Village Green/Town²

Join us........ Leave your fields to flower Join us........ Leave your cheese to sour Join us........ Come and waste an hour or two Doo-dle-ee-do Journey....... Journey to a spot ex- citing, mystic and exotic Journey........ Through our anecdotic revue We've got magic to do........ Just for you We've got miracle plays to play We've got parts to perform.... Hearts to warm Kings and things to take by storm As we go along our wa y - - Magic to Do, Pippin They’ve got magic to do out at River Hill High School weekend. Beginning Thursday night, and running through a Sunday matinee, they’ll be presenting the musical Pippin. I’m excited for three very good reasons: 1. I’ve actually never seen Pippin 2. My husband is one of the musicians in the pit band. 3. My daughter is in the ensemble.  So you won’t be surprised to hear that I have tickets for every performance.  While I don’t expect you to dedicate your own weekend in the same way, I would like to invit...

I know of at least two cases where a candidate has declared in upcoming local elections and, in so doing, instantly created a whole lot of positive buzz: for their opponent. I’m not going to name names, but you do have to be “some kind of special” to motivate the public to go out and knock doors for someone else. Name recognition is a big deal in Howard County, as it is everywhere, I guess. If you’ve got that plus money in the bank I suppose you might think you can sail all the way to victory in the primaries and beyond. Not so fast. There are some candidates whose names are well known because the public is painfully aware of what they have done. Or failed to do. And that may be startlingly difficult to overcome when voters go to the polls. If your record in public service involves dismissing constituents, arrogance, lack of transparency, and a general all-over indifference toward responsiveness to the public, I have to wonder why you are pursuing higher office. It is called “p...

I celebrated the beginning of my weekend by coming home and listening to the most recent episode of Elevate Maryland. We all have our own way to unwind. Sitting in my comfy chair with absolutely no interruptions and no immediate plans is about as good as it gets. The featured guest of this episode is Councilman Calvin Ball. There’s a lot in this interview to think about. It’s worth the listen. But, at the risk of ignoring the main course in favor of the appetizers, I’d like to focus on a bit at the beginning of the show where co-host Tom Coale “goes off” on task forces. If I could I’d present his entire speech (monologue? soliloquy? rant?) but I don’t have that voice-to-text thing nailed down quite yet. So you’ll just have to listen . At some point during the current County Executive’s first term I became overwhelmed with the number of task forces appearing on the scene. I thought I had written an entire blog post about it, but it looks like it only surfaced for one measly paragr...

I don’t think I am alone in wanting to see Bess Altwerger and Cindy Vaillancourt officially toss their hats in the ring for one more term on the Board of Education. They have both done excellent work, and have a wealth of knowledge about what is going on and what needs to be done. But they haven’t. Yet. Amongst the other hopefuls I know two that I am confident could do an excellent job. But I have been much more focused on what’s actually going on out there on Route 108 and in the schools, and less on the upcoming election. We have a lot of catching up to do after years of poor management, mistreatment of teachers and staff, and misplaced priorities. When it comes to the BOE, I just don’t have election fever at this point. I feel as though we are only just now making headway and I hate to see a break in continuity. Ms. Altwerger and Ms. Vaillancourt, if you are out there reading this post, don’t give up on us just yet. Give us one more term and then hand us off when we are in bet...

I’m struck this morning by the life of an extraordinary woman whose obituary is in the Baltimore Sun this morning. Sarah D.C. Banks, a retired career college educator and administrator, dies (Fred Rasmussen) There’s more than one Columbia/Howard County connection in her story. Taken a moment to read it. Even if you don’t subscribe, it’s definitely worth one of your “free reads” this month. Somehow Ms. Banks reminds me of someone else local who works in higher education.

Yesterday, as I read reports from County Executive Allan Kittleman’s State of the County address, a memory surfaced. Typically the C.E. uses this speech to highlight progress and unveil new initiatives. One such initiative last year focused on the Gateway area of Columbia. You can read more about that here . It made me wonder what has transpired since the initial announcement. I rarely have a reason to head over to Gateway unless I’m having a family dinner at Flavors of India. And Colonel Gateway has been more or less silent on Twitter over the last year, so if anything  new and exciting is going on, he’s been keeping it under his hat . The State of the County Address provides the County Executive a Very Public opportunity to focus on his or her (it could happen again someday, folks) personal brand of leadership. But I wonder how often we go back and compare what is said to what actually transpires following the speech. Of course, new initiatives take time to get up and run...

