

Recently, however, investigators from the Johns Hopkins University Older Americans Independence Center (JHU OAIC) found that losartan, a medication commonly used to treat high blood pressure, slowed the strength decline seen in older mice. In addition, the drug allowed the skeletal muscle of injured mice to heal faster. Losatran’s brand name is Cozaar.

As a result of those findings, the researchers are currently conducting a study to see if losartan can do the same for older adults and prevent the decrease in strength associated with aging.

Losartan is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treat-

ment of high blood pressure, heart failure and to protect the kidneys in diabetic patients. Currently, losartan is not FDA approved to prevent the decrease in strength associated with aging, however.

According to the researchers, interventions such as losartan that can prevent the decline seen in frailty have the potential to improve function and help older adults maintain their independence and a good quality of life.

• Health evaluation • Balance, step, strength, and/or flexibility exercises • Compensation for your time if interested call: 410-605-7179 & Mention code: liFt Baltimore VA/University of Maryland Gerontology Recruitment Line *You must be at least 65 years old and in good health *Participants will be seen at the Baltimore VA Medical Center and University of Maryland School of Medicine *You will attend approximately 41 visits for 1 to 4 hours of time per visit

CAll todAy!

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H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N — A P R I L 2 0 1 4

13

Stay fit with these simple couch exercises Can’t muster the motivation to get up off the couch and exercise? Try “couchersizing” — staying on or near your couch and exercising during commercial breaks.

“A growing body of literature connects the amount of time you spend sitting to illness and even death. Minimizing long periods of inactivity, like exercising during commercial breaks, can help reduce the risk of injury and may even help you live longer,” said Kailin Collins, a physical therapist at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Mass.

You can work many different muscle groups while seated upright on a couch.

Want to get your heart rate up, work your oblique muscles in your sides, and whittle your waist? Try twisting your torso from side to side for the length of a commercial break.

You can even exercise while lying on the couch: with your legs in front of you, squeeze the quadriceps for a count of 10, then relax and repeat several times. Or try leg lifts while on your back to build abs, or side lifts to strengthen hip muscles.

Get your doctor’s OK first, then consider trying some of these exercises during the typical 3-to-4-minute TV commercial break:

1. Sit to stand Why it helps: This exercise works the quadriceps in the front of the thigh and gluteal muscles in the buttocks, which helps protect your ability to get up from a chair, out of a car, or off a bathroom seat.

“In addition, it’s possible to use repeated repetitions of this exercise to get your heart rate up,” said Collins.

How to do it: Go from sitting to standing to sitting again, 10 times in a row. Rest for a minute, then repeat.

2. Calf stretch Why it helps: “Keeping your calves optimally flexible can keep your walking stride longer, reduce your risk of tripping over your toes, and reduce your risk for common foot injuries such as plantar fasciitis,” said Collins.

How to do it: Sit on the edge of a couch with your feet flat on the floor. With one leg, keeping your heel on the floor, lift and point the toes toward the ceiling, so that you feel a stretch in your calf muscle. Hold for 30 seconds, then do the same with the other leg, three times per leg.

3. Stand on one leg Why it helps: “Balance gets better if you practice it, which can decrease the risk of falling,” said Collins.

How to do it: Holding on to the back of a chair for stability, lift one heel toward your buttocks. Hold for 30 to 45 seconds, three times per leg. To improve your balance on unsteady surfaces, try this with shoes off on a balled-up beach towel.

4. Shoulder blade squeeze Why it helps: “This can help prevent that rounded, shoulders-forward posture that can develop from many years of sitting, especially at a computer,” said Collins.

How to do it: Pinch your shoulder blades together, but not up (don’t shrug).

Hold for 10 seconds, then repeat 10 times.

5. Hand squeeze Why it helps: “Keeping your grip strong makes it possible to turn a door knob, open a jar, and grasp a gallon of milk,” said Collins.

How to do it: While seated upright, hold a ball (the size of a basketball) over your lap with both hands, then squeeze the ball as if you’re trying to deflate it. Hold for a few

seconds, then release. Repeat 10 times, rest, then do another set of 10 repetitions.

You can also improve your grip strength by squeezing a small rubber ball in one hand.

Better yet, walk across the room during commercials, swinging your arms.

6. Bicep curls Weak biceps make it difficult to lift groceries or push yourself out of a chair. Curls can keep your muscles strong and supple.

With a physical therapist’s supervision, sit

on an exercise ball or chair holding a one- or two-pound weight at your side, palm inward.

Slowly bend one elbow, lifting the weight toward your chest. Keep your elbow close to your side and rotate your palm so it faces your shoulder. Pause. Slowly lower your arm, rotating it back again. Aim for eight to 12 repetitions. Repeat with your other arm.

— Harvard Health Letter © 2014 President and fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.

BEACON BITS

Apr. 16+

LIVING WITH DIABETES SERIES

Learn how to manage diabetes through diet and education in a program at the Howard County General Hospital’s Bolduc Family Outpatient Center, 5755 Cedar Ln., Columbia, on Wednesday, April 16 and Thursday, April 17 from 6 to 9 p.m. A longer version, including input from a podiatrist and endocrinologist, will be offered at the same location on Friday, April 18 and Tuesday, April 22 from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Fees vary depending on insurance coverage. For more information, or to register, visit www.hcgh.org or call (443) 718-3000.

Apr. 17

FREE PROSTATE SCREENING

Howard County General Hospital is offering a free prostate cancer screening, including a PSA blood test, presented by Dr. Marc Applestein on Thursday, April 17 from 4 to 6 p.m. at the hospital’s Wellness Center, 10710 Charter Dr., Columbia. To register, visit www.hcgh.org/events or call (410) 740-7601.

14

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A P R I L 2 0 1 4 — H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N

How to get back in the exercise groove Q: I got too busy to exercise for a few weeks. Have I lost all that I worked for, or can I pick up where I left off?

A: How quickly you lose fitness depends on long you have stopped, and how fit you are to start.

The more fit you are and the longer you’ve been exercising, let’s say at least several months, the more slowly you lose aerobic condition and strength. You may lose some ground after two or three weeks of not exercising, but you probably are still ahead of where you started.

People new to exercise, however, can end up back where they started in endurance and strength after a month or less.

If you are ready to return to your former physical activity and it’s been more than a

couple weeks, start back with an easier workout than where you left off. Tune in to how your body feels, and adjust to a pace and intensity that let you exercise using good form.

Some experts say a good guideline for aerobic exercise is to work hard enough that you wouldn’t want to sing, but can still talk.

Again, depending on your fitness level and the length of time you stopped exercising, expect it to take weeks or even a few months to get back to your previous fitness level.

Next time you find yourself tight on time, studies show that if you exercise for a shorter period or less often, without cutting it out completely, you can hold your ground.

If you’re getting bored with what you’re doing, or if a change in season ends the activities you’ve been doing, start something

new. Participation in different kinds of Because these starchy foods can also prophysical activity can add more benefits vide vitamins, minerals, fiber and healthful than sticking with one form of phytochemicals, you’ll probaexercise alone, and it keeps bly be eating plenty of these activity fun. “other carbohydrates” if you Q: Sometimes I see food are eating the plant-focused eatlabels list “other carbohying pattern recommended for drate.” What are they, and heart health and lower cancer is it something I’m suprisk. posed to get more of or There is no uniform goal limit? for how much “other carbohyA: “Other carbohydrate” is drate” we should get. It delisted on some food label’s pends on individual calorie Nutrition Facts panel under- NUTRITION needs, which varies with activWISE neath “total carbohydrate” ity level, age and size.

By Karen Collins, and refers mainly to complex The American Institute for MS, RD, CDM carbohydrates, commonly Cancer Research offers a Nutricalled starches. (If a food contion Hotline, 1-800- 843-8114, tains sweeteners called sugar alcohols — from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Frixylitol, mannitol, sorbitol — they also are day. This free service allows you to ask quesincluded in this group.) tions about diet, nutrition and cancer. A regStarches are the main type of carbohy- istered dietitian will return your call, usualdrate in bread, cereal, pasta, potatoes and ly within three business days. starchy vegetables like corn. They include Courtesy of the American Institute for carbohydrate from whole grains, but also Cancer Research. Questions for this column carbohydrate from refined grains, from may be sent to “Nutrition Wise,” 1759 R St., which valuable nutrients and phytochemi- N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009. Collins cancals have been removed. not respond to questions personally.

BEACON BITS

Apr. 26

WOMEN’S HEALTH AND WELLNESS FAIR More than 90 vendors and exhibitors, health screenings and sem-

inars will be offered at the WomanFest on Saturday, April 26 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Gary J. Arthur Community Center at Glenwood, 2400 Rte. 97, Cooksville. Keynote speaker is Jackie Newgent, author of The With or Without Meat Cookbook. The event is sponsored by the Howard County Department of Citizen Services. For more information, visit howardcountyaging.org/WomenFest or call (410) 313-5440.

H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4

Say you saw it in the Beacon

15

When your daughter-in-law raises a sissy Dear Solutions: needs from you, not criticism. When you My daughter-in-law is making me a praise her for things she does well, and for little crazy. My grandson is just being a decent, loving per5 years old, and I can see son, it might dry her tears. that she’s making him into As for your grandson, you a little sissy just because may try going with him to she’s afraid of every activisome of those activities that ty he might try. make her fearful. Without critiWhen I point this or anycizing her, you can be a reasthing else out to her, insuring and protective presence stead of listening, she imas he tries new things. Rememmediately starts to cry. ber my motto for parents of When she married my adult children — “don’t advise SOLUTIONS son she told me she was so without their consent.”

