They’re all featured in this blog post, thanks to a variety of interesting business news developments Tuesday.

Nonprofit employment grew 2 percent in 2009, compared to a statewide drop in total employment of 3.2 percent, according to “Nonprofits by the Numbers,” an annual report published by Maryland Nonprofits, a trade group that advocates for nonprofit organizations.

Over the period from 2004-2009, nonprofit employment grew by 9.5 percent while total employment shrank 2.1 percent, according to the report. Nonprofits in Maryland employ 255,408 people or 10.6 percent of the state’s work force, and account for 10 percent of all wages paid statewide, up from 9.5 percent of the work force and 8.6 percent of wages in 2004.

Click here if you’d like to see the report.

Meanwhile, just in time for Easter, Just Born Inc., a Bethlehem, Pa.-based confectionary company that makes the yellow, pink, lavender, blue and white chick- and bunny-shaped marshmallow candy called Peeps, has launched an online store, www.peepsandcompany.com.

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In response to my blog about a town in Germany selling potholes to citizens who pay to have them filled in, a reader has reminded me that this idea is not new — in fact, it was done in Baltimore before, during the administration of former Mayor William Donald Schaefer.

“Schaefer famously sold pothole repairs when he was Mayor. The repairs could be dedicated to a loved one, a red heart was painted over the patch and a certificate issued. A number of them are still visible around Baltimore. We have one on our block that we’re planning to ‘restore’ as a tribute to our great Mayor.”

As a former member of Mayor Schaefer’s staff during the ’70s, I should have remembered that getting potholes filled was one of his priorities — part of his detail-oriented, “do it now” approach to governance that won over voters — and involving the citizens of Baltimore was one of his greatest achievements.

I stand corrected.

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Now that winter seems to be loosening its icy grip on Baltimore, potholes are blossoming on local streets, and officials are combing through their scarce budgets to find the money to pay to fill them.

But one town in Germany has come up with an interesting idea: Selling potholes. Niederzimmern, a hamlet in the eastern German state of Thuringia, will repair a pothole and attach an individual’s name to the newly filled hole. The cost for owning a pothole? Only $68.

Niederzimmern Mayor Christoph Schmidt-Rose said there’s interest from the local populace in the plan. “The point is to use a funny idea to find people who can then help us to get our streets back in order,” the mayor told German radio on Wednesday.

While an unfilled pothole begs for attention, one that’s filled is saying, “Someone cares about me.” And, as Mayor Schmidt-Rose observes, people who pay to fill a pothole “feel like they own [it].”

Some years ago, Baltimore officials got people to buy bricks inscribed with their name or the name of a loved one for placement along the Inner Harbor waterfront promenade. That idea proved to be very popular.

So who’s up for owning a personal, inscribed pothole?

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Environmentalists are livid over some remarks by state Sen. Richard Colburn, a Cambridge Republican. Now they’re calling for a formal and public apology.

It happened during a meeting on Feb. 15 between the Eastern Shore delegation and the secretaries of the departments of Agriculture and Environment, in which lawmakers complained that agency rules are slowing down or halting projects in their counties.

Sen. Colburn, one of those at the meeting, said he believes “river keepers,” environmentalists who watch over particular waterways, are dictating business on the Eastern Shore. He compared them to watermelons: “green on the outside and red or socialist on the inside.”

Members of the Waterkeeper Alliance are red-faced with anger.

“Characterizing any and every opposing group or elected official as unpatriotic or un-American is a political tactic and has no place in any form of reasonable discourse,” said Kathy Phillips of Assateague Coastkeeper, a Waterkeeper Alliance member. “We are hard-working Maryland residents, devoting our lives in many cases, to the protection of Maryland waterways from illegal and often toxic pollution. Our groups are comprised of concerned Americans who care very deeply about their country. Waterkeepers has more than a number of veterans working to restore clean waterways in our country. Senator Colburn is engaging here in a McCarthy-like slur and he owes us an apology.”

U.S. Marine Corps Colonel (Ret.) Richard Dove, registered Republican, and Neuse Riverkeeper Emeritus (April 1, 1993 through July 4, 2000) said: “This man [State Sen. Colburn] doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t know me or any of my colleagues, that’s for sure. Having served two tours of duty in Vietnam, I take it personally when someone calls me a Red, a socialist. I understand that Sen. Colburn aligns himself with big agriculture and the commercial farms that keep him in office, but the fact that our goals are not aligned doesn’t give him the right to blindly tag our members as socialists, implying somehow that we are un-American.”

Jeff Kelble of Shenandoah Riverkeeper said his family has been in America since the 1600s, homesteaded the Shenandoah Valley in the 1700s, and fought in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. “If anything, Riverkeepers are red-blooded Americans, not Red, socialists,” he said.

One wonders whether or not Sen. Colburn has a case of the “blues” over his remark.

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