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July 15, 2025

Talbot Spy

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Adkins Arboretum Mystery Monday

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Happy Mystery Monday! Can you guess what is pictured in the photo below:

 

The answer to last week’s mystery is yarrow, Achillea millefolium, pictured in the photo below:

 

 

 

 

Yarrow is a herbaceous perennial native to North America. It has feather-like leaves and flat-topped clusters of tiny, fragrant white to pink flowers. Yarrow can be found in cultivated gardens, and beside fields, mountains, and roadsides.

Yarrow is pest- and drought-resistant. Full sun exposure encourages compact growth and many flowers. In partial sun or in shade, yarrow tends to grow leggy. It thrives in hot, dry conditions and does not tolerate constantly wet soil.

Native bees are attracted to yarrow in large numbers. Butterflies are also drawn to yarrow. It makes a nice addition to fresh or dried flower arrangements.

Yarrow’s Latin name, Achillea, comes from the Greek hero Achilles, who was said to have used yarrow to treat wounds of his soldiers during the Trojan War.

Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

I Wish I May, I Wish I Might By Laura J. Oliver

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I’m in my Astronomy class studying the stars, and here’s why I think you should, too.

  1. Because they are beautiful.
  2. Because we wish upon them.
  3. Because they fall.
  4. Because we get them in our eyes when we are in love.
  5. Because, well, Jean-Luc Picard.
  6. Because the incomprehensible size of the universe demonstrates how inconsequential we are, and this is good to remember.
  7. Because cosmological time tells us what seems permanent and huge is actually passing and small.
  8. Because…Why is there something instead of nothing? That one gets me every time.
  9. Because stars give life, not just by providing light but by seeding the cosmos with the heavier elements like gold when they die. (Stars are starting to sound like parents.)
  10. And lastly? Because they provide evidence that there is something other than what we can see affecting us every day, and that the source of creation is beautiful.

Vera C. Rubin first taught us that there is more to the cosmos than we can see. Born in 1928, she was a brilliant child, the second daughter of two Bell Telephone employees, who attended Vassar to study Astronomy. During a summer internship before her senior year, she met and fell in love with Bob Rubin, a physics student at Cornell. Vera married him that same year, graduating from Vassar as a newlywed that spring.

Like her husband, she wanted to continue her studies, so she applied to Princeton to pursue an advanced degree, but Princeton refused to admit her for one simple reason. This dazzling, tenacious scholar was a woman. Oops.

Undeterred, she turned down Harvard and attended Cornell for her Master’s, Georgetown for her Ph. D, studying at night to get those advanced degrees while her husband taught at Cornell, and she gave birth to four children. Then, in 1978, with a colleague, Kent Ford, she proved the existence of Dark Matter, the mysterious, invisible substance that comprises 85% of the known universe. Thanks, Princeton. Somewhere, there must be a very old, long-retired Admissions Director saying, “My bad.”

When you look at a galaxy, any galaxy, you see its stars rotating around its central black hole, and you would think the stars farthest from the center would be rotating more slowly than those in tight orbits closest in. They are not.

The stars on the outer arms of galaxies, in the outermost disc lanes, are rotating just as fast as those at the center. How could this be? What is holding them to their galactic neighborhood at the same speed limit? Why hasn’t distance from the source of acceleration slowed their velocity?

Dark Matter. A real, but invisible architecture that affects us all.

Vera C. Rubin won many awards in her lifetime, but perhaps the most lasting tribute is the building of the Rubin Observatory Telescope (only one named for a woman). It is the largest digital camera on Earth and sits high in the Chilean mountains, where it will chart the entire southern sky as part of a 10-year project called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time. Each section will be captured 800 times, ten to 100 times faster than any other telescope ever built. Discoveries are already pouring in.

When astronomers don’t know what something is, they call it ‘dark’ – it’s a placeholder name for mystery that allows them to keep searching for answers until they illuminate their understanding, hence, Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

But I have a theory. What if Dark Matter is love?

Stay with me now.

An invisible mass… held in a field of potential…keeping us from flying apart.

Great discoveries often start with audacious theories, so who’s to say? Theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder says there are three phases of coming to terms with things we don’t understand.