By Helen Oxenberg, glad to have me as a father Dear Solutions: MSW, ACSW because she never had one A friend recently took me (her father died when she to what she termed a “claswas little). So in that case, shouldn’t sic English restaurant,” where they she be happy to get advice from me in- serve the best (her judgment) fish and stead of shutting me up by crying? chips.

I get intimidated. How can I get her to So I ordered it, and when it arrived listen to me when I point things out to it was being served wrapped in newsher? I don’t know what you call it when paper. I couldn’t see myself eating it a woman uses tears all the time to get that way and asked for a plate and silher way, but I call it being a cry baby. verware.

— Jim They then brought a plastic plate Dear Jim: and utensils. When I asked for a reguI call it water power, and it is powerful lar plate and silverware, my friend acsince it intimidates you. If you want her to tually apologized to the waiter about listen to you when you “point things out” my “ignorance.” to her, put away the pointer.

I’m angry or at least very annoyed Stop telling her what to do or how to at my friend. I know it’s supposed to raise her child. Try to understand that the be an authentic English restaurant, father she never had represents the ap- but I didn’t think I needed a passport proval she never had. That’s what she to eat there. Am I wrong for being

Enjoy the Beacon?

Tell your friends.

angry at her actions, and which one of us should apologize?

— Laura Dear Laura: Well to begin with, I agree that today’s news would spoil my appetite also. However, your friend should not have embarrassed you by apologizing to the waiter. It was quite clear that you weren’t familiar with this English custom, and it should just have been explained to you.

I think the apology should come from

her, and the admission that you were ignorant of this custom and should have asked her for more description of the English customs should come from you.

Oh well. Just shake hands and fish in more familiar places in the future. © Helen Oxenberg, 2014. Questions to be considered for this column may be sent to: The Beacon, P.O. Box 2227, Silver Spring, MD 20915. You may also email the author at helox72@comcast.net. To inquire about reprint rights, call (609) 655-3684.

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A P R I L 2 0 1 4 — H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N

VOLUME 4, NO. 4 • APRIL 2014

A Message from the Administrator

By Dayna Brown, Office on Aging Administrator Spring is finally here!

With the change of seasons comes a sense of renewal — cleaning out closets, ridding our homes of dust and clutter, happily packing up winter clothes and coats in favor of lighter, brighter garments. I urge you to take this same approach to your health and wellbeing as well. And the Office on Aging has plenty of great options to help you Spring forward to a new you!

I hope you had a chance to attend one of the great “Boost Your Brain” presentations held at senior centers in March, featuring noted neurologist and brain fitness expert Dr. Majid Fotuhi. On April 10, at 1 pm, Dr. Fotuhi wraps up the series at the Glenwood 50+ Center with “Proactive Aging: Food & Lifestyle Choices,” proving that you really are what you eat. Call 410-313-5440 to reserve your spot!

The Glenwood 50+ Center will also host our 6th annual WomenFest in April. Join us on Saturday, April 26 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. as we welcome award-winning chef Jackie Newgent as our keynote speaker. Jackie will share her insights on the benefits of eating a plant-based diet, as well as recipes from her new book, The With or Without Meat Cookbook. With more than 90 vendors and exhibitors, plus an exciting array of free seminars, health screenings, great food and more, WomenFest is a great destination for anyone looking to improve their life and make a fresh start. I hope you will join us!

Lastly, if you haven’t picked up a copy of our 2014 Resource Guide and Caregiver Guide, I urge you to do so. These two publications include a wealth of information and resources for all, especially those who are caring for a loved one, or want to be proactive about aging in place in Howard County. Call Maryland Access Point at 410-313-5980 to request a copy, or stop by your local senior center to pick one up. And while you are there, be sure to check out the schedule of spring classes and events!

Sixth Annual WomenFest to Feature Chef Jackie Newgent Coordinated by the Office on Aging, Creating nutritious, great-tasting meals to last year’s WomenFest attracted 600 meet everyone’s unique diet needs is a participants and more than 90 challenge for any cook. In vendors and exhibitors. In the new With or Without addition to the keynote Meat Cookbook: The Flexible presentation, the 2014 event Approach to Flavorful Diabetes will feature a guest appearance Cooking, nationally

by Sally McKenney from recognized nutrition expert Sallysbakingaddiction.com, and chef Jackie Newgent noted food blogger and shares 125 diabetes-friendly Pinterest favorite. vegetarian recipes with This year, WomenFest added poultry, fish, or meat attendees can explore an even options to satisfy anyone. wider array of products and Don’t miss the services geared towards opportunity to women, take advantage of the free health meet Jackie in screenings and attend fun and person at informative seminars (see our ad for Howard County’s details, opposite), including: sixth annual • More Trash, More Treasure WomenFest on • Weigh 2 Go Saturday, April 26, • Lil’ Ms. Fix It from 10 a.m. to 3 • Fashion That Flatters p.m. at the Gary J. • It’s Thyme to Boost Your Immunity!

Arthur Community Center at Glenwood, For more information, visit 2400 Route 97 in Cooksville, Md. www.howardcountyaging.org/WomenFest, Jackie Newgent, RDN, CDN, is a www.Facebook.com/HoCoCitizen or call classically trained chef, registered dietitian, 410-313-5440. media personality, and award-winning cookbook author. Her keynote presentation at WomenFest, “The Dish on Plant-Centered Eating: Enticing Ideas for Creating Healthful Entrées Without Meat” will take place at 1:30 p.m. Seating is limited, so be sure to The Senior Connection is published monthly by the Howard County Department of get your free admission ticket upon Citizen Services’ Office on Aging. arrival. Cookbooks will be available onWe welcome your comments and suggestions. site for purchase and signing.

To contact us, or to join our email subscriber list, email Newgent’s recipes are perfect for seniorconnection@howardcountymd.gov people who are trying to reach or with “subscribe” in the subject box. maintain a healthy weight. Plus, each !"#$%&'!()*+&,-./0&!)&123)2 of the 125 recipes meets the 4567&'!8(9:3#&;#*0"#+&<$= American Diabetes Association’s '!8(9:3#>&?<&@7AB4 nutritional guidelines, ensuring that B7ACD7DC4B7A they will fit into anyone’s diabetes """=E!"#$%/!()*+#23)2=!$2 meal plan, and helping them to """=F#/0:!!G=/!9H !'!'3*3I0) better manage their blood glucose <#+)#&?=&J$!")>&1%93)3K*$#*!$ levels. Come to WomenFest to meet Advertising contained in the Beacon is not endorsed by Jackie and find out more! the Howard County Office on Aging or by the publisher.

J

To

H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N — A P R I L 2 0 1 4

Say you saw it in the Beacon

The Senior Connection

CALENDAR OF EVENTS Thursday, March 27, 5:30 p.m.

Wine & Canvas • Glenwood 50+ Center Enjoy art instruction, appetizers, wine, keepsake glass and a 16x20 selfpainted masterpiece. Cost: $35; call 410-313-5440 to register.

Tuesday, April 1, 10 to 11:30 a.m.

Spring Line Dance Party • Bain Center Put on your dancing shoes, and learn the moves from instructor Jesse Barnes, then enjoy made-to-order pasta dishes.

Call 410-313-7213 to reserve lunch by March 25.

Friday, April 4, Noon to 1:30 p.m.

Better Communication: Eliminating Barriers Elkridge Senior Center Karen Hull and Marsha Ansel discuss breaking down barriers to improve communication. Free; call 410-313-5192 to register.

Friday, April 4, Noon Fish Fry • Glenwood 50+ Center Join us for lunch - the fish is cooked right outside the café door! Cost: lunch donation. Call 410-313-5440 to sign up.

Tuesday, April 8, 2 to 3:30 p.m.

Medicare 101 • North Laurel 50+ Center Learn what to expect from Medicare.

Call 410-313-7391to register.

Thursdays, April 10 & 17, 9:30 a.m. to noon History’s Mysteries: UFO’s on Earth Glenwood 50+ Center Join Warren Gray for a two-part series on this intriguing topic.

Call 410-313-5440 to register.

Thursday, April 10, 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.

Using Our Communication Toolbox Ellicott City Senior Center Karen Hull and Marsha Ansel will help you improve your communication skills and understanding. Free; call 410-313-1400 to register.

Monday, April 14, 9 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.

Where Were You When?

Glenelg Country School, 12793 Folly Quarter Rd., Ellicott City Share your life experiences with students from Glenelg Country School.

Includes breakfast and lunch; call Trisha Olsen to sign up, 410-313-0389.

Tuesday, April 15, 10 to 11 a.m.

Meet the Author, Dr. Dolen Perkins-Valdez Bain Center Dr. Perkins-Valdez discusses Solomon Northup’s memoir, Twelve Years a Slave, the inspiration for this year’s Best Picture.

Call 410-313-7213 by April 8 to reserve lunch.

Tuesday, April 15, 2 to 3:30 p.m.

Medicare 102 • North Laurel 50+ Center Learn about Medicare Part C/Health Plans and Medigap Plans. Free; call 410-313-7391 to register.

