I learned today that Mike Netherland passed away yesterday. I came to know Mike through his MARC blog and then his political one. We got to the point that we exchanged emails and talked on GoogleTalk enough that we found out that we often were on the same train home in the evenings. So, we eventually wound up meeting up at Union Station waiting for the same MARC train home one night and we would occasionally catch up on that train when both our schedules matched up. Sometimes, we’d talk about it ahead of time. Other times, I’d just look for his hat on the platform or look for him in his usual seat on his usual car.

I knew he was married and had a son who went to Severna Park because he talked about going to a production of a play one weekend when we were sitting across from each other on the train ride home. I knew he was active in the Anne Arundel County GOP and Republican politics in general. I never knew any details about things like his age or other facts from the major to the mundane.

I knew he was working at a federal agency and he got to work from home more often as things progressed. I ended up not making the commute for several months. The last time I saw him was probably sometime prior to July of 2009. We kept talking online and emailed each other and ocasionally traded messages on Facebook. He was on Twitter too (@netherman79) but hadn’t updated in awhile there.

His MARC blogging inspired me to cover MARC issues on this blog when I started my original commute to DC in 2008. I had lots of good talks with Mike whether it was about politics, beer or a number of other subjects. I will miss him and I’m praying for his family and friends.

I don’t know what happened that led to his passing and I’ve scoured the local papers online and the funeral home websites looking for announcements of any arrangements but haven’t found anything yet. If you find an obituary or other announcement online somewhere, please post a link in the comments below.

I’ll provide some background information first. Stan Moore blogged here about an alleged sexual assault at UMBC back in the fall. After my blog colleague’s initial post, it appeared that a lid was being kept on the situation by campus officials, so, based on reporting by campus media at UMBC and other sources, I made a follow-up post here. I also posted here in early January when charges against Professor Ram Hosmane were dropped. After that sources indicated that he was retired from UMBC and that he may have been involved in a cash settlement with the alleged victim. The retirement was confirmed by UMBC. There have been numerous comments made by various people who side with both Hosmane and the alleged victim. Some of the comments (possibly on both sides) appear to be “astroturf” to me quite frankly. Some of the comments have been in the form of tips to us or gossip on the case.

On more than one occasion, we (Stan Moore in his initial post and me in at least one of the other posts on this situation) provided an email address for the principals involved (Hosmane or his attorney, UMBC officials, and the alleged victim or her attorneys) to contact us. We specifically asked them in these blog posts to provide their side of the story (via email) and that we would run it unedited and uncut. Hosmane spoke on the record to the Retriever initially at one point and then no longer commented (I have to assume on advice of his counsel.) I also personally emailed officials at UMBC,Hosmane’s attorney, and the alleged victim’s attorney and asked them all for comment. UMBC was the only responsive party in all of those instances that I emailed both before and after the charges were dismissed. Now, on to my letter to Hosmane.

Dr. Hosmane:
If you wish to contact me, your only option now is to send an email to mail@insidecharmcity.com. We will allow you to publish anything you want about this matter and we won’t edit it or alter it. This information has been provided at least twice in the past on blog posts on this site and we have also approached your defense attorney with similar information via email as well.

Most bloggers do not rely on their blog for their primary source of income. Most of them have full-time jobs that are totally unrelated to their blogging. Submitting a comment to my full-time employer (or any other blogger’s) via their email form is not going to benefit your cause. That message also indicated you had left a message on my “recorder” via telephone. I have received no such phone call on any voicemail for any of my numbers – which aren’t public information anyway. You may have possibly tracked a number down but it apparently was the wrong one. In line with this, we don’t have office hours so “appointments” can’t be made.

As we have said before on more than one occasion going back months, we will publish your version of events or anything else you wish to say about the situation in a blog post here at Inside Charm City. Any further attempts to contact me or anyone else about this matter by any means of communication other than an email to mail@insidecharmcity.com will be deemed harassment and dealt with appropriately.

Thank you,
Jeff Quinton
Publisher, Inside Charm City

We have added new bloggers over the past few days. You may have noticed posts by some of them already.

We are still looking for other bloggers as well in line with our previous request.

Our new bloggers are: Hillary Belzer, Jessie Benson, Laura Coward Egan, William Hill, Mark Newgent, Liz Stambaugh, and Brooke Tyson.

Would you like to be part of the blogging team here at Inside Charm City?

You now have your chance. We’ve been looking to add some other contributors for the past few months and we’ve finally decided to make an open call for bloggers. Inside Charm City was the #1 local blog in Maryland for 2009 and was voted Best News Blog in the Mobbie Awards by readers of the Baltimore Sun.

Here are a few possible topics we’re interested in adding bloggers for:

• news reporting – if you’re an out of work reporter looking to keep your name out there, this one is for you
• political bloggers from the left and the right and everywhere in between
• culture bloggers – i.e. someone to blog about the fine arts
• restaurant/food bloggers
• sports bloggers – general sports or pick a team or sport
• music/club/bars blogger
• pick your own niche – tell us what you want to blog about

We’re looking at giving any interested bloggers a two week trial period before we add them permanently to the team. Ad revenue sharing is a possibility as that continues to grow, but don’t get into it right now expecting to make a lot of money on that.

Additionally, if you already blog somewhere else and you’d be interesting in cross-posting your posts from there here (whether just selected posts or all posts), that might be a possibility as well.

We’re doing this for a couple of reasons. My time was getting eaten up by other things back in the fall and summer as I tried to roll out OnQ Social Media consulting and also while I looked for a full-time job. Now that I’m working – I have a commute to DC and back everyday. My personal blogging output is by default going to go down now that I’m making that commute and working all day. Also, Stan Moore, who does a great job with news release aggregation, among other things, has had less time to devote to the site. He will be doing news release aggregation and some news aggregation still but we wanted to expand our offerings to a larger audience.

We’re especially interested in blogging on political and government issues this year with it being an election year for state offices in Maryland. An emphasis on Baltimore area government and politics would be good, but we’re also interested in covering the Annapolis news items in that area as well.

If you’re interested, send an email to mail@insidecharmcity.com. Thanks.

Adam Pagnucco has his annual report on traffic for local and political blogs in Maryland for 2009. Inside Charm City is #1 in the local blogs category and our traffic is higher than any blog in both categories. He tracks our traffic as increasing 195% from 2008 to 2009.

Thanks to our readers for making this happen. 2009 was a great year for Inside Charm City.
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