“Huh! That’s funny…”

“Curious and curiouser.”

“Well, damn.”

Laura J. Oliver is an award-winning developmental book editor and writing coach, who has taught writing at the University of Maryland and St. John’s College. She is the author of The Story Within (Penguin Random House). Co-creator of The Writing Intensive at St. John’s College, she is the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Fiction, an Anne Arundel County Arts Council Literary Arts Award winner, a two-time Glimmer Train Short Fiction finalist, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her website can be found here.

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Rabbit, Rabbit By Jamie Kirkpatrick

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(Author’s Note: This recalls a Musing from December, 2020.)

It just so happens that the first day of this new month falls on a Museday, the weekday formerly known as Tuesday. I hope you all remembered to say “Rabbit Rabbit!” when you woke up this morning. If you did, July will be lucky for you. If you didn’t, you might want to stay in bed for the rest of the month. Just sayin’…

In case you don’t happen to practice rabbit-rabbitology, it works like this: upon waking on the first day of a new month, you must immediately say “Rabbit! Rabbit!” If you do, you’ll have good luck throughout the month. However, if you should happen to forget, well, some things are better left unsaid. Despite what Wikipedia thinks, this is not just a silly superstition; it’s a cold, hard fact—just ask all the lucky individuals who hit the lottery after shouting RABBIT RABBIT like a lunatic on the first day of their lucky month.

Some rabbiteers, especially British ones, believe it’s essential to invoke three rabbits upon waking, not just two. I think that’s a bit of overkill but so what? We need all the luck we can get these days. Who knows? Maybe if I remember to say “Rabbit! Rabbit!” on the first day of August, I’ll wake up to find out these last few months were just a bad dream.

Rabbits, especially ones with cute little feet, have always been associated with good luck. Why is that? Why don’t we have key chains featuring curly pig’s tails or furry llama’s ears? I’m surprised that PETA hasn’t done as much to protect rabbits’ feet as it has to safeguard all those feisty minks from the mean furriers who would make them into fashionable fur coats. My wife has one such coat hidden away in a closet, far from the prying eyes of any anyone who might make her life miserable if she wore it to the grocery store on some frosty winter day. She claims it isn’t really hers —“it belonged to my mother!”—so, of course, she’s not culpable.

Back in the day, we used rabbit ears for better reception on our old black-and-white television sets. Was that because their ears were as lucky as their feet? What about their little cottontails? Aren’t they lucky, too? All the rabbits I know have refused to comment on the matter.

Rabbits abound—as they are wont to do—in literature. Peter bedeviled Mr. McGregor in his garden. Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail are beloved by generations of children, as is Margery Williams’ “Velveteen Rabbit.” It was the White Rabbit, running late as usual, who led Alice down to Wonderland, and that same rabbit caused my generation to tune in to Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane. My own two children loved their tactile storybook “Pat the Bunny,” while I, reader of record in our household, preferred Richard Adams’ debut novel, “Watership Down,” a wonderful story about a nest of rabbits seeking to establish a new home after their old warren was destroyed. That book was rejected seven times before Rex Collings, Ltd, a one-man publishing operation in London, saw the light in 1972. The book won several major awards and became a series on Netflix. How’s that for good luck!!

Some people believe luck is self-made. One works hard or practices hard, and, lo-and-behold, one gets lucky. Maybe, but I prefer to thank those two (or three) little rabbits who are working hard to send a monthly dose of good luck to all those of us who believe in them. I think of them akin to Santa’s elves, laboring away up in their North Pole workshop, big ears and all.

Rabbits have always been symbols of fertility. At Easter, one even shows up with a basket full of colored eggs, a mixed metaphor if ever I saw one. Maybe that’s a rabbit’s dirty little secret: a rabbit can even get lucky with a chicken.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives on both sides of the Chesapeake Bay. His editorials and reviews have appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. His most recent novel, “The Tales of Bismuth; Dispatches from Palestine, 1945-1948” explores the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is available on Amazon and in local bookstores. His newest novel, “The People Game,” hits the market in February, 2026. His website is musingjamie.net.

 

 

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Adkins Arboretum Mystery Monday: Guess the Photo!