Wednesday, April 16, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Annual Egg Hunt • Elkridge Senior Center Enjoy egg hunting fun with games, prizes, snacks and the Easter Bunny.

RSVP to order lunch: 410-313-5192.

Wednesday, April 16, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Spring Luncheon • North Laurel 50+ Center Enjoy lunch with entertainment by Ellis Woodward. Cost: $3, plus lunch donation. For tickets, call 410-313-0380.

Wednesday, April 16, 12:30 p.m.

Magician Robert Niccolini Ellicott City Senior Center Join us for a spell-binding magic presentation! Call 410-313-1400 for details.

Thursday, April 17, 11 a.m.

Tappin’ with Jackie Ellicott City Senior Center Our newest tap graduates will entertain us with a dance recital. Friends and families welcome. Call 410-313-1400 for details.

Thursday, April 17, 11 a.m. to Noon Coupon 101 • East Columbia 50+ Center Learn how to save money at the supermarket on products you can use.

Free; call 410-313-7680 for details.

Tuesday, April 22, 10 to 11 a.m.

Ask the Physical Therapist East Columbia 50+ Center Get answers to all your physical therapy questions. Free; call 410-313-7680 for details.

Wednesday, April 23, 10 to 11 a.m.

Beyond Bereavement Glenwood 50+ Center Gain an understanding of bereavement and move closer to healing. Free; call 410-313-5440 to register by April 21.

Thursday, April 24, 10 a.m.

Community Spring Cleanup North Laurel 50+ Center Help us keep our grounds green and clean. A recycling specialist will answer questions. Free refreshments and prizes!

To register, call 410-313-0380.

Fridays, April 25 – May 30, 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Living Well for Men • HCGH Wellness Center, 10710 Charter Drive, Suite 100, Columbia MD 21044 Living with prostate cancer, COPD, heart disease, or other chronic conditions? This workshop will help you regain control of your life.

Call 410-313-5980 to register.

FREE ADMISSION and there’s something for everyone!

Saturday, April 26 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Gary J. Arthur Community Center at Glenwood 2400 Route 97, Cooksville, MD 21723

SEMINARS 11:00-11:45 a.m.

MORE TRASH, MORE TREASURE Kelli Myers, A Journey From Junk WEIGH 2 GO Saba Sheikh, M.D., Columbia Medical Practice LIL’ MS. FIX IT Christine Altman & Patricia Hinrichs, Ms. Honey Do, LLC

SEMINARS 12:15-1:00 p.m.

FASHION THAT FLATTERS Karen Lucas, Your Style IQ ELDERBERRY, ECHINACEA, VITAMIN C — IT’S THYME TO BOOST YOUR IMMUNITY Donna Koczaja, M.S., & Nicole Rubin, M.S., Maryland University of Integrative Health

KEYNOTE SPEAKER 1:30 p.m.

Jackie Newgent, RDN, CDN The Dish on Plant-Centered Eating: Enticing Ideas for Creating Healthful Entrees Without Meat

PLUS 10-11:45 a.m. • 12:15-1:00 p.m.

Sally McKenney, baking addict and food blogger from Sally’s Baking Addiction will be on location to sign her new cookbook!

Thursday, May 8, 10 a.m.

Cycle2Health Kick-Off East Columbia 50+ Center Learn more about C2H, attend bike mini clinics, register and join the 1st ride of the season, departing at 10:30 a.m. Call 410-313-5940 for details.

To request accommodations to attend any of these events, call 410-313-5980 one week in advance.

410.313.5440 www.howardcountyaging.org/womenfest

17

18

A P R I L 2 0 1 4 — H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N

More at TheBeaconNewspapers.com

Money Law &

What we’ve learned from the bear/bull market. See story on page 21.

Money-saving strategies from the pros We asked a variety of experts to share tips for staving off a tax audit, buying auto coverage, investing a windfall and understanding stock market risk.

Tax audits Frank Degen, immediate past president of the National Association of Enrolled Agents [tax professionals licensed to practice before the IRS]: What’s the most common reason your clients are audited, and how can taxpayers avoid that fate?

Only about 1 percent of taxpayers are audited. What triggers an audit is generally something on the tax return that’s out of the ordinary. For example, if you have a

side business and file a Schedule C, the IRS will flag large losses, particularly if they offset other income.

On Schedule A, large charitable contributions could be a red flag, because now you have to have a receipt for every item. I don’t ask to see every receipt for charitable contributions, but I will specifically ask a client if he or she has receipts for all contributions.

Unreimbursed business expenses are another item you see people get flagged on. If your preparer isn’t asking serious questions about these items, you need a new preparer.

Car insurance Robert Hunter, director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America:

Name the biggest mistake people make when shopping for car insurance.

People do not shop.

When I was Texas insurance commissioner 20 years ago, I invited 25 people to our office with their auto insurance policies, and I gave each of them our buyer’s guide and a phone. I asked them to make some calls and report back in one hour.

The average savings was $125.

I suggest you get your state insurance department’s auto insurance buyer’s guide, find the example closest to your situation, and look at the premiums. Select the six lowest-priced insurers in your area.

Then go to the website of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (www.naic.org/cis) and get the complaint ratio for the insurers. Drop the two with the highest ratios and get quotes from the remaining four.

How to handle a windfall Sheryl Garrett, founder, the Garrett Planning Network: If I won $500,000 in the lottery tomorrow, what should I do with the money?

•

First, make sure money has been set aside to pay income taxes, which may be up to $200,000, depending on your situation. Then pay off all your consumer debt.

With the remainder, invest in your ability to earn money — for example, tuition and possibly time off to get an education.

Once you have adequate cash reserves, invest the balance for retirement in low-cost, tax-efficient index funds and exchange-traded funds, and leave it alone. Investments in yourself and your retirement last a lifetime.

Stock market risk Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist for Charles Schwab: How do you know when the stock market has topped out?

If there were any one thing, we’d all be very wealthy. There’s no bell that rings.

But there are warning signs of a pullback, things we’ve seen in the past that suggest an elevated risk.

One is that interest rates, after adjusting for inflation, are rising. This is the only sign that you could argue is in place right now, See PRO TIPS, page 19

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19

Say you saw it in the Beacon | Law & Money

H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N — A P R I L 2 0 1 4

Wide array of tax breaks expired in 2013

By Carole Feldman If you didn’t take advantage of a wide array of tax credits and deductions last year, it looks like you’ll be out of luck in 2014.

The Congressional Research Service says there are dozens of temporary breaks that Congress passed at the end of 2012 that have expired as of December 31, 2013.

So they still apply to your 2013 tax returns, but not for the current year.

Here are some of those expired tax credits and deductions that affect individuals:

State and local sales tax Taxpayers had temporarily been given the choice of deducting state and local sales taxes instead of state and local income taxes. This had been particularly beneficial for taxpayers who lived in states like Florida, Nevada and Texas without an income tax, and for those who made a purchase significant in value.

“Folks aren’t going to see it anymore,” said Craig Richards, managing partner and director of tax services at Fiduciary Trust.

Charitable giving Taxpayers older than 70 1/2 no longer have the option of contributing to charities directly from their individual retirement accounts. This direct contribution allowed seniors to avoid having to declare the amount withdrawn from the IRA as income — and pay taxes on it.

Pro tips From page 18 and the reason why it’s happening now is that inflation has been falling — you could even argue that inflation-adjusted rates are going up for a good reason, not a bad reason.

Also, you tend to see a significant pickup in initial public offerings and a real surge in mergers and acquisitions. You often see an

“This is something that we’ve seen a lot of our clients utilize over the years,” Richards said.

For many taxpayers, he said, the math worked out better than withdrawing the money, donating it, and then taking a deduction for a charitable contribution. “You can’t get better than not have to recognize income even if you don’t get the deduction,” he said.

Housing and energy efficiency In an attempt to help people who lost their homes during the housing crisis or who owed more on the home than its value, Congress had passed legislation that allowed homeowners to exclude up to $2 million in mortgage forgiveness from taxable income. That tax break was not extended beyond 2013.

Nina Olson, the national taxpayer advocate, says there’s an important exception — taxpayer insolvency. If the taxpayer is insolvent — defined on the taxpayer advocate’s website as “when a taxpayer’s total debt exceeds his or her total assets” — the mortgage writeoff would not be considered taxable income, she said In another change affecting housing, Congress let the deduction for the cost of premiums for home mortgage insurance expire.

For the past several years, taxpayers have been able to get a tax credit for making their homes more energy efficient.

The credit was a lifetime maximum of $500 inverted yield curve, which is when shortterm rates are higher than longer-term yields. And you typically see excessive enthusiasm among individual investors.

Send your questions and comments to moneypower@kiplinger.com. And for more on this and similar money topics, visit Kiplinger.com. ©2014 Kiplinger’s Personal Finance; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

for such things as insulation, more efficient heating, cooling and hot water systems, doors and windows.

But list that among the tax breaks that weren’t renewed for the 2014 tax year.

Tax credits for certain electric cars continue into 2014.

Commuting costs Many workers take advantage of employer programs that allow them to pay for certain commuting costs pretax — the cost is deducted straight from income before any taxes are withheld.

