Maryland's Governor is a "Red Crab".

[Dees]

Crybaby of the Year
Only two weeks into 2005, there's a clear winner: Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich, who's gone beyond whining about his major local paper, The Sun of Baltimore, to actually banning state officials from talking to two of its writers and, most recently, preventing the writers from attending press conferences.

By Joe Strupp

NEW YORK (January 14, 2005) -- I know 2005 is only two weeks old, but I'm already convinced that the Crybaby of the Year Award should go to Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich.

You'll likely recall that Ehrlich is the chief executive of that great state who has turned his whining about The Sun of Baltimore into a daily exercise while also wasting his time, taxpayer's money, and reporters' and editors' energy on a needless fight that he should eventually lose

..snip..

First Ehrlich showed his thin skin last month by ordering state employees not to talk to Sun reporter David Nitkin and columnist Michael Olesker after he found some of their coverage not to his liking. Then, in the past several weeks, he barred Nitkin from at least two press events, according to the Sun.

..snip..

"He's insane," declared Lucy Dalglish, executive director of Reporters Committee for Freedom of The Press, when I asked her about Ehrlich. "If he won in court, this could become a much more widely accepted tactic."

..snip..

Going to the lengths of ordering state employees -- who are paid, in part, to work for the people/readers -- not to talk to reporters, and barring the journos from public press events, is cowardly.

..snip

It used to be that one of the character traits of a good politician was being tough enough to handle the rough-and-tumble world of campaigns and elections, as well as the accusations and hard shots of the press. I guess Ehrlich is learning from a fellow Republican, George W. Bush, who doesn't bar reporters form press conferences -- he just rarely has any.

Or maybe Ehrlich learned from that other great Maryland governor, Spiro Agnew. He famously called the press "nattering nabobs of negativism" after rising to the heights of vice president (before resigning amid scandal.

[Historic NY]

1. Sounds like the Town Supervisor where I live......they must be clones..

[Sparkly]

2. Dees, could you post a link?

Thanks in advance. :hi:

[Dees]

3. Sure

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/rewrite_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000759839

[undergroundpanther]

4. Erlich is a devil

From "The Other God, Dualist Religions from Antiquity to the Cathar Heresy," by Uri Stoyanov, p.133-135

“In a cosmogonic myth recorded among the Abakan Tartars, both God and his companion, whom he created and bade to dive and bring back sand, are envisaged in the shape of ducks; subsequently, the second duck begins to act as God's rival and the myth enhances further its dualist tendencies by introducing the wicked Erlik Khan, the Lord of the Underworld and corrupter of man. It is worth noting that before evolving into a lord of the lower world and the realm of darkness as well as a judge of the dead, apparently in at least some Altaic traditions Erlik was originally a celestial deity. Particularly important for the history of religious dualism are those Altaic traditions in which Erlik appears as second only to the highest god, Ulgen, and as his assistant in creation and is assigned an important demiurgic functions, as he not only takes part in the anthropogonic process but also begins to act in some kind of opposition against the first demiurge. In Iakut traditions Erlik is associated with the so-called 'Blue Boundlessness' and possibly with the water element, whereas in Buriat mythology he is seen as the leader of the wicked black or eastern spirits. Erlik plays a major role in Siberian Turkic and Mongol shamanistic traditions and their ideas of the afterlife (both he and his spirits could be seen as abducting souls for their realm): shamans are often depicted as invoking, offering sacrifices to and propitiating Erlik, undergoing a descent into his lower world and encountering the king of the underworld.”

...

“In an Altaian Turkic legend before the creation of heaven and earth, when the whole world was covered with water, the highest of gods, Tengere Kaira Khan, created a being in his image and called him man. Tengere Kara Khan and his companion, the man, are depicted as flying over the primordial waters in the shape of black geese; the man shows his arrogance by trying to fly higher than God and falls into the water; God sends him to bring up silt but the man attempts to keep some of the silt in his mouth – he is exposed by God and called Erlik. Subsequently, Erlik tries to seduce mankind and creates his own heaven but is banished into the underworld. In another version of this myth, which further betrays some Iranian influences, the man, flying alongside God (again, both in the form of black geese), appears as God's primordial companion who is sent to bring up earth from the bottom of the sea. God spills this earth over the sea to create land but, as in the first version of the myth, the man tries to hide some of the earth in his mouth and is exposed – God calls himself Kurbistan and names the man Erlik, telling him that because of his evil deed his future subjects are destined to be evil. In a Mongol version of the cosmogonic myth, after the dive the figure of the diabolical adversary appears to oppose a pair of creator deities trying to obtain a share of the created earth. Characteristically, one of the deities of the primordial pair, the one who acts as an earth-diver, also begins to display the initial features of an arrogant, rival demiurge, priding himself on his crucial role in the cosmogonic process.”



Hmm wonder why we have "ride the ducks" in Baltimore??
http://www.baltimoreducks.com/index.html

Creepy, like Erlich's hair!!!