Since today is Opening Day here in Baltimore (and the day after the Nats stadium debut), we thought we’d ask Baltimoreans about the 2008 season.

The problem: only a handful of people walking around downtown Baltimore last week were interested in talking about the Orioles. Ouch.

Seems that after a decade of losing, most people are unenthused about the 2008 year…

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Is a firefighter bachelor auction held at a bar an appropriate fundraiser for the Red Cross?

This seems to be the question that’s led to a purge of employees from the Frederick County Red Cross – both resignations and terminations.

The group’s executive director was fired March 19 after objecting to the plans, according to a story in the Frederick News-Post. Two more longtime employees resigned this week.

Here’s the crux of the “inappropriate” argument: The Red Cross organization advises its workers and volunteers to avoid bars and taverns while representing the Red Cross.

However, there is no such language in the organization’s written code of conduct.

In this situation, once the Frederick chapter was told there were no legal concerns over the event, it was up to the board members to make the final decision.

And on Wednesday, the bachelor auction was held at the Greene Turtle Sports Bar and Grille. The event raised more than $4,000.

Do you think a bachelor auction is appropriate for an esteemed NPO? Or should nonprofits steer away from mixing business and pleasure?

JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor

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Assistant Business Editor Ben Mook uncovered an alarming story yesterday when the U.S. District Court for Maryland ordered Discovery Communications, of Silver Spring, to turn over footage to help the defense of an animal rights group that’s being sued in China.

A civil lawsuit filed in Beijing claims The International Fund for Animal Welfare impugned the reputation of a Chinese business through a web article claiming a wine it makes uses tiger skeletons as an ingredient.

The subpoenaed footage, which has not aired in the U.S., is from an episode of Animal Planet‘s Crime Scene Wild series, and examines the Guilin Xiongsen Bear & Tiger Mountain Villa Entertainment Center and its making of “bone fortified wine.” Guilin Xiongsen runs a tiger farm, villa, restaurant and winemaking operation at Bear & Tiger Mountain.

The villa’s defense? They’ve got the wrong bones.

“The main ingredients of the ‘animal bone medicated wine’ produced by [Guilin Xiongsen] are rice wine, papayas and African lion bones, and do not include any ‘tiger bone’ ingredients at all,” the company said in the lawsuit.

Read Ben’s online-only story at our main Web site.

JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor

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Small business owners have it tough. Forget about floating holidays, cushy benefits or corporate IT support; oftentimes, they have only themselves to rely on in a jam.

That’s why the producers of the PBS series “Small Business School” aim to make successful small business owners larger-than-life.

Dedicated exclusively to telling the stories behind small businesses, the weekly series takes you inside hundreds of companies so you can learn from owners who are the best in their category.

The business owners featured on the show have created jobs for at least ten years, they are considered leaders by their peers and they’re often beloved in their local communities.

And – I’m telling you this because – starting today, clips from the show will be featured on The Daily Record Web site.

Each day, a 1-4 minute video clip from the show will be offered, courtesy of Producer/Host Hattie Bryant (above) and “Small Business School.”

Take a look at today’s clip, and let us know what you think the unique challenges of being a small business owner in Maryland are.

JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor

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Wednesday, the city’s spending panel discussed the authorization of $60,000 to pay the hotel bills for 41 homeless Baltimoreans who have been living in a Quality Inn and 12 more homeless families who were living in the Ramada Inn since mid-December.

They were relocated there from encampments under the JFX because the city said they were creating a fire hazard, and the city’s “Code Blue” shelter had filled up and the weather was getting increasingly cold. They were originally slated to stay only until Jan. 23. The first leg of their stay, from Dec. 14 to Jan. 23, had a price tag of $125,000, which also came from city coffers.

When we here at the Daily Record noticed this item on the Board of Estimates’ meeting agenda, it got us thinking about these two very different, but very important types of developments: homeless shelters and hotels, and we decided to take a look at the numbers.

According to officials at the city’s Homeless Services offices, there are some 60 facilities in Baltimore, most of them run by nonprofits or city social services agencies, that serve the homeless. There are no city-run facilities to serve our roughly 3,000 homeless, but the city does contribute local, state, and federal grant money to these independent facilities.

