Throw the book at her

I don't know how many more times I can shake my head about what goes in Baltimore. Yes, I live in "Baltimore," but technically, we live in Baltimore County, which is a whole separate jurisdiction and government. We broke up with the city in 1854 and very little that they do down there makes us want to get back together again.

Just today, we see the news that the former police commissioner is in trouble for not paying taxes, and the people who collect taxes from the rest of us want to put him in an orange jumpsuit for a year in the Ironbar Hilton as a reminder to him and everyone else who shirks their duty to pay.  But that story hardly gets any traction at all, what with the recent revelations about what the mayor is up to.

Her name is Catherine Pugh, and if you follow these stories, you will remember that she came into office as an antidote (locally pronounced "anecdote") to the antics of a previous mayor, Sheila Dixon. Ms Dixon ripped off gift cards that had been donated to her office for use as gifts for the underprivileged, and was forced to resign her office in disgrace so she could go shopping.

Pugh served on the City Council and ran to succeed Stephanie Rawlings-Blake as mayor.  She was said to be the perfect candidate without a whiff of scandal, so she won, and guess what astonished citizens have learned in the past week!

Her honor (above) cut a sweet deal with the University of Maryland Medical System. She was one of 30 unpaid board members there, until it came to light that she, too, wrote children's books.  Writing children's books is not against the law, although it's quite the big deal among the celebrity set to write them so that moms and dads all over can bore their children to sleep by reading stories from minds such as those of Jamie Lee Curtis, Al Yankovic, Emma Thompson, Spike Lee, and Steve Martin.

Pugh got the board to shell out $500,000 for 100,000 copies of the  “Healthy Holly” books she wrote. They're all about that fitness life and healthy eating. The newspaper reports the books were purchased by the hospital sytem in 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2018, and distributed to local schools and daycare centers.

The Baltimore City Public Schools were so thrilled to have these magnum opuses available for their kids that they have 8,700 copies of Healthy Holly: Fruits Come in Colors Like the Rainbow gathering dust in a warehouse.

The mayor resigned from the board, saying, "I have many other pressing concerns that require my full attention, energy and efforts."

You know what else she has? Half a million dollars from this enterprise.

And somewhere, Sheila Dixon is saying, "Hey! Wait a minute..."