WaPo published a piece designed to shock the metropolitan masses yesterday with news of median new-home prices in Montgomery Co. “rocketing” to more than $1.1M.

The article quotes Karl Moritz, a research chief at Moco Planning Board:

“What we see when we look at the data, though, is not so much that all the houses are becoming more expensive, but that in the current market, builders stopped building middle-of-the-market houses. What they continued to build was the most expensive.”

It doesn’t seem that we’re comparing apples to apples here. Moritz says what’s at the root of the upswing is larger, affluent homes cost more money, and since the wealthy are the only folks who can afford new homes right now, builders are playing to that market.

The rich keep getting richer? You don’t say.

Heck, just last week we reported that Forbes’ list of the 400 richest people had a $1B minimum for the first time (look for #204 and #220 – John and Richard Marriott, of the Montgomery County-based hotel chain).

A few months ago, the AP reported that CEO compensation had also risen exponentially: half make more than $8.3M each year.

Really, is anyone surprised by this latest, closer-to-home development?

-JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

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I stumbled across an interesting post this morning (thank you, Google Alerts!) that questions whether federal health insurance laws should pre-empt state ones.

The State Policy Network, which blogged on the topic, bills itself as the “professional service organization for America’s state-based, free market think tank community.” The post centers on the federal ERISA, or Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

From the post:

Organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are concerned that some legislators want to punch holes in ERISA. Most of these legislators are on the wrong side of things: they are unhappy that a court found that a Maryland law that would oppress Wal-Mart’s ability to freely negotiate health benefits with its workers violated ERISA.

Nevertheless, such federal intervention unsettles free-market activists. After all, if your state government is messing up health insurance, vote them out and get better lawmakers. If you can’t do that, and Wal-Mart bails out of Maryland, go to one in Virginia or Pennsylvania. Eventually, the state will feel the economic pain and improve its policies.

What, ideally, should Maryland do — legislatively or otherwise — on this issue?

And is there a viable compromise between state and federal regulation?

-JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

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Reversing an earlier decision, Verizon Wireless announced today that it will allow NARAL Pro-Choice America to send text messages to Verizon customers who sign up on the advocacy group’s Web site for the messaging service.

The New York Times reported this morning that the telecommunications company had a policy against carrying messages from any group that promotes an agenda or distributes content that, in Verizon’s opinion, can be seen as “controversial or unsavory” to its users. The “unsavory” issue in this case was abortion itself, not necessarily NARAL’s pro-choice position.

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So, the Attorney General’s office has apparently decided that $400,000 is $143,000 too much to pay Alison Asti to go away.

If you thought that call belonged to the governor, comptroller and treasurer — collectively, the Board of Public Works — think again. First, the deal needs the attorney general’s blessing.

(And as a short aside, how is it that the Attorney General himself, Douglas F. Gansler, has managed to keep himself out of this entire episode? Check back on all the stories in our paper and in Brand S Major Metropolitan Daily … his name doesn’t appear.)

Maryland Stadium Authority board member Howard J. Stevens Jr. is none too happy that the AG’s office has decided not to forward the deal that was worked out between the board and Asti on to the Board of Public Works for approval.

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The Maryland Stem Cell Research Commission heard last week that none of the $15 million in research grants it approved four months ago had been awarded because scientists were late submitting paperwork and university review processes were slow.

Now, they are hearing a different story. Karen Buckelew reports today that University of Maryland officials have refused to sign grant agreements because they are burdensome, onerous and unsuited to this kind of research.

What’s going on here? Why can’t we lock a couple of assistant attorneys general in a room and tell them not to come out until they have an agreement everyone can live with?

-TOM LINTHICUM, Executive Editor

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Strolling downtown (PDF), I’ve often marveled at the way the crowds thin out as I make my way away from the Inner Harbor up Charles Street. Sure, the area around City Hall — and lately the area around Charles Center — seem to be busy at lunch time, and Mount Vernon is busy at night.

Still, it seems like tourists and others who aren’t familiar with Baltimore are reluctant to travel north of Pratt Street, let alone Baltimore Street. I saw something different last night at the recently-updated Center Plaza, where the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore Inc. brought together hundreds for its annual meeting.