In our school system, if a parent doesn’t want their child to receive information about human sexuality, they can exercise the parental right to shield their child from learning. I’m not a fan of this, because I think we’d all be better off if we had a comprehensive sex education curriculum that was for all children, k-12. But the fact remains that we allow parents to have a say about this because it is deemed to be a sensitive issue. Right now we have people (none of them teachers, I might add) suggesting that the way to make schools safer is to arm teachers with guns. Okay, now I want to exercise my parental rights to protect my child from being in a school where teachers have guns. Surely guns in schools are a sensitive topic. Surely I will get to have my say, right? My child is guaranteed public education. And I expect that to be in a school without guns. Where do I need to sign up to make sure her right to a gun-free education is protected? Under no circumstances do I want...

I stopped by the Downtown Branch of the Library yesterday afternoon to replenish my stack of read aloud books for my littles at school. The weather was gorgeous. I decided to pop over to the Chrysalis. I was surprised to see a patch of snow untouched by the high temperatures. It was probably in the 70’s and yet here was a reminder of our one-day snow event on Saturday. Crazy Maryland weather. I backed up to give you a better view, one of my favorites. I don’t want to rush the seasons but I am look forward to another year of community events at the Chrysalis. Over at Merriweather, there’re busy raising the roof and they could use your help. The Downtown Arts and Culture Commission has launched a fundraiser to support “arts, culture, and community programming”.  Any amount helps. Donations over $30.00 will get you a t-shirt. Considering that you’ve probably been there and done that, don’t you want the t-shirt , too?  Councilman Calvin Ball has officially ...

At around six thirty this morning I posted the following piece. Approximately thirty second later a friend reach out to me with this message: Gubernatorial candidates Rushern Baker and Ben Jealous are black men. I knew that. Of course I knew that, but why— I have to take the blog post down immediately! Friends, I can’t explain why I made this error. Was it a result of seeing and hearing more coverage of the white candidates? Was it due to my current state of exasperation with white male privilege? Was it because somehow, in my own little white woman mindset, I had tuned out the two candidates of color? I don’t know. But I am owning my error, and apologizing. Here is what I posted. This time, with corrections. - - jam ***** Most Unpopular Benign Opinion All the candidates for governor are white guys, save one, who may not actually be eligible to run. Can we not do any better than this, Maryland? Actually, yes, we can. Candidates Rushern Baker and Ben Jealous a...

Tomorrow, a proposed update to Grace’s Law will be read in Annapolis. Learn more here  . Please take a moment to write in support of these improvements which are designed to make the bill more effective in protecting minors from online bullying. Please send your comments to SDavid@senate.state.md.us by early Tuesday, February 20th. The contest is still running for who will receive the rights to the first amateur production of the musical “Newsies”. Reservoir High School is now closing in on the lead. Keep voting every day in February! It’s getting to be high school musical season here in HoCo. Check the hcpss website for a list of this year’s offerings. Then, buy your tickets before they sell out! Most schools have online ticket ordering now, which will make that easy for you. It’s local and affordable and you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how good the productions are. Off the top of my head, I’d recommend Tarzan (Oakland Mills) and Pippin (River Hill) but look at the entir...

Let’s get it over with, shall we? Be it known that, on this eighteenth day of February in the year 2018 I, Julia Jackson McCready of Village Green/Town² am running my annual “Why You Should Care About CA Elections” Post. I do it every year . And most of you don’t care . You have your reasons. You don’t have time, it seems irrelevant, you’ve been rebuffed by members of your local village board or your CA Rep. You’ve been turned off by long, crushingly boring meetings. You don’t care. Let me introduce you to Pierre, whose tale is told by Maurice Sendak. There’s a read-aloud with illustrations, or, if you prefer, a musical setting. Pierre doesn’t care. He doesn’t care, and he doesn’t care, and he doesn’t care until life pretty much passes him by and he is left to contend with a hungry lion. Having practiced nothing in his short life but not caring, Pierre has no useful skills with which to navigate this situation. Friends, don’t be Pierre. If you live in Columbia and ...