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Happy Mystery Monday!  Can you guess what is pictured in the photo below:
The answer to last week’s mystery is blue-eyed grass, Sisyrinchium angustifolium, pictured in the photo below.
Blue-eyed grass is a tiny, but mighty flower that is native to 60% of the United States and the eastern half of Canada. It thrives from Maine to Texas. Blue-eyed grass grows in woodlands, forests, meadows, sand hills, and swales.
Despite its name, blue-eyed grass is not a grass, it’s a member of the iris family. Its stiff, narrow, blade-like leaves form a fan shape, similar to other plants in the iris family.
Noted for its violet-blue flowers with yellow centers, the long-lasting blooms measure 1″ in diameter. In late-Spring, the flowers develop into seed heads shaped like round balls that hold several tiny seeds. The black seeds can be carried short distances by wind. When conditions are just right, blue-eyed grass will happily self-seed, but it also spreads via underground rhizomes.
Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Adkins Arboretum Mystery Monday: Guess the Photo!

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Happy Mystery Monday!  Can you guess what is pictured in the photo below?
The answer to last week’s mystery is poison ivy, Toxicodendron radicans, pictured in photo below:
Poison ivy is native to every State except California, Alaska, and Hawaii. It can grow as a small plant, a shrub, or a climbing vine and it is resilient! It thrives in soils of all textures, including clays, silts, loams, sand, and more.
All parts of the poison ivy plant, including the stem and roots, contain and secrete a nonvolatile, colorless oil, urushiol, that affects the skin. According to the American Academy of Dermatology, about 50 million people get a poison ivy rash each year, making it one of the most common allergies in the United States.
If a rash doesn’t occur with first contact, it likely will with second contact. In addition, the body doesn’t build immunity to urushiol. The more times the skin is exposed to it, the worse the break out.
Urushiol oil is very durable, lingering for five or more years after the poison ivy plant has died. Inhaling urushiol oil from the smoke of burning poison ivy likely means a trip to the ER.
Poison ivy flowers are rather inconspicuous and usually not noticed by gardeners, but they also carry urushiol oil. The subsequent fruits are smooth, greenish-white berries that form in clusters about the size of currants. Birds and other wildlife eat the berries and spread the seed in their droppings, spreading poison ivy just about anywhere.
Poison ivy has compound leaves with three leaflets, giving rise to the old saying, “Leaves of three, let it be,” although the leaves are more accurately described as leaflets.
In vine form, poison ivy sprouts thousands of brown hairs that grasp the bark of its host tree. As the vine climbs toward the canopy and matures, the stem gets woodier and increases in diameter.
Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra Honors National Arts Leader Deborah Rutter and Conductor Julien Benichou with Legacy Awards

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On Thursday, June 5, the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra (MSO) honored two major cultural leaders with its 2025 Legacy Awards at a sold-out Gala Dinner in Easton, Maryland. Now in its 27th year as the regional professional orchestra of the Delmarva Peninsula, the MSO presented its National Legacy Award to Deborah Rutter, immediate Past President of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and its annual Legacy Award to Maestro Julien Benichou, Past Music Director of the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra.

In presenting the awards, MSO Chairman Jeffrey Parker stated, “Deborah Rutter has inspired all of us in America’s arts community as the long-time leader of our national arts center, and Julien Benichou dramatically raised the professional quality of our orchestra, and expanded its season and its supporter base.”

Deborah Rutter, in her 11 years heading the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, has provided the Nation with leadership across the broadest range of the arts, including arts education, multi-disciplinary arts training, support and enrichment; and symphonic music, opera, theater, contemporary dance, ballet, vocal music, chamber music, hip hop, comedy, international music and jazz.

She oversaw the Kennedy Center’s first physical expansion with the REACH, which opened in September 2019, and transformed the Center’s mission into one inclusive of diverse art forms. In 2022, she conceived and opened the permanent exhibit Art and Ideals: President John F. Kennedy. Rutter previously served as President of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and held leadership roles at the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Seattle Symphony Orchestra.

Julien Benichou served for 17 years as Music Director and Conductor of the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, transforming it from a community ensemble into a fully professional orchestra. Appointed in 2004—under the leadership of then Board President Andrea Barnes—Benichou was quickly embraced by the MSO community, including early patron Lucienne Wolf, who supported him like family.

