Category: Life in the Big City

Former Baltimore Bishop Heather Cook gets 7 years for DUI death of cyclist

~ susie
Former bishop Heather Cook and Tom Palermo, victim of her DUI crash.
Former bishop Heather Cook and Tom Palermo, victim of her DUI crash.

Tragedy all around in this story, with a young father dead and a church leader in prison:

BALTIMORE-This past Tuesday, former Episcopal Bishop Heather Cook was sentenced to seven years in prison for killing cyclist Thomas Palermo in a DUI-related accident. Cook was nearly three times over the legal blood alcohol content (BAC) limit and texting while driving when she struck Palermo two days after Christmas last year.

Tom was a software engineer at Johns Hopkins Hospital and a father to two young children. He had a side business building bike frames. The day of the accident, Tom and his family had been out hiking at Gunpowder Falls, after which he went on a bike ride to Baltimore.

According to accident lawyer Matthew Davey, “accidents where the driver of a motor vehicle collides with a cyclist can be particularly devastating. Even though cyclists are expected to follow many of the same rules of the road as car and truck drivers, the simple fact is that even a cyclist who is wearing a helmet has almost no protection from a collision when compared to a person driving a vehicle with modern safety features. Thus, we continue to see tragedies like this one.”

After Cook crashed into him, she immediately left the scene, came back, and then left again to take her dog home before turning herself in. At the time of her arrest, her BAC was .22.

“Your leaving the scene at that time was more than irresponsibility, it was a decision,” said Judge Timothy J. Doory to Cook during the sentencing.

Cook’s lawyer, David Irwin, described her as a good woman struggling without support against her alcohol addiction. She helped grow a York, PA church by attracting many new worshippers and had recently risen to a high position in the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland.

Many hoped for a longer sentence than the seven years given, as the charges against Cook could have led to a maximum of 20 years jail time. Alisa Rock, one of Palermo’s sisters-in-law, said, “While no amount of prison time would ever seem sufficient, we feel the court today could have sent a stronger signal that our community takes driving while under the influence and driving while distracted seriously.”

During the sentencing hearing, Tom’s mother said she had questioned why God would take her son until she realized, “God didn’t do this. Heather Cook killed Tom.”

Cook broke down upon hearing this and addressed the family directly.

“I am so sorry for the grief and agony I have caused…This is my fault and I accept complete responsibility.”

This old house

~ susie

ebenezer

This is a wonderful article about Frank Vagnone, a historical house expert and director of New York’s Historic House Trust.

Naturally, I agree with him. Maybe 30 years ago, a co-worker asked me for help with a grant he was writing for the Ebenezer Maxwell house, a historic house in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. (For those of us old enough to remember, it was also called “the Addams house,” because cartoonist Charles Addams lived in Germantown while he was an architecture student at Penn, and the house so closely resembles the famous Addams family cartoons.)

Anyway, they were having a problem with kids vandalizing the house and he was supposed to address it in the grant. I said the same thing as Frank Vagnone: They needed programs that recruited local kids and made them protective of the place. (Like, duh.) If you don’t make history come alive in the present era, you might as well give up.

The Pink Sisters

~ susie

They’re really called the Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters, according to the WSJ. I always thought they were the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, but whatevs. They were always the Pink Sisters. If my mother had a problem, or someone in the family was sick, it was time to call the Pink Sisters.

Hard to believe that this is the first time they’re going to stop praying.

Mmm, scrapple!

~ susie

Reading Terminal Market

How could anyone not love it?

Aside from alcohol, there are two things, above all, that journalists, as a species, enjoy: sleeping in and free food. It was hard to imagine which of those would win out this morning at Reading Terminal Market, where a media breakfast for journalists on Pope assignment started at 8:30 a.m. The food was apparently a significant lure, particularly for local media whose members know better than most about the pleasures of Reading Terminal. And what pleasures they were: The freshly made food was donated by select RTM merchants, including Dutch Eating Place, Iovine Brothers Produce, Tootsie’s, By George, Beiler’s Donuts, and more.

#breakfast #eggs #overeasy #bacon #crispy #italian #sausage #scrapple #food #foodporn #instafood #foodgasm #yummy #delicious #hkig #igershk #elkton #maryland #follow #followme

I wondered who’d go for the scrapple, outside of native Pennsylvanians, and how it would be described. The Marisa Tomei lookalike who help dole the food out said that, if asked, she’d explain that scrapple was a “breakfast meat” made of “mostly ground pork” — an optimistic description if ever I heard one. Later she told me the scrapple had indeed served as a conversation piece, but there were many more takers for Miller’s Twists’ Breakfast Stuffed Pretzels, which were made by wrapping salty soft pretzel dough around egg and cheese and bacon.

Rainy day

~ susie

The first one in I don’t know how long. It’s cooled things off considerably and I get to open the window and listen to the sounds of rain.

Who are the real rentboys?

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Spirituality - Healing

So they never managed to put any of the Wall St. bankers in jail for crashing the economy, but they arrest these guys and call a press conference? They must be so proud.

Federal agents raided the Manhattan headquarters of Rentboy.com as part of a money laundering and state prostitution investigation Tuesday, authorities said.

Seven people, including CEO Jeffrey Hurant, were arrested as part of the raid at the Rentboy.com offices on 14th Street and Fifth Avenue. Department of Homeland Security agents and members of the NYPD, which assisted in the raid, were seen removing boxes from the offices Tuesday.

The site bills itself as “the world’s destination to meet the perfect male escort or masseur,” and boasts a database of more than 10,500 men in more than 2,100 cities worldwide.

Users can search for a rentboy or masseur on the site by country and city, as well as by rate, age, talents and a variety of physical features.