For the 2013 tax year, the amounts for parking and public transportation were equal — $245 per month. But beginning this year, the public transportation pretax

Education Students or their parents will no longer be able to take a maximum $4,000 deduction for tuition and required fees to attend an institution of higher education. In some cases, related expenses had included activity fees, books, supplies and equipment — but not room and board, transportation or sports, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

Although the tuition and fees deduction expired, there will still be other educationrelated tax breaks available for students and their parents during the 2014 tax year, including a deduction for interest paid on student loans and the American Opportunity and lifetime learning credits. — AP

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A P R I L 2 0 1 4 — H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N

Changes that may affect your tax returns

By Carole Feldman Higher-income Americans are likely to feel the biggest hits from tax law changes when they file their federal returns next month. Taxpayers also will have a harder time taking medical deductions.

But other changes for the 2013 tax year may benefit you. The Alternative Minimum Tax has been patched — permanently — to prevent more middle-income people from being drawn in, and there’s a simpler way to compute the home office deduction.

Also, tax rate tables and the standard deduction have been adjusted for inflation, as has the maximum contribution to retirement accounts, including 401(k) plans and Individual Retirement Accounts.

Higher-income taxpayers The tax legislation passed at the start of 2013 permanently extended the Bush-era tax cuts for most people, but also added a top marginal tax rate of 39.6 percent for those at higher incomes — $400,000 for sin-

gle filers, $450,000 for married couples filing jointly, and $425,000 for heads of household.

On top of that, higher-income taxpayers could see their itemized deductions and personal exemptions phased out and pay higher capital gains taxes — 20 percent for some taxpayers. And there are new taxes on high earners to help pay for healthcare reform.

There are different income thresholds for each of these new taxes.

An additional 0.9 percent Medicare tax, for example, kicks in on earnings over $250,000 for married couples filing jointly and $200,000 for singles and heads of household. Same for a 3.8 percent tax on investment income.

But the phase-out of personal exemptions and deductions doesn’t begin until $300,000 for married couples filing jointly and $250,000 for singles.

Taxpayers who didn’t plan could find themselves with big tax bills come April 15 — and perhaps penalties for under-withholding.

Confused? “The complexities of the tax code are only affecting those of us trying to read it,” National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson said in an interview. Tax software makes a lot of those complexities invisible to most people.

As a result, taxpayers also might not re-

alize they’re being helped by a wide array of deductions and credits. “They have no idea of the benefits they are getting through the tax code,” she said.

One simplification: Many investors will find it easier to report stock sales if the 1099-B forms they receive contain key details of the sale and the correct basis for computing gains and losses.

Who’s filing The IRS processed more than 147 million tax returns in 2013, down slightly from the previous year. More than 109 million taxpayers received refunds that averaged $2,744, also slightly less than in 2012.

The upward trend of electronic filing continued, with more than 83 percent of returns being filed online. The biggest jump, 4.6 percent, was among people who used software programs to do their own taxes.

The IRS is continuing to offer its Free File option, which is available to taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes of $58,000 or less. These taxpayers can use brand-name software to file their taxes at no cost. Some states also participate.

The agency also has an option for taxpayers of all incomes — Free File Fillable See TAX RETURNS, page 21

Say you saw it in the Beacon | Law & Money

H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N — A P R I L 2 0 1 4

21

What we learned from the bear/bull market

By Carolyn Bigda Looking back five years since the stock market bottomed out, you could glean a lesson or two from the stock market’s plunge and subsequent recovery.

Diversification works

By March 2009, few investments had come through the bear market unscathed.

Still, the fall was not uniform. In 2008, Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index lost 37 percent, but financial stocks sank 55 percent.

Meanwhile, shares of companies that make essential consumer goods, such as toilet paper and cereal, dropped a more tolerable 15 percent. Merger Fund, a member of the Kiplinger 25, lost just 2 percent by investing in stocks of already announced takeover targets.

And some investments actually made

Tax returns From page 20 Forms — which does basic calculations but does not offer the guidance that a software package would.

For the 2013 tax year, the personal exemption is $3,900. The standard deduction is $12,200 for married taxpayers filing jointly, $6,100 for singles, and $8,950 for heads of household.

Many credits and deductions were extended for 2013, including several for education. Among them: the American Opportunity Credit of up to $2,500 per student for tuition and fees, and deductions for student loan interest and tuition-related expenses. Many of these are phased out at higher income levels.

Schoolteachers will still be able to deduct up to $250 in out-of-pocket expenses for books or other supplies on their 2013 returns, but not thereafter.

Medical and home office deductions Taxpayers may continue to deduct their medical expenses, but it will be more difficult for many to qualify. The threshold for deducting medical expenses now stands at 10 percent of adjusted gross income, up from 7.5 percent.

There’s an exception, though, for those older than 65. For them, the old rate is grandfathered in until 2017.

Among the other changes for 2013,

money: Vanguard Total Bond Market returned 5 percent, and SPDR Gold Shares, an exchange-traded fund that tracks the price of bullion, earned 5 percent.

Diversification can’t prevent losses, but it can help slow the bleeding. And over longer periods, it has added to returns.

Fund sponsor T. Rowe Price found that a simple mix of 60 percent large-company U.S. stocks and 40 percent high-grade U.S. bonds gained an annualized 4.6 percent from April 2000 through November 2013.

And a portfolio with a broader mix of investments — including emerging-markets stocks and high-yield bonds — earned 5.5 percent annualized.

Your timeline matters Stocks are a portfolio’s engine, but not the place for short-term financial needs. some taxpayers who work at home will now have a simplified option for taking a home office deduction.

“You can claim this deduction for the business use of a part of your home only if you use that part of your home regularly and exclusively,” the IRS says. So, if you sit at your kitchen table and check work email, it doesn’t qualify.

The IRS said that for tax year 2011, the most recent year for which numbers are available, more than 3.3 million people claimed nearly $10 billion in home office deductions using Schedule C. Most taxpayers claiming the deduction are self-employed, according to the IRS. Until this year, you had to figure actual expenses for a home office, according to Barbara Weltman, a contributing editor to J.K. Lasser’s Your Income Tax 2014. “Starting with 2013 returns, if you’re eligible for the deduction, you can take a standard deduction of $5 per square foot, up to 300 square feet,” she said. The maximum deduction using this method is $1,500.

The IRS says people who take the simplified option will have to fill out one line on Schedule C, as opposed to a 43-line form.

Weltman likened the simplified home office deduction to the IRS deduction for business use of your car. “You can do your actual costs or the IRS mileage rates.” The standard mileage rate for business use of a car in 2013 is 56.5 cents a mile.

— AP

BEACON BITS

Apr. 5

MONEY MATTERS FAIR Friends of Howard County Library will present money-related ex-

hibits and hands-on activities for children, teens and adults on Saturday, April 5 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the East Columbia Branch Library, 6600 Cradlerock Way, Columbia. The featured speaker is Lila Boor, an investigator with the Howard County Office of Consumer Affairs, who will discuss how to guard against telemarketing, mail and Internet scams at 11 a.m. For more information, call (410) 313-7730.

Although stocks have reached new highs recently, that’s cold comfort if you had to pull money out of the market during the crash to cover living expenses, pay the mortgage, or help a grandchild with tuition.

In those cases, the bear market was a painful reminder of the potential downside of stocks. It also showed that as you think about your portfolio, your investment timeline has to be front and center.

Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at brokerage Janney Montgomery Scott, suggests putting assets you’ll need within five years in low-risk fare, such as money-market funds and short-term bonds. That way, if stocks tumble, you won’t have to sell at the worst possible time.

But if you have a long-term horizon, stocks are still the place to be.

An investor who had $100,000 in an S&P 500 index fund at the market peak in 2007 would have lost more than half of his portfolio by March 2009. If he panicked, moved the portfolio to cash and stayed there for the next five years, the balance would still have been $50,100 as of the end of November 2013.

But if he stayed with stocks, the portfolio would have not only recouped its losses, but grown to $136,000 by the end of 2013.

Carolyn Bigda is a contributing editor to Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine.

Send your questions and comments to moneypower@kiplinger.com. And for more on this and similar money topics, visit Kiplinger.com. ©2014 Kiplinger’s Personal Finance; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

BEACON BITS

Apr. 16

FINANCE YOUR RETIREMENT Dr. Gopal Dorai, professor emeritus of economics at William Pater-

son University, will offer financial strategies dealing with retirement accounts, annuities, reverse mortgages and other resources on Thursday, April 16 at 1 p.m. at East Columbia Branch Library, 6600 Cradlerock Way, Columbia. For additional information, call (410) 313-7730.

22

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A P R I L 2 0 1 4 — H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N

Travel Leisure &

Cruise news for 2014. See stories on pages 24 and 25.

Virginia is a place of year-round festivals

Smoked fish and beans The one-day “shad planking” that takes place every year in Wakefield, about an hour south of Richmond, is both a gastronomic and an olfactory affair.

In the piney woods at the Wakefield Sportsmen’s Club, cigar smoke mixes with the enticing aromas of smoked shad (a fish related to the herring), baked beans, secret sauces and sources of other mysterious scents.

The shad planking, always on the third Wednesday in April, started in the 1930s as a gathering of men who celebrated the start of the fishing season, ate smoked shad, and chewed over politics.

For years, it was an invitation-only confab of largely conservative white males. It

has evolved today to be a rich mix of folks: men and women, young and old, politicians and the apolitical, and curiosity-seekers who mingle in the woods, eat smoked shad, sip whatever’s at hand and gab.