Under his charismatic leadership, audiences across the region grew steadily—not only for the music, but to experience the energy and warmth Julien brought to the podium. He worked tirelessly alongside the MSO Board to expand performances across the Delmarva Peninsula, including outreach to Rehoboth Beach and the creation of the now-beloved Toast to the New Year concerts, which will celebrate their 11th season this December.

One of Julien’s long-held dreams became reality in 2019 with the founding of the Elizabeth Loker International Concerto Competition (ELICC). Despite a brief interruption due to COVID-19, the competition has become a central feature of the MSO’s season.

In 2020, while most orchestras suspended operations, Benichou—together with MSO leadership—rapidly developed the “Season of Strings,” safely performing at the Church of God in Easton and livestreaming every concert to continue serving audiences during the pandemic.

Julien also led the MSO in special performances at the Embassy of France in Washington, DC, and in collaboration with the Washington Opera Society. His 17-year tenure left a profound artistic and organizational legacy. It is not an overstatement to say that the MSO as we know it today owes its very existence to his leadership. In 2024, he was knighted by the Ambassador of France with the title Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Deborah Rutter, in her keynote remarks, emphasized the need to “continue to support the artist wherever they feel welcome, supported, empowered and unencumbered to share their art and express their creative talent.” She called on artists and leaders alike to embrace their roles as citizen artists, a concept she co-developed with Yo-Yo Ma during her time at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, advocating for artists to engage deeply with their communities and to consider the broader impact of their work.

The Legacy Awards Dinner featured a performance by the MSO’s principal string musicians, remarks from Music Director Michael Repper on the future of the Orchestra, and a lively auction that included a chance to conduct the MSO at its 2025 Holiday Joy concert, a private plane excursion over the Chesapeake Bay, an eight-day European Viking cruise, and a private dinner for eight with celebrity chef Jordan Lloyd.

ABOUT THE MID-ATLANTIC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

The Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is the only professional symphony orchestra serving southern Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern Shore with a full season of programs. The MSO is supported in part by the Maryland State Arts Council, the Talbot County Arts Council, the Worcester County Arts Council, the Sussex County (Delaware) Council, and the Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore, Inc.

A complete schedule of the 2025-2026 season’s Masterworks and Ensembles programs, including venues, times, and other details, is available at www.midatlanticsymphony.org.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Is the Governor Patching Over a Crisis of His Own Making by Clayton Mitchell

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“When the music’s over, turn out the lights.”

– The Doors (When the Music’s Over)

Wes Moore is back at it again, slapping a press release on a problem he created and calling it leadership. 

The Governor’s latest announcement of a $19 million energy relief initiative, reported by Bria Overs of the Baltimore Banner, is being billed as a major act of compassion. It is not. It is a smokescreen for a green agenda that has driven electricity prices through the roof and put thousands of Marylanders in a daily struggle between food and power.

Let’s be clear about what this program is and is not. It is not state money, despite the public relations framing. It is not ongoing assistance, and it will not solve the structural problems Maryland families face. 

As Baltimore-area financial expert Tyrone Keys rightly put it, “What Governor Moore is not saying is that this fund is being provided via a charitable contribution from BGE/Exelon to the United Way. So (A)… It’s a tax deduction for Exelon [and] (B)… It’s one time relief for those who are behind on their bill. Without more supply and with demand growing the problem of Marylanders not being able to afford power will persist. This sham fund is a band aid on an arterial bleed.”

That “arterial bleed” is a crisis born from Moore’s aggressive closure of in-state energy production. The looming shutdown of the Brandon Shores power plant, recently delayed until 2028 under a “Reliability Must Run” order, was not Moore’s decision but PJM’s. PJM, the grid operator, had to step in because of fears of blackouts. That’s right… blackouts. The green dream had to pause not because Moore suddenly saw reason, but because the experts feared mass grid failure.

The real cost of that delay? A billion-dollar transmission project to pull electricity from Pennsylvania into Maryland for a state that once powered itself. And who pays for those billion dollars? You do, in the form of surging monthly utility bills that no rebate will undo.

