Sara Patenaude ’11 M.A., historical studies, has won the Arnold Prize for Outstanding Writing on Baltimore’s History.

The Arnold Prize is named for Joseph L. Arnold, a professor of history at UMBC who died in 2004.  He was a vital and important member of the faculty for three and a half decades, as well as a leading historian of urban and planning history. He also played an active and often leading role with a variety of private and public historical institutions in the Baltimore area, and at his death was hailed as the “dean of Baltimore historians.” The Arnold Prize rewards outstanding research on Baltimore history.

Patenaude’s essay, entitled “Playing Fair: The Fight for Interracial Athletics in Baltimore,” is a chapter from her master’s thesis at UMBC.   The prize, which comes with a $500 award, is presented by the Baltimore City Historical Society.

Originally published in UMBC Insights.

UMBC alumni are stars whose light extends well beyond their graduation. Past award winners include Duff Goldman, founder of Charm City Cakes, Maryland Delegate Jon Cardin, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutes medical researcher Crystal Watkins and Baltimore Sun reporter Jamie Smith Hopkins. The UMBC Alumni Association welcomes nominations for the 2012 Outstanding Alumni of the Year Awards.

The UMBC Alumni Association will present five awards to honor alumni for their professional and personal achievements, as well as their service to the community and to UMBC. In addition, the Association will present a “Rising Star” award to a graduate of the past decade. To nominate an alum for this prestigious award, please submit your nomination by May 30, 2012 at this link: http://alumni.umbc.edu/alumniawards.

For baseball fans, the thrill of opening day marks the beginning of a five month pleasure ride with their favorite teams and players.

However for the poor beleaguered fans of the Baltimore Orioles, opening day has recently represented the start of a prolonged torture session.

The team has endured 14 consecutive losing seasons. Fans and pundits are close to giving up hope on the storied franchise.

But hope springs eternal, right? And the Orioles “boys of Spring” are showing a surprising spring in their step.

Orioles have started their first few games with a bang, winning 3 of the first 4 to place themselves at the top of the extremely competitive AL East division.

While their hot start is actually not uncommon, considering they’ve won 10 of their past 13 opening days, this season shows a promise that is unique from the past.

It starts with the teams pitching.

Since the Orioles 1960-70’s golden days of Jim Palmer, Mike Cuellar, and Dave McNally, the Orioles pitching roster has been anywhere from, barely adequate to terrible beyond measure, but this year there is hope.

In the first three games, Orioles starting pitchers have allowed just 1 earned run in 22 innings pitched.  That’s a combined era of .045, which any stat-lover can tell you is nothing short of impressive.

As bad as the Orioles have been over the past decade, their batting lineup has featured a number of formidable hitters.

Players like Miguel Tejada, Tony Bautista, and Albert Belle have all tried to help Baltimore bat its way into the win column, but overcoming the Orioles inability to pitch is no simple matter.  At times it has felt like Orioles pitchers are purposely sabotaging the team.

But this year will be different, right?

Oriole’s 2012 opening day pitcher, Jake Arietta, looked like a straight stud on the mound facing a talented Minnesota lineup.  He allowed just 2 hits in seven innings, showing great command of his curveball and his slider.  Arietta’s performance was followed by two consecutive successful debuts from Tommy Hunter and Jason Hammel.

While these three pitchers are not your typical major league Ace’s, who’s to say, they won’t have prosperous years?

Most baseball fans are probably already counting the Orioles out, but it’s never too late to believe in the magic.  There is a common saying in Baltimore: “This will be the year.”

(Image courtesy of photobucket.com)

We normally like to avoid eating anything that has the word “arsenic” in it .

So we were alarmed to learn a bill banning the sale and use of roxarsone, an arsenic-based drug, in chicken feed passed the Maryland Senate and House last week.

If the above statement contained an “element” of surprise for you (pardon the pun), then you may be wondering if the chicken you have been eating all this time has had arsenic in it. And as a follow-up question, you may also be wondering why arsenic would even be in chicken feed.

To answer your first question, an FDA study completed last year found that  the risk of arsenic poisoning from eating roxarsone-treated chickens is very low.

As for your second concern, roxarsone is used to make the birds larger and to help them fight the many many parasites that infect them in the overcrowded, unsanitary conditions of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

But some people, such as Senator Richard Colburn (R-Dorchester), aren’t concerned with the arsenic itself so much as they are upset about the ban of it.

As Colburn points out, Pfizer Inc., the producer of the drug, pulled roxarsone from the market last year in response to the aforementioned FDA study. Senate Minority Leader E.J Pipkin (R-Cecil) did not see the point in banning something that has not even been for sale for the past year. He argued that bills such as this:

“build the backlash within the rural communities that the general assembly in its current form is biased against them.”

Proponents of the legislation, however, are viewing it as more of a “better safe than sorry” precaution.

Del. Tom Hucker (D-Montgomery), who sponsored the bill in the House, argued that the arsenic ban addresses not only concerns about human health but also those regarding environmental issues. According to Hucker, unknown levels of arsenic have been sweeping into the Bay and seeping into the soil since the element was first approved by the FDA in the 1940s.

Governor Martin O’Malley seems to like the bill and is expected to sign it soon, putting Maryland on track to become the first state to ban arsenic in chicken feed.

But for those of you who miss that oh-so-subtle hint of arsenic in your poultry, fret not: the Maryland Senate has exempted another arsenic-containing drug used in turkey feed from the ban.

What a pleasant surprise!