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I’ve tried not to casually throw around the word “recession” on this blog, but it’s time we discussed the possibility.

Obviously, there’s been a rising number of home foreclosures nationwide, and yes, gas is up to almost $4 per gallon (it’s there already in Hawaii and parts of Calif.). Never mind the cost of food.

Well, this report hits close to home.

A group of churches in Frederick says there’s been a 30 percent jump in the number of people who’ve asked for help to make ends meet this year.

The Religious Coalition for Emergency Human Needs says more than 500 people asked for emergency aid in each of the first two months of this year. The group’s director says some of the requests are coming from people strapped by foreclosures on their homes, the high prices of home heating oil and gas.

Is this just the beginning of a recession’s impact on Maryland?

Or can the state get away relatively unscathed, thanks to our stable industries?

JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor

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If it is, it may have something to do with miscommunication between male and female coworkers.

Not that I’m pointing fingers; I’m merely adding 1 + 1 = 2.

1. More women say they heard sexually inappropriate comments at work last year (38%, up from 22% in 2006. Source: Novations Group). The percentage of men who reported inappropriate comments held steady at 45%.

Why the increase? Well, it could be that male employees are lowering their guards around women they view as peers, says law prof Paul Secunda. The problem with that is what’s reasonable to a guy may not be reasonable to a gal. That difference “shows up in sexual-harassment case law,” he told BusinessWeek.

2. Or, it could be that the men are simply misinterpreting female behavior – something that happens frequently, according to a new NIH-funded study.

The young men who were part of the study had trouble noticing and interpreting the meanings of females’ non-verbal cues:

Rather than seeing the world through sex-colored glasses, men seemed just to have blurry vision of sorts, overall.

So, is the workplace less appropriate than in years past? Or are there simply differences in interpretation between genders that are biologically driven?

What else could explain the spike in sexual comments at work?

JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor

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If you watched any part of the NCAA basketball tournament over the weekend, you surely saw the “My better is better than your better…” commercials for Nike’s Sparq training gear. Both the gear and the commercials are clearly geared to thwarting competition from Baltimore-based Under Armour.

I know (or at least I think) I recognized a good number of professional athletes and coaches in the commercials, but the only ones I can put a name to are New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush, USC football coach Pete Carroll and soccer star Julie Foudy. Web Specialist Joe Bacchus picked out the Phoenix Suns’ Steve Nash and soccer player Landon Donovan.

Here are two questions: 1) What athletes did you recognize from the commercials?

And, 2) should Under Armour be worried that Nike is coming after it full throttle?

ED WALDMAN, Managing Editor/Business

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In this time of questionable economic health (I’ll refrain from using the “r” word), one industry seems to be flourishing: Business news media.

It was less than a year ago that News Corp. debuted the Fox Business News channel (I’ll always remember the game “Business news anchor or porn star?“).

And, Reuters reports, this summer will bring “The Big Money,” a biz analysis-and-commentary site from the WaPo-owned online magazine Slate. Editor James Ledbetter said “TBM” will use “wit and irreverence to explain the arcana of Wall Street.”

Slate recently spun off a video site, Slate V, and launched The Root, an African-American news and opinion site.

So is there more business news to report, or are more people interested in hearing about it?

Are there aspects of the business world that have gone uncovered? Or is it the impending irreverence that will draw visitors?

JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor

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How would you like to spend your weekdays scouting for vintage furniture? Rob Degenhard and Nini Sarmiento, owners of the Home Anthology store, do.

The couple’s Catonsville furniture store is open only on weekends, allowing them to spend the week hunting for vintage pieces – the habit that got them into the business. Their store is featured in today’s issue of The Daily Record supplement Distinctive Properties.

Now, Rob and Nini are two businesspeople filling a growing demand for “midcentury modern” furniture and accessories – vintage pieces made between 1945 and 1970. The functional, sleek pieces are in demand now as people aim to simplify their lives, and the prices are beginning to reflect that, with high-end pieces demanding tens of thousands of dollars.

Midcentury modern’s “appeal isn’t limited to the young and hip,” Mary Medland reports. Home Anthology has clients “ranging from newlyweds to those who are in their 70s.”

Browse through the inventory of Home Anthology, as seen through the eyes of Photographer Rich Dennison. (View larger here).

JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor

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