I got a chance to speak with Danica Patrick a few weeks ago. She was calling around to media outlets in advance of the Grand Prix and we chatted for 10 or 15 minutes about how her final season of INDYCAR was going ("It’s been an up and down year") and if she had any special items on her to-do list while in Baltimore ("I want to eat crab cakes"). But what she really wanted to talk about was her advocacy for COPD, or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. The illness—the fourth leading cause of death in this country—includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema, the disease which claimed her grandmother's life at the age of 61. 

"I remember seeing my grandma, especially at the end when she was in a wheelchair and she was on oxygen 24-hours a day, and the machine makes that sucking noise," she said via telephone. "It’s just sad to see somebody in such a fragile state, so reliant on something, so helpless. There’s no cure for the disease. That should be a wake up call. Anytime you see a loved one in a position where they’re helpless it’s really painful," she added.

Becoming an celebrity ambassador for DRIVE4COPD, was, "the perfect situation to turn a negative into a positive." She encourages everyone to go to...

"This puts Baltimore back on the map, as far as basketball goes."-Carmelo Anthony

"This is a great town for basketball." -Kevin Durant

I will use the occasion of last night's all-star dunktacular at Morgan State, organized as a benefit for Carmelo Anthony's Melo Foundation, to gripe once again about the fact that Baltimore doesn't have an NBA team. Alright, so it's not THAT impressive that we were able to pack the gym at Morgan State to see such hoops luminares as Anthony, Durant, LeBron James, and Chris Paul (it would've said more about us if we HADN'T been able to fill the 4,500 seat house). But the enthusiasm, from both the players and the fans, was palpable, just from watching these ESPN clips. (I wasn't able to attend the exhibition myself.)

From Cleveland to Detroit to Milwaukee to Memphis, virtually every major city of comparable size to...

If ever there was a subject ripe to be documented, it's Divine, a.k.a. Baltimore native Harris Glenn Milstead, the overweight drag queen whose campy, often hilarious, sometimes bizarre turns in John Waters films like Pink Flamingos, Hairspray, Polyester, and Female Troubles always threatened to steal the show.

We're happy to report that acclaimed director Jeffrey Schwarz is at work on just such a documentary, I Am Devine, and has already shot interviews with Waters, co-stars Ricki Lake and Mink Stole, Michael Musto, Bruce Vilanch, and Divine's mother, Frances Milstead, among many others.

The problem is, Schwarz claims he doesn't have money to pay for "editing, music, archival footage, graphics, and plenty of LIQUID EYELINER" and so, he's started a fundraising campaign, aiming to raise $100,000 to release the film next year. So far, he's...

Longtime Baltimore Sun political reporter and columnist Laura Vozzella (left), who is leaving the paper to take a job at The Washington Post, had her last column today—and it's a doozy.

In her farewell, Vozzella "thanks" many of the people she has covered over the years, poking fun at their missteps. She thanks former mayor Sheila Dixon "for your passion for furs, Jimmy Choos and a married man doing business with the city," and current mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake for "her Cleopatra wig phase," among other things. Governor Martin O'Malley, former Governor Robert Ehrlich, and dozens of other local officials and personalities also get some backhand appreciation.

At least one recipient of Vozzella's "gratitude" has already fired back—and Baltimore magazine is peripherally involved! How exciting!

In the column, Vozzella thanks...