Around 2 p.m., the serving committee shoves out 350 shad that have been splayed and gently smoked on oak planks next to wood embers since 6 a.m. The fish are suffused with a secret sauce created by a local dentist, the late Dr. E.C. Nettles, whose recipe is locked up in a cigar box somewhere known only to a few Ruritanners.

The beans committee stirs a 50-gallon, sluggish concoction of beans, bacon, brown sugar, mustard, Worcestershire sauce and green peppers that has simmered for six hours, more or less, in an apple butter cooker. Committee members affectionately tend to the beans from lawn chairs arranged in a semi-circle around the cooker.

This year’s Shad Planking will take place April 16, from 1 to 6:30 p.m. More information is available at www.shadplanking.com/planking_info.html.

Tinner Hill Blues Festival

PHOTO BY GLENDA C. BOOTH

Closest to home for Beacon readers is the Tinner Hill Blues Festival, coming up in June. What started 20 years ago as a street festival has now grown to a fullfledged, three-day music party where the Blues permeate the Northern Virginia town of Falls Church.

Much of the town’s 2.2 square miles is devoted to blues of every flavor — boogie-woogie piano, old-time blues, acoustic blues, gospel blues, moanin’ blues and happy blues.

Big Bill Morganfield, the son of blues great Muddy Waters and an award-wining blues guitarist, performed there last year. Groups like Blue Pop and the Plucker, Jackwagon and Sheryl Warner and the Southside HomeMen baste shad, a fish related to the herring, before they smoke it on oak planks at the annual shad planking festival in Wakefield, Va.

PHOTO BY GLENDA C. BOOTH

By Glenda C. Booth Virginia is for lovers — of peanuts, oysters, shad, blues, bluegrass and more.

These and other products are lauded at small-town festivals taking place throughout the state year-round. At upcoming Virginia festivals, you can hear fiddle tunes squeal into the hills and hollers, make peanut butter sculptures and meet the second best oyster shucker in the world.

Together, the events bring out the soul of the Old Dominion through music, food, crafts, parades and even coronations.

The week-long Galax Old Fiddlers Convention every August is the biggest fiddler’s event in the U.S., attracting hundreds of musicians from as far away as Japan.

wreckers may show up this year.

The festival includes a blues brunch, art shows, films, lectures, and the “instrument petting zoo,” where youngsters can try out a variety of instruments.

This year’s festival will take place June 13 to 15. For more info, visit http://tinnerhill.org/blues-festival.

Galax Old Fiddlers’ Convention If you think you’ll like the Tinner Hills festival, brace yourself for near-total saturation in bluegrass and country music — ringing and plinking from fairground camps, erupting on Main Street, and zinging off the stage — at the annual Old Fiddlers Convention in Galax, 320 miles southwest of Washington.

The week-long annual fete sponsored by Moose Lodge 733 always takes place the second weekend of August.

The biggest, oldest fiddlers’ convention in the country, the festival attracts fans from as far away as Oregon, Newfoundland, Egypt and Japan.

Musicians of all stripes take off work from their jobs as farmers, store managers, clerks, welders, mechanics, bank managers, librarians, government employees, postal workers, nurses, lawyers and doctors to play and sing in established bands or in groups formed impromptu.

On stage, several hundred musicians compete for cash prizes in old-time fiddle, bluegrass fiddle, dobro, mandolin, dulcimer, bluegrass banjo, clawhammer banjo, autoharp, guitar, folk singing and

flatfoot dancing. Fans watch from lawn chairs around the stage or the grandstand.

The band of veteran “Kill-basa Bill” (aka William Guthrie), who presides over his camp dubbed “Billville,” rouses people out of their seats with original songs like, “I Met My Baby in the Portajohn Line” and “I Just Don’t Look Good Necked Any More.”

The festival has two climaxes, Friday and Saturday nights, when non-stop competitions take over, and bands with names like “Slim Pickins” and the “Whooping Holler String Band” rip off tunes at breakneck speed.

Each band plays for three minutes (a strictly-enforced limit), the crowd whoops, and the band exits. Next band. Wham, bam, play hard for three minutes, exit. It’s constant, hard-driving music from 6 p.m. until usually past midnight.

For many, the fun of Galax is roaming around the labyrinth of cars, trucks, RVs, buses, EZ pop-up tents, tarps and other makeshift “homes,” and crooning to the harmonies and melodies of pickup bands.

Vendors hawk handmade instruments, guitar strings, CDs, crafts and t-shirts.

Food snob alert: Choices are largely high-cal, downhome dishes like countryfried steak sandwiches, greasy Polish sausages, BBQ, funnel cakes, and blooming (deep fried) onions.

The festival has been held every year since 1935, except once during World War See FESTIVALS, page 23

Say you saw it in the Beacon | Leisure & Travel

H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N — A P R I L 2 0 1 4

23

Booking a cruise? How to get a good deal

By Susannah Snider Cruise prices are headed up, but you can expect to score value for your dollar if you book early. Cruises are throwing in freebies, such as gratuities, drink cards and hotel stays, said Carolyn Spencer Brown, of CruiseCritic.com. Some luxury ships add free Internet access.

Plan ahead. Want to book a cruise this spring? Start your search now. Cruise lines sell 75 percent of their available cabins for the year by the end of March, said Stewart Chiron, of CruiseGuy.com.

Do your homework (vacation studying is fun!), and you’ll get first dibs on cabins, extra amenities, and more cruise for your cash. On the flip side, last-minute fares are often the cheapest deals, but you’ll be stuck with the leftovers.

Know your seasons. Most vacation destinations have peak and off seasons. The same

rule applies to cruises. If you travel during shoulder season, you’ll get big discounts.

Sail the Caribbean between September and early January (excluding holidays), European rivers from October to December, and Hawaii between September and mid-December. The possibility of less-than-ideal weather is balanced by smaller crowds and cheaper fares. Or go when school is in session to pay less and avoid other peoples’ kids.

Don’t dismiss luxury. You may be tempted to write off luxury lines, such as Crystal, Silversea and Regent Seven Seas, as too pricey. But with alcohol, gratuities and dining in specialty restaurants often included in the purchase price, they can rival the bargain brands.

Regent makes a case for its luxury ships with its value comparison table at www. rssc.com/experience/value-comparison.

Or head to independenttraveler.com/trav-

Festivals

The 37th Suffolk Peanut Festival, themed “We Are Nutty about America,” will be held Oct. 9 to 12. Visit www.suffolkfest.org/T0.aspx?PID=2 for more info.

From page 22 II. The 79th will be held from Aug. 4 to 10.

More information at www.oldfiddlersconvention.com.

Suffolk Peanut Festival I could smell peanut butter a quarter mile away as I strolled up to the Suffolk Peanut Festival.

And there he was — a pungent, pudgy, eight-foot Mr. P-nutty, smiling brightly, exuding a rich peanutty aroma, and glistening in the warm sun at the annual Suffolk Peanut Festival.

He was the winning creation of the peanut butter sculpture contest, a competition in which entrants sculpt with a special peanut butter blend.

Southeastern Virginia has saluted the goober, an all-purpose legume, every fall at a four-day extravaganza since 1941. It takes place in Suffolk, 200 miles from Washington, and attracts about 125,000 peanut lovers and non.

Festival-goers kick off events with the Ruritan Club’s all-you-can-eat shrimp fest, plus BBQ and live bands. The peanut queen and her court are chosen.

Urbanna Oyster Festival It’s “a little historic town with an oyster problem,” announced a pink t-shirt in Urbanna, a Rappahannock River seaport town on the Northern Neck, 130 miles from Washington, D.C. The area has been known for its oysters for hundreds of years. Writing about the area in 1701, Francis Louis Michel said, “The abundance of oysters is incredible.

There are whole banks of them so that the ships must avoid them. They surpass those in England by far in size; indeed they are four times as large.”

Today’s harvests are not as impressive, but you wouldn’t know it at the Urbanna Oyster Festival. Revelers swoon over savory oysters breaded, deep fried, steamed, boiled, stewed, Rockefellered and frittered. There are oyster lamps, crowns, jewelry, boat tours and reef-building lessons.

Started in 1958, this annual November event was declared Virginia’s official oyster festival in 1988 by the state legislature. It at-

Call an agent. You want an insider advocate to plan and book for you. A good agent can land you freebies and the best cabin, as well as offer expertise in whatev-

er kind of cruise you’re taking. At www.cruisecompete.com, cruise agents vie to find you the best deal. Or search on www.travelsense.org/agents.

Travel insurance coverage can protect you if lost luggage, a sprained ankle, or a canceled flight derails your plans. Book through a third party, such as Travel Guard (www.travelguard.com).

One place where it makes sense to bite the bullet on insurance: the Caribbean during hurricane season (June 1 through Nov. 30). A storm probably won’t endanger your vessel (ships can sail around them), but it could leave you stranded in a hotel or at an airport.

The cost of insurance typically varies based on the cruiser’s age, destination and insurer. On Travel Guard, we found a $100 policy to cover a $1,500 cruise fare. © 2014 Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

tracts around 80,000 visitors. About 125 food and craft booths line the streets. An 80-unit parade with area marching bands and oyster floats entertains the crowd.

The culminating event is “the official oyster shucking contest of Virginia” on Saturday afternoon. It takes place behind the firehouse, where amateurs and professionals compete to pry open recalcitrant bivalves and artfully display the morsel inside. In six minutes flat, am-

ateurs race to shuck 12; pros, 24.