Moore’s press office proudly announced that grants of $250 to $750 will be offered to select BGE customers starting July 1, with administration by the United Way and other nonprofits. As Overs reports, this is targeted toward residents defined as ALICE: asset-limited, income-constrained, and employed. In other words, people who are working but still cannot afford basic needs. 

That population is growing fast, and Moore’s energy policies are accelerating the slide.

Keys, in a scathing social media post, dropped the hard math that no one in Annapolis seems willing to confront. BGE takes in at least $250 million a month from ratepayers. This so-called relief fund equals 7.6 percent of one month’s revenue. And that is before Exelon takes its tax deductions at the state and federal level. This is charity theater, designed to distract from the fact that the Moore administration’s energy strategy is a fiscal and moral failure.

Delegate Steve Arentz cut straight to the heart of the matter in a recent social media post: “This does nothing but use the dollars from ratepayers to appear like he’s done something to fix the problem. More smoke and mirrors, a cheap Band-Aid. We should be looking at real cuts for ratepayers. Our policies on energy in Maryland are not viable. The PSC approves Exelon’s rates; they set the profit for these companies. Why aren’t people seeing this and demanding actions that make sense for all ratepayers? No accountability from the Governor on this except to take credit for giving you back a small token of Exelon’s profits while skyrocketing rates are getting pushed onto ratepayers.”

And yet, the Governor is out there saying, “Marylanders are counting on us to put the interests of the people first.” If that were true, he would not have pushed for policies that undermined in-state generation, bypassed local governments to jam through utility-scale solar projects, and left our grid dangerously dependent on other states. Instead of building reliable and affordable energy, Moore built a public relations strategy based on press conferences and posturing.

Bria Overs reported in The Baltimore Banner that ratepayer frustration boiled over earlier this year, especially after BGE forecasted a 12.4 percent increase in gas and electric bills by June. Then came the kicker… another increase hit ratepayers on June 1. 

What changed? Maryland’s supply situation worsened, and costs went up. Tyrone Keys nailed it: “Maryland’s energy crisis and [Moore’s] approach to it proves he doesn’t give a damn about poor people.”

You will hear Governor Moore talk a good game about compassion, justice, and equity. But the reality is this: policy is not measured in speeches. It is measured in outcomes. Moore’s energy agenda has hurt working families, small businesses, and seniors on fixed incomes. The Customer Relief Fund does not change that. It is a press release masquerading as reform.

There is a woman in West Baltimore choosing between rent and heat. There is a family in Salisbury keeping the lights off to save money for groceries. There are thousands of Marylanders who will not be helped by a one-time credit but are burdened month after month by Moore’s destructive energy policies.

This is not compassion. This is political cover. Marylanders are not fooled but they are paying the price.

Clayton A. Mitchell, Sr. is a life-long Eastern Shoreman, an attorney, and former Chairman of the Maryland Department of Labor’s Board of Appeals.  He is co-host of the Gonzales/Mitchell Show podcast that discusses politics, business, and cultural issues. 

 

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Adkins Arboretum Mystery Tuesday: Guess the Photo!

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Happy Mystery Monday!  Can you guess what is pictured in the photo below?
The answer to last week’s mystery is deerberry, Vaccinium stamineum, pictured in the photo below:
Deerberry is a very common, native deciduous shrub that grows in sandy, well-drained soil and xeric communities such as dry oak woods, pine barrens, savannas, dry pine ridges, sparsely wooded bluffs, sand hills, thickets, and clearings. It often grows in conjunction with rhododendrons and azaleas, which share similar acidic soil requirements.
Deerberry’s nodding, bell-shaped flowers produce from April–June. They’re greenish-white and pink tinged. The stamens are prominent, as indicated by the Latin name stamineum. The fruit of deerberry dangles in loose clusters. The berries are sour and largely inedible for humans, unless they’re sweetened. The berries ripen from late–Summer to early–Fall and are enjoyed by birds and mammals.
Deerberry and blueberry are both members of the same plant family, ericaceae, and share similar characteristics, but also have key differences. For instance, deerberry fruit is typically larger and has a more tart flavor than blueberries.
Deerberry’s foliage turns a variety of colors through the seasons.
Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.