Guests described an area with the potential for growth in retail and entertainment where flat, somewhat uninviting concrete and several empty storefronts stood as recently as a year ago.

Is it possible that Center Plaza, once a key piece of Charles Center’s 1960s redevelopment effort, could begin to draw visitors northward? What do you envision there, and is there any value to keeping tourists by the water so we locals can have the rest of the city to ourselves?

-ANDY ROSEN, Business Writer

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The hearts of MySpace users were surely aflutter yesterday with the creation of a new scaled-down version of MySpace for mobile phones – and, oh yeah, it’s FREE.

Of course, you do have to subject yourself to a few ads, but, hey, it’s better than paying the previous $3/month. That’s 36 whole dollars a year.

A Canton-based company, Millennial Media, is responsible for streamlining the ads that support the service, The Sun reports.

I do have to outright disagree with Fox Interactive Media VP John Smelzer:

“We believe that everybody who’s accessing the Internet from a PC will access the Internet from a mobile device. … It will become a mainstream activity.”

Hold up.

No offense to the power of the Web, but mobile device-browsing a “mainstream” activity? For mainstream America? I don’t know about that. Somehow I can’t picture my grandparents (or parents) – who use a PC to connect to the ‘net – ever surfing from a cell phone.

Am I way off base?

-JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

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I was on Route 175 in Columbia last week when I saw an odd bumper sticker on the car in front of me: “Choose Civility in Howard County.”

At first, I thought it was imploring Columbians to be more racially tolerant.

Since the (albeit small) sample of Howard County residents I asked didn’t know, I turned to the local blogosphere.

Sure enough, Hometown Columbia was able to point me in the right direction: Choose Civility is an initiative led by the HoCo Library that “intends to enhance respect, empathy, consideration and tolerance in Howard County.”

Their strategy for doing so? Recommended reading (“Choosing Civility” by P.M. Forni of the Johns Hopkins Civility Project), a Facebook group and car magnets.

At least they’re aiming near and far.

Anyone out there involved in this initiative care to comment? Are people in Hoco becoming more civil, or are those involved already the pillars of civility?

I, for one, will honk for joy if area drivers truly mend their ways.

-JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

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On Monday nights, it’s 17 vs. 2 in my computer applications class at Montgomery College. If you count Bill, 18 vs. 2.

I’m taking a night class to learn Adobe Flash, a computer program that creates flash animations for the web. (When you see a message on your computer that asks you to install Macromedia Flash Player, you’re trying to view a file that I am learning how to create). I’m learning along with one other girl and 17 guys; Bill Humphrey is our teacher.

I expected a gender gap, but not this wide – after all, my class isn’t advanced computer programming, it’s an instructional course on a program that’s becoming increasingly widespread.

According to a recent AP story, however, the programs themselves might be at the root of the discrepancy: new research suggests that they aren’t designed with female thought processes in mind.

What this class has taught me in just two weeks is that those processes truly are different.

Right down to naming our files, I’ve taken a completely different approach to my exercises than my male counterparts. (I’m sure they enjoy glancing over at my screen to see short animations of dancing teddy bears and the like, but I could do without the World of Warcraft on theirs, so we’re even.)

Seriously, though – should we be working towards a middle ground, or are separate programs for separate genders worth considering?

-JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

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What do you think of Governor O’Malley’s one-tax-a-day announcement strategy?

In his article in today’s Daily Record, reporter Andy Rosen quotes Johns Hopkins University political scientist Matthew Crenson as saying, “It’s a very shrewd way to do it. To lay it all out at once would give the opportunity to different groups who are opposed to provisions of the program to join together.”

Crenson also said the gradual rollout gives O’Malley the opportunity to pull back pieces that draw heavy political flak.

House Minority Whip Christopher B. Shank, D-Washington, was not impressed with the O’Malley dribs and drabs gambit. “Marylanders are not fooled by smoke and mirrors,” he told Rosen. “They are smarter than that.”

So which is it—a good way to help people grasp the intricacies of a complex plan or a crass attempt to manage the news and give the governor maximum political cover?

-TOM LINTHICUM, Executive Editor

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