Urbanna has produced the second best shucker in the world — Deborah Pratt, who snagged that honor in the world shucking championship in Galway, Ireland.

The 57th Urbanna Oyster Festival will take place on Nov. 7 and 8. For more info, visit www.urbannaoysterfestival.com.

Glenda C. Booth is a freelance writer in Alexandria, Va.

el-budget-calculator to input anticipated expenses.

Repositioning deals For the best deal, hop aboard when a ship relocates. These so-called repositioning cruises might ferry you from Boston to Florida, or from New York across the pond to England. You’ll spend more time on board and pay a reduced fare, but you’ll have to make your own arrangements to get home.

A 13-night repositioning cruise on Royal Caribbean’s Brilliance of the Seas, leaving from Boston in October and arriving in Florida, started at $949 per person.

Consider an agent, insurance

24

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A P R I L 2 0 1 4 — H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N

New ships and attractions for 2014 cruises

By Beth J. Harpaz A couple of eye-popping new ships, the ever-growing popularity of river cruising, and efforts to restore consumer confidence are among the headlines in cruise news as 2014 unfolds.

But don’t expect ships to keep getting bigger. Instead, look for theme park-style attractions and new offerings in dining and entertainment. Here are some details.

Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), which represents 95 percent of cruise capacity worldwide with 63 member cruise lines, forecasts 21.7 million guests will cruise this year, up from 21.3 million in 2013.

The Caribbean remains the world’s most popular cruise destination, included

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heads. The colorful exterior of Norwegian Cruise Line’s ship Norwegian Getaway, which debuted this winter, features a mermaid cavorting amid turquoise and yellow swirls. It was designed by Miami-based Cuban-American artist David Le Batard, also known as “LEBO.” Getaway will homeport in Miami, and is a sister ship to Norwegian Breakaway — a New York-themed ship that debuted in 2013. Getaway carries 3,969 passengers, has 18 decks, and two unique offerings: the Illusionarium — part restaurant, part magic show — and the “Grammy Experience at Sea,” with performances by Grammy winners and nominees, plus exhibits of Grammy-related artifacts.

The most-anticipated new ship of 2014 is Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas, with dazzling first-at-sea attractions — simulated skydiving, bumper cars, and an observation capsule called the North Star.

The capsule, modeled on the London Eye, offers a bird’s-eye view 300 feet above the water. The ship debuts in November.

Meanwhile, the Mediterranean-based MSC Cruises company is hoping to win over Americans with its first U.S.-based ship, MSC Divina, which recently started sailing year-round from Miami to the Caribbean.

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Restoring confidence

on 37 percent of global cruise itineraries, followed by a 19 percent share for the Mediterranean.

Better, not bigger More than two dozen cruise ships will launch in 2014 and 2015, but the race to make every vessel bigger than the last is subsiding from several years ago, when Royal Caribbean’s Allure and Oasis set records with capacities of more than 6,000 passengers apiece.

“I think the size of the ships — Allure and Oasis — is as big as it gets,” said CLIA president Christine Duffy in an interview.

Instead, Duffy says, the new emphasis is “on more bells and whistles.”

Two of 2014’s new ships are sure to turn

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The cruise industry has had a rough few years, beginning with the January 2012 shipwreck of the Costa Concordia, which killed 32 people. In September 2013, the Concordia was finally pulled upright in a complicated engineering feat, but the vessel is still in the waters off the coast of Italy, and its captain remains on trial.

The bad news continued last year when Carnival had several mishaps, with passengers stranded at sea, ships towed back to port, and cancelled trips. The negative publicity depressed prices and revenue for the company.

The incidents even changed the way travelers book cruises. The percentage of cruises booked online had been increasing fast until last year, according to a study released in December by PhoCusWright. After the Carnival mishaps, “both cruise lines and

agents spent more time on the phone winning over tentative travelers and upselling all they could,” according to PhoCusWright. Online cruise bookings jumped 28 percent in 2011 and 26 percent in 2012, but increased just 6 percent in 2013.

To restore consumer confidence, the cruise industry has taken a number of steps, including publishing statistics for crimes that take place on ships, and issuing a passenger bill of rights guaranteeing sanitary conditions, medical care, and refunds in the event of a major power failure.

Carnival is undertaking a $300 million program to add emergency generators to ships, upgrade fire safety, and improve engine rooms. The changes will create redundancies so that if one power source fails, others will be available.

Carnival has also added consumer-friendly offerings like Seuss at Sea, a branded children’s program, and Carnival Live, a recently announced series of onboard concerts that begin this spring featuring big names like Jennifer Hudson, LeAnn Rimes, Daughtry, Jewel and Lady Antebellum.

Carolyn Spencer Brown, editor-in-chief of CruiseCritic.com, said river cruises are “just exploding with new ship launches by Viking, Uniworld, Avalon, AmaWaterways and others.”

Viking Cruises christened 10 new river ships last year and launches a dozen more this year. American Cruise Lines has commissioned four new riverboats. And the newly refurbished American Empress makes its maiden voyage in April on the Pacific Northwest’s Columbia and Snake rivers.

River cruises are offered around the world, from the Danube to the Mississippi to the Yangtze, but Spencer Brown says this year’s “hot places to watch” include Myanmar and France’s Bordeaux region.

More cruise lines are banning smoking on balconies in addition to cabins. After all, if you’re a nonsmoker, you don’t want smoke from the neighboring verandah blowing back into your room. Disney, Celebrity, Princess, Royal Caribbean and See NEW CRUISES, page 25

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25

Taking cruises that stimulate the mind day segment of a 2016 Crystal cruise of the Pacific that includes Creative Learning Institute classes recently started at $4,395 per passenger.

But you don’t have to be on a high-end ship with an intensive enrichment program to feed your brain — or your stomach. Holland America features cooking classes through its Culinary Arts Center, such as demonstrations of how to make jerk chicken on a Caribbean cruise. And prices for Holland America cruises aren’t as lofty as those for the luxury lines. Many are available for less than $1,000.

Princess Cruises’ ScholarShip@Sea program includes lectures, wine tastings, and art-history presentations (extra charges may apply for certain activities).

— By Lisa Gerstner and Susannah Snider ©2014 Kiplinger’s Personal Finance; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

PHOTO COURTESY OF CRYSTAL CRUISES

Want to hear a history professor bring ancient Greece to life or learn how to make a mean shrimp scampi? Look for cruises with great enrichment programs.

The Crystal Cruises Creative Learning Institute lets you use your time to sharpen your mind or your skill set. Passengers can take a series of seminars ranging from personal wellness sessions led by Cleveland Clinic doctors to painting and sculpture classes.

Or, through the Crystal Visions program, you can listen to lectures from wellknown authors, politicians, scientists and others. (Hugh Downs and James Carville have been on past lineups.)

The Conversations program, from the Seabourn cruise line, hosts experts who make presentations and mingle with passengers. Some are knowledgeable about a particular cruise’s destinations and focus their talks accordingly. On a 19-day Baltic Sea cruise in May, for example, an anthropologist will be on board.

Crystal and Seabourn are luxury cruise lines, and you’ll pay a premium for the experience. Prices start at $10,000 per person for the Baltic Sea cruise. Booking a 12-

Many cruise lines offer wine-tasting, cooking, history and other stimulating courses and lectures aboard. The Crystal Cruises Creative Learning Institute, aboard a ship shown above outside Santorini, Greece features lectures from well-known authors, politicians and others.

New cruises From page 24 Crystal are among the lines that no longer permit balcony smoking; Cunard will join them later this year.

But most ships still offer some designated smoking areas onboard, which may include decks, casinos and select clubs.

Food, glorious food Cruise lines keep expanding culinary offerings, with more celebrity chef-designed menus and variety, from ethnic food to vegan and gluten-free dishes. Specialty restaurants also continue to be added, some charging extra and some covered by the basic cruise price.

Norwegian’s Getaway and Breakaway feature menus from Geoffrey Zakarian and bakeries by “Cake Boss” star Buddy Valastro. Crystal Cruises’ Serenity has an onboard herb garden where chefs can harvest fresh ingredients. Carnival is introducing a new contemporary upscale restaurant, the American Table, on two ships. Oceania Cruises offers more than 20 classes in its Bon Appetit Culinary Center onboard the Marina and Riviera ships, from regional cuisines to pasta-making.

Jim Berra, head of marketing for CLIA, said the industry is working on improving technology by upgrading networks and expanding bandwidth.

New apps under development will allow guests to keep track of events onboard and stay in touch with each other via text, just like they do on land, without “sitting there dreading that roaming charge.” The improvements won’t be felt for awhile, though: “We’re in our early innings, but there’s a lot more to come,” Berra said.

— AP

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Style Arts &

William Cochran’s sculptures are coming to Columbia. See the continuation of the cover story on page 29.

Intimate theater produces engaging musicals shared a vision for a professional musical theater company,” she said.

Red Branch Theatre Company (which takes its name from the road on which it is located) is a professional, non-Equity theater in residence at the Learning Center, and produces four or five shows a season — primarily musicals.

“We aim to bring together artists and audiences in the Baltimore-Washington community and beyond by providing theatrical work that is exciting and thoughtprovoking,” said Williams. “We want to foster a life-long love of theatre through professional performances and a passionate acting company.”

