Right around 11:30 last night, just after CNN called the Presidential race for Barack Obama, my wife and I hopped in our car and took to the streets to celebrate. The City of Baltimore had no megaparty planned like the one in Chicago’s Grant Park for a potential Obama victory - we’re rarely that organized here - but the excitement was palpable as we cruised through the city. Baltimore after all voted 88% for Obama, one of the highest totals of anywhere in the United States (higher than even the candidate’s home district of Cook County, Illinois), plus the city is home to a large African-American community which comprises 65% of the population. Race didn’t seem to make much of a difference on the streets last night however, as folks of all colors and creeds took to impromptu celebrations in the bars, squares and streets all around town.

My wife armed with a trusty pot and wooden spoon to clang out the car window and I with the car horn firmly in hand, headed down to the waterfront, beeping and clanging the whole way. Cars driving beside us took up the honking cause, some armed with quickly improvised Obama Victory signs. As we passed Pennsylvania Station we got into a rhythmic back and forth of honking and clanging with the car next to us , not dissimilar from something you might here on a house music track. People waiting at bus stops and riding buses cheered as the honkers passed, people using all modes transportation getting in on the action. Down in the Fells Point bar district people standing outside of bars in nasty, rainy, maritime weather reveled and cheered.

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Some of the oldest African religious artifacts to ever be found in North America have been discovered beneath a street in historic Annapolis, Maryland. Archaeologists from the University of Maryland have unearthed objects dating from the early 1700’s which are nearly identical to West African religious articles of the same period. The pieces belonged to early slaves who continued to hang onto the native cultural heritage of their homeland after being forcibly brought to New World.

The bundle of artifacts was apparently left in the gutter of an 18th Century Annapolis street, a fairly prominent location for items that in later generations would have been forbidden, suggesting that there was a level of tolerance for such practices around the year 1700. Analysis of the objects has revealed that their cultural origin comes from the area of Africa that is now Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

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The Colony South Hotel & Conference Center in Clinton, Maryland, a suburb of Washington DC, has caused a stir by posting a McCain-Palin campaign sign on its marquee. The political advertisement, which reads “Country First McCain-Palin”, and was reported on today in an article in the Washington Post, has caused a minor furor in the area with local Democratic community leaders calling for a boycott of the business.

Clinton, Maryland, in exceedingly Democratic Prince George’s County (77% Democratic voter registration, one of the highest of any county in the United States) was probably not the wisest place for a business to be making a crossover into politics by supporting a Republican Presidential nominee. One is forced to wonder where is a good place for such expression though. Yard signs and bumper stickers supporting political candidates are one thing and keep the discussion within a more personal realm. But once you start mixing politics into preferably neutral public areas of life like a hotel, restaurant or typical retail establishment, you’re almost guaranteed to unnecessarily alienate a portion of your clientele.

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Fact: OVER ONE HALF of the solid waste produced in the United States comes from construction and demolition debris. What’s worse is that much of these materials are perfectly usable and as good, or in many cases better, than new materials available on the market today.

Ever drive by a beautiful old Victorian home and wonder how they used to make such fantastic buildings? Those same materials, complete with great style elements of past generations of construction can be a part of your own home by using green architectural salvage services like Community Forklift in the Washington D.C. area. Along with The Loading Dock, a non-profit building materials reuse center in nearby Baltimore, MD, Community Forklift is bringing green alternatives to the enormous waste and consumption rampant in the home building and improvement sectors by offering affordable, re-used materials to the public.

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

Nicole Hughes:

Should Drive-Thrus Be Banned?

Eco-Moms Mad About “Greenwash” Barbie

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Andy Kondrat:

Home Depot Will Recycle Your CLF Bulbs for Free

Department of Energy Predicts 50% Energy Increase By 2030

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Jon Popham:

NYC Waterfalls Installation Starts This Week

Capt. John Smith Is Back…and Running for President

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Giulia Rozzi:

Yoga Across the Border

Emile Norman: By His Own Design

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Gina Telaroli:

Silverdocs 08: A Post-Fest Wrap-Up

Human Rights Watch 08: Letter to Anna

Capt. John Smith, one of the earliest 17th Century English explorers of the New World, is back…and running for President. Well, sort of. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation is running a fictional Presidential campaign featuring Capt. Smith to draw awareness to needs of the Chesapeake, and the rivers and streams that feed it, for the upcoming Presidential election.

The original European explorer of the Chesapeake, Capt. Smith found a rich environment filled with fish, oysters, and, of course, Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs in his journeys around America’s largest estuary. In the 400 years since the Bay has lost an enormous amount of its vitality due to pollution from the nearby cities of Baltimore and Washington DC plus the enormous runoff of fertilizer and pesticides from farmlands throughout the Chesapeake’s vast watershed stretching through Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and even southern central New York State. The need for restoration has never been greater in order for future generations to be able to enjoy the abundance the Bay has provided throughout all of modern American history dating back to the founding of Jamestown and the Colony of Virginia.

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With this expansion of the legal definition of rape, Maryland joins seven other states whose courts have determined that a man can be charged with rape if he ignores a woman’s calls to stop even if she had previously consented to sex.

“This goes to the heart of women’s autonomy,” said Lisae C. Jordan, legal director of the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault, which filed a brief in the matter. “It says that, yes, women do have the right to make decisions about something as intimate as sexual intercourse.”

The Maryland Court of Appeals’ opinion in a rape case from Montgomery County overturns what defense attorneys and a lower appeals court said was existing common law and the high court’s own 1980 opinion. [Baltimoresun.com]

While I suppose this is “good news” it’s also incredibly sad that any state would ever rule that a woman cannot revoke her consent after intercourse begins.

and get involved at the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network http://www.rainn.org/