Another aim is affordability. The high-

As always, FREE ADMISSION and there’s something for everyone!

Saturday, April 26, 2014 • 10 am - 3 pm Gary J. Arthur Community Center at Glenwood 2400 Route 97, Cooksville, MD 21723

est single ticket price for mainstage productions is $22, at the door.

A regional focus A Howard County native, Williams believed in regional theater and in casting re-

90+ Exhibitors, Health Screenings and these great Seminars: • It’s Thyme to Boost Your Immunity!

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When Red Branch Theatre produced Avenue Q, the theater got a visit from the show’s co-creator Jeff Marx.

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gionally, rather than holding auditions in New York City.

“Theater can be successful anywhere,” she said.

PHOTO COURTESY OF RED BRANCH THEATRE

By Barbara Trainin Blank While majoring in theater at Goucher College, Stephanie Lynn Williams joked about owning her own company one day.

Fast forward a few years. Williams was acting and directing in Howard County. In 2006, she performed in the adult company of Columbia’s Drama Learning Center, which provides theater education for students K-12 through classes, camp, and private instruction.

Williams learned the center was for sale. She bought its assets and then went on to cofound her own company with Aaron Broderick in 2008.

“Aaron, a music director, and I had worked together on many shows and

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From page 26 Broderick served as artistic director/production manager for the first season and has music-directed shows since. Williams is executive producer and director; Tiffany Underwood Holmes, managing director, and Jenny Male, resident dance and fight choreographer, round out the team.

A member of the Howard County Chamber of Commerce, Red Branch partners with Howard College’s two theater groups.

Red Branch has garnered critical acclaim — BroadwayWorld.com called it “one of the most consistently excellent theatres in the region” — and audience appreciation.

Initially, many cast and crewmembers volunteered their services. As of three years ago, the theater was able to give everyone a stipend.

Its success is based in part on finding a niche — an approach that works for many area theaters. Red Branch produces shows with small but talented casts.

“We like to take advantage of our intimate space to do smaller chamber musicals,” said Williams.

Red Branch and Drama Learning Center share that space, a 120-seat proscenium theater that underwent recent renovation.

You may see Annie presented by the Drama Learning Center but not Red Branch, explained Underwood Holmes.

“We try to program shows that audiences might not see elsewhere. We don’t saturate the market with more of the same.”

Another aim is accessibility. Every show in every season won’t offer “something for everyone,” she said. But over the course of the season, there will be something for children, families and “cutting-edge contemporary tastes.”

Previous productions included Tick, Tick… Boom!, Once on this Island, and the non-musical Proof. Red Branch obtained area rights to the Broadway musical Next to Normal, about a mother struggling with bipolar illness.

“I felt a deep connection to the show personally and really enjoyed working on it,” said Williams, who directed.

Red Branch’s production of Avenue Q

was enlivened by original puppets made by the company — and a surprise visit by Jeff Marx, Avenue Q’s co-creator.

New season After a March 17 benefit cabaret that featured composer-lyricist Jason Robert Brown, the 2014 season starts with “The Love/Loss Cycle” — a pair of two-person musicals about complicated relationships, playing in repertory.

Brown’s The Last Five Years, starring Kurt Boehm and Jennifer W. Culotta, explores a five-year relationship between a rising novelist and struggling actress and runs April 4-26.

The musical john & jen, with music by Andrew Lippa and lyrics by Tom Greenwald, concerns the complex relationships between brother and sister and parents and children over four decades. This is the story of Jen and her relationships with the two Johns of her life: her younger brother, who was killed in Vietnam, and his namesake, her son. Patrick J. Prebula and Danielle Sherry star, with performance dates of April 18-May 3.

Williams directs both; Underwood Holmes music-directs.

This is the first time Red Branch has produced two shows in rep. A “Love/Loss Marathon” on April 19 and 26 will present them back to back.

HopeWorks of Howard County, the new name for the Domestic Violence Center, will lead “talkbacks” about healthy relationships after performances on April 19, 26 and 27.

“We value performing arts with a message,” said Underwood Holmes.

Triumph of Love, a musical based on a 1732 play, will be staged in October, and A Year with Frog and Toad, drawn from the beloved Arnold Lobel children’s books, in December.

Company members will present You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow, an authorized musical revue of Stephen Sondheim songs, in the fall.

To say Williams and Underwood Holmes wear many hats is a gross understatement. They are helped by a group of supporters called Red Branch Ambassadors, who work with the theater and are its

PHOTO COURTESY OF RED BRANCH THEATRE

Red Branch

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Red Branch Theatre’s production of Once on This Island.

voice in the community. These include Wendy Barrett and Janelle Broderick, Aaron’s wife, who is co-directing the Sondheim revue.

The developing relationship with Brown, whose musical The Bridges of Madison County recently opened on Broadway, is exciting for the theater.

Red Branch and Drama Learning Center have presented two of his shows twice, 13 and Songs for a New World.

“He has been very accommodating,” said Williams. “He is a really intriguing

composer… and has a unique sound. His lyrics are so poetic; you make a strong connection with them.”

Making strong connections with audiences is what defines Red Branch.

The theater is located at 9130-I Red Branch Rd., Columbia. Tickets purchased in advance are $20 for general admission and $18 for seniors and students. The price at the door is $22.

For more information or to buy tickets: (410) 997-9352, www.redbranchtheatre.com.

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Sculpture From page 1 Cochran added, “It’s not so much that Columbia shaped me as an artist, it is that watching the city develop under a vision of a place that is built to serve people in their totality, including their values, had an influence on me.”

He noted that the development plan for a dramatic makeover of Symphony Woods, which is set to include other public arts installations, “picks up and maybe restores an important thread in Rouse’s vision — public art as integral to the life of the community.”

Public art could involve the surrounding community, which in some cases could also collaborate in the work to give the community a “sense of place.” Or it could be a highly personal work by a noted artist that is purchased for a public building or park.

As in the National Gallery sculpture park in D.C., the art object could be one of the humungous typewriter erasers created by well-known pop artist Claus Oldenburg.

Or it could be the Community Bridge in Frederick, created by Cochran. A mural transformed a plain concrete bridge into the permanent illusion of an old, ivy-covered stone bridge. The mural includes pictorial ideas about the spirit of community, as suggested by the area’s residents.

Restoring Symphony Woods The Symphony Woods restoration could get underway as early as this fall. The 36acre park, located off Little Patuxent Parkway and owned by the Columbia Association, now is mostly used as a walkthrough by people attending concerts at the Merriweather Post Pavilion, which is encircled by the park.

Other projects on the boards for the park are: • The Caterpillar, an 871-foot steel tube sprouting flowers, plants and other landscaping, with light sticks in its “body” and lights on the pathways at its sides, which will replace parts of the metal-and-chainlink fences that surround the Merriweather amphitheater.

• A 300-foot raised platform “picnic table,” covered with artificial turf.

• Amazing Maze, a maze of thin metal mesh providing, according to the planners, “a complex series of spatial experiences…that can lead people on a merry chase of hide-and-go-seek.”

• The Chrysalis, a smaller amphitheater for community events “and just hanging out.”

• The Butterfly, a guest services center with snack bar, gallery space and an observation deck.

• Sound and Light, described as “a subtle, high-tech element to the proposed

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Mar. 29

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H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N — A P R I L 2 0 1 4

park with stage lighting and other acoustic enhancements, a place where the Instagram generation would be comfortable.”

Howard County Executive Ken Ulman is all for the woods makeover, already pledging $5 million of county funds for the project.

Columbia native Ulman expressed this high hope, “Merriweather and Symphony Woods can be for Columbia what Central Park is for Manhattan and Grant Park for Chicago — an international destination and a source of energy and pride. He added, “We need to think big about Merriweather and Symphony Woods.”

The artist said, “The trick for me is to find ways the public can have a creative role in helping to shape the meaning of the work. Artistically, that could be a very powerful thing.”

FROM PAGE 30

ANSWERS TO SCRABBLE

Public art and the community Cochran, meanwhile, is thinking big in terms of public art. He is doing the work in the name of Mahan Rykiel Associates of Baltimore, which was contracted for the project.

Cochran sees public art as qualitative works by serious artists that impact the community where they are is placed.

“The works relate and express the community’s identity. Public art has become one of the most important ways cities look to define their identity,” he said.

Among his other works is a tall spiraling glass sculpture on the site of the former Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, D.C. That piece is dedicated to the healthcare workers who provided care and comfort to many of the city’s HIV-AIDS sufferers.

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ARTS GALA The Howard County Arts Council is hosting its annual reception, featuring musical entertainment, culinary offerings from area

restaurants and a silent auction of works by local artists, and will be held on Saturday, March 29 from 6 to 10 p.m. at the Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center at Howard Community College, 10901 Little Patuxent Pkwy., Columbia.

For tickets and additional information, call (410) 313-2787.

Apr. 6

JAZZ CD RELEASE The Jazz in the Mills Concert Series will present Lavina Nesmith celebrating her debut CD release on Sunday, April 6 at 5 p.m. at the

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Other Barn, 5851 Robert Oliver Pl., Columbia. Tickets can be purchased in advance for $15 at the Other Barn or online at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/569396.

Tickets will be available at the door for $20. For additional information, call (410)730-4610 or email manager@oaklandmills.org.

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Puzzle Page

Crossword Puzzle Daily crosswords can be found on our website: www.TheBeaconNewspapers.com Click on Puzzles Plus All in the Family

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Across 1. Attack the ‘fridge 5. Bonaparte-time island home 9. Ocean movements 14. About 75% of the area of a football field 15. Enlist again 16. Mentally quick 17. Spy show that transitioned from black and white to color 20. Fabulous fabulist 21. Cover the shower wall 22. News blurb 23. Monitor of the SDWA (Safe Drinking Water Act) 25. Pick a politician 27. Mini-series produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks 33. Walter Cronkite’s WWII-era employer 34. Speed Wagons 35. Patents’ first steps 37. Unkempt hair 38. Reservation count, on the ark 39. Vampire, when traveling 41. New Wave director Jean-___ Godard 42. Veteran of the cola wars 44. Artist Chagall 45. ___ pig’s eye 46. TV Guide’s second-worst show of all time 50. Johnny Carson’s original end time 51. Pitiful 52. “Immediately, nurse!”

55. Got a perfect score 57. Second longest bone in the human body 61. Its original sponsor was Kent cigarettes 64. Happy Meal component, generally 65. Draw with acid 66. Lovers’ destination 67. Dreamers’ opposites 68. Red-cheeked 69. Major conclusion

Down 1. Pro ___ 2. Heart or tooth symptom 3. Resentments 4. Showed off the new models 5. West end 6. ___ in the lurch 7. Squirrels, in the fall 8. Program that put 12 men on the moon 9. One up from upsilon 10. Set afire 11. It has a list of syns.

12. Palindromic fashion magazine 13. Give the impression 18. Divvy up 19. ___ cute (romantic comedy hallmark) 24. Not too many 26. Talks idly 27. Speed reducer 28. It is uglier than a tree 29. Like many November mornings 30. Sound of a sobber or specter 31. Museum piece 32. Hot house 36. Plastic surgeon’s target 39. Gin joint 40. Song and dance 43. Cover in gravy 44. Keepsake 47. Rip off 48. Data bandit 49. Non-toxic 52. Bay-area first responders 53. Poi source 54. It’s like kissing your sister 56. M*A*S*H’s Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John McIntyre 58. Tuckered out 59. Ain’t better 60. Suit to ___ 62. End of “times” 63. Toddler’s refrain

Answers on page 29.

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H O WA R D C O U N T Y B E A C O N — A P R I L 2 0 1 4

CLASSIFIEDS The Beacon prints classified advertising under the following headings: Business & Employment Opportunities; Caregivers; Computer Services; Entertainment; For Sale; For Sale/Rent: Real Estate; Free; Health; Home/ Handyman Services; Miscellaneous; Personals; Personal Services; Vacation Opportunities; and Wanted. For submission guidelines and deadlines, see the box on the right.

CAVEAT EMPTOR! The Beacon does not knowingly accept obscene, offensive, harmful, or fraudulent advertising. However, we do not investigate any advertisers or their products and cannot accept responsibility for the integrity of either.

Respondents to classified advertising should always use caution and their best judgment.

EMPLOYMENT & REAL ESTATE ADS: We will not knowingly or intentionally accept advertising in violation of federal, state, and local laws prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, familial status or handicap in connection with employment or the sale or rental of real estate.

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Miscellaneous HAVE FUN! WIN THE LOTTERY! Read, study and follow the key book: The Secret Science of Winning Lotteries, Sweepstakes and Contests: Laws, Strategies, Formulas and Statistics, by successful Lotterician, Microeconomist and Attorney Charles Ware (166 pages; $12.95). Paperback available from all major booksellers, including Amazon.com: Books, Barnes and Noble Books, etc. Enjoy!

THANK YOU SACRED HEART OF JESUS, Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Jude for your continued, much-needed help.

Personal Services LEARN ENGLISH – SPANISH – ITALIAN – FRENCH – PORTUGUESE Conversational. Grammatical. Private lessons. Reasonable Rates. Tutoring students. 443-3528200.

ESTATE SPECIALIST, experts in estate clean-outs and preparing your house for sale.

Trash removal, house cleanouts, light moving, demolition, yard work, cleaning. 410-7465090. Free estimates. Insured. Call 7 days, 7 a.m. – 7 p.m.

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TO PLACE A CLASSIFIED Deadlines and Payments: Ad text and payment is due by the 5th of each month.

Note: Only ads received and prepaid by the deadline will be included in the next month’s issue. Please type or print your ad carefully. Include a number where you can be reached in the event of a question. Payment is due with ad. We do not accept ads by phone or fax, nor do we accept credit cards.

Private Party Text Ads: For individuals seeking to buy or sell particular items, or place a personal ad. Each ad is $10 for 25 words, 25 cents for each additional word.

Business Text Ads: For parties engaged in an ongoing business enterprise.

Each ad is $25 for 25 words, 50 cents for each additional word.

Note: Each real estate listing counts as one business text ad.

Send your classified ad with check or money order, payable to the Beacon, to:

The Beacon, Howard County Classified Dept.

P.O. Box 2227, Silver Spring, MD 20915-2227

Wanted Financial Services ACCOUNTING, BOOKKEEPING, TAXES – conscientious CPA, 37 years experience, reasonable rates, looking for additional business, personal and eldercare clients. Call 410653-3363.

For Rent CASH FOR YOUR UNWANTED REAL ESTATE – I will pay cash for your unwanted Real Estate. There are never any fees, real estate commissions or other chargers to you.

Any condition acceptable. Please call Neal at 410-419-1289.

For Sale 2 SALVADOR DALI woodblock prints from Dante’s Divine Comedy. Signed and framed.

Asking $900 for the pair. Can email pictures if desired. Call Steve 410-913-1653.

Home & Handyman Services STARCOM DESIGN BUILD – We are certified aging in place, low-threshold showers, walk-in tubs, first-floor master and in-law suites, ramps, elevators and lifts. We are Howard County’s largest remodeler, in business for over 25 years. Come visit our design Center! Starcomdesignbuild.com. 410-9977700. MHIC# 24247-01.

SANFORD & SON HAULING Trash removal, house & estate clean-outs, garage clean-outs, yard work & cleanups, demolition, shed removal. 410-746-5090. Free Estimates.

Insured. Call 7 days a week 7 a.m. – 7 p.m.

BALTIMORE’S BEST JUNK REMOVAL – Clean Outs: Whole House, Emergency, Attics/Basements. Furniture and Junk Removal, Yard Waste Removal, General Hauling, Construction Debris Removal. Free estimates.

10% Senior Discount. Licensed, Bonded and Insured. Call Jesse, 443-379-HAUL (4285).

BEACON BITS WE BUY OLD AND NEW COINS, Jewelry, Silver and Gold, Paper Money too. Watches, Clocks and Parts, Military Badges and Patches Old and New. Call Greg, 717-6587954.

VINYL RECORDS WANTED from 1950 through 1985. Jazz, Rock-n-Roll, Soul, Rhythm & Blues, Reggae and Disco. 33 1/3 LPs, 45s or 78s, Larger collections of at least 100 items wanted. Please call John, 301-5966201.

OLD AND NEW WE BUY Sterling Silver Flatware, Tea Sets or Single Pieces., Furniture, Tools, Cameras, Good Glassware, Artwork Too. Toys From Trains to Hotwheels, Action Figures to Star Wars. Call Greg, 717-6587954.

Apr. 26

JEWISH FILM SCREENING Columbia Jewish Congregation concludes its film series with the

showing of Mahler on the Couch on Saturday, April 26 at 8 p.m. at the Columbia Jewish Congregation, 5885 Robert Oliver Pl., Columbia. Single tickets are $10 and will be available at the door. Refreshments and discussion are included. For more information, call (410) 997-0694.

CASH BUYER for old costume jewelry, pocket and wrist watches (any condition). Also buying watchmaker tools and parts, train sets and accessories, old toys, old glassware & coins. 410-655-0412.

FINE ANTIQUES, PAINTINGS AND QUALITY VINTAGE FURNISHINGS wanted by a serious capable buyer. I am very well educated [law degree] knowledgeable [over 40 years in the antique business] and have the finances and wherewithal to handle virtually any situation. If you have a special item, collection or important estate I would like to hear from you. I pay great prices for great things in all categories from oriental rugs to Tiffany objects, from rare clocks to firearms, from silver and gold to classic cars. If it is wonderful, I am interested. No phony promises or messy consignments. References gladly furnished. Please call Jake Lenihan, 301-279-8834. Thank you.

MILITARY ITEMS Collector seeks: helmets, weapons, knives, swords, bayonets, webgear, uniforms, inert ordnance, ETC. From 1875 to 1960, US, German, Britain, Japan, France, Russian. Please call Fred 301-9100783, Thank you. Also Lionel Trains.

HB4/14

BEACON BITS

Apr. 24

POETRY AND LITERATURE FESTIVAL The Howard County Poetry & Literature Society, HoCoPoLitSo,

and Howard Community College present the annual Blackbird Poetry Festival on Thursday, April 24, featuring two-term National Poet Laureate Billy Collins and Bruce George, co-founder of HBO’s DEF Poetry Jam at 10901 Little Patuxent Pkwy., Columbia. For further information and tickets reservations, visit www.hocopolitso.org or call (443) 518-4568. Seniors in Columbia can request transportation by calling the Senior Events Shuttle at (410) 715-3087.

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