Recently there were some energetic conversations online in response to this new s : Delegate Hill is set to propose a bill banning tackle football for children under the age of 14 I’m in full support of this measure. Study after study is showing us the debilitating long-term effects of even mild concussions on growing athletes. This bill doesn’t solve everything that needs to be addressed, but it is a start. Turning the tide against traumatic brain injury has to start somewhere.  Many of the responses were negative. Amongst the objections to this bill was a particular argument that I’d like to address today. In essence, the objection looks like this: The state has no right to interfere with my role as a parent to decide whether or not to let my child play football. My response is that the state has the right to create protections for citizens when there is a preponderance of evidence that there is a public health risk.( Try Googling “sports concussions public health...

Yesterday was an unusually warm day for February. At my school we decided to have extra recess for our youngest students. The sky was clear and the sun was warming the day. When it passed 65 degrees we let children take their coats off.  They ran, climbed, jumped, played in the sand, swung high on the swings and created their own pretend games of all sorts. Play is the true work of childhood. They were doing their jobs. Yesterday I saw many anguished parents asking our school system, “What are you doing to protect our children?” They wanted specifics. They wanted to hear that the layers of protection are impenetrable. Perhaps they are influenced by remarks like these: @JudgeJeanine: "We need to protect kids, & that means we've got to have metal detectors, we've got to have experienced cops..., & we've got to be able to have perimeter controls. We've got to have teachers who can carry a weapon & react to this kind of nonsense."  I saw the ab...

In an episode from the original Star Trek, “A Taste Of Armageddon”,    the crew of the USS  Enterprise  visits a planet whose people fight a computer-simulated war against a neighboring planet. Although the war is fought via computer simulation, the citizens of each planet have to submit to real executions inside "disintegration booths" to meet the casualty counts of the simulated attacks. Every time another mass shooting occurs the story of this particular episode rises in my mind. Over and over I have heard people saying that these deaths are the price we must pay to maintain the freedom to bear arms. We mustn’t give that up, they warn. All of other other freedoms hang in the balance.  Step into the “disintegration booths”, my friends. Or better yet, send your children. This is the price we must pay. It’s too bad, It’s so sad. We send our thoughts and prayers. It’s too soon to talk about change. Don’t politicize this tragedy by challenging the establish...

Today I’m celebrating the best Valentine Columbia ever received. Five years ago I was eating delicious Mexican food outdoors on the San Antonio Riverwalk, drinking frozen Midori margaritas, listening to strolling mariachi musicians and following every tweet from the CA Board meeting. 2/14/13 is the night that the CA board voted to give us a park worth coming to again and again. To the eight board members who were brave enough to cast those votes: thank you. Here’s the drink I was drinking while hanging on every update from Columbia. Hmm...     Something about that vibrant green, eh? Plans for this season’s children’s programming at the Chrysalis are firming up. I’m pleased to announce that’s I’ll be back doing music and movement dance parties for young children again this year. We had so much fun last summer. If you have young children or grandchildren, I hope you’ll come by to join in the fun.

Musical theater students at Reservoir High School need your help. They are trying to win the rights to be the first amateur production of “Newsies” by participating in a contest run by Playbill. It’s one of those vote early, vote often community click contests. Surely Howard County can rally around these kids and their dedicated teachers. Right now they’re in second place behind a performing arts school in Elkhart, Indiana. Here is the link: Seize the Day Challenge  You can learn more about the contest and what Reservoir would be winning. Also, each school made a video. Reservoir’s entry is at the bottom.  If you have a musical theater kid you have probably heard of “Newsies”. The original Disney movie took my house by storm when my older daughter was a teen. Now her younger sister is an equally big fan of the theatrical version. Trust me, you want to see a local production of this. It’s a fun show with some valuable themes about standing up for what’s right...

Good morning, Monday. You come too soon. My bed was warm and sleep was deep and I’m just not ready for you yet. Last night we lost power briefly at my house. It was out less than a minute. Of course the first thing I wanted to know once it was restored was whether anyone else had the same experience. Facebook was full of, “Did you lose power just now?”We pondered what might have made that happen. Columbia does have those famous underground power lines, you know. It seemed to me that so much of life is wanting to know if others share our experience. We want to know that are not alone. Yes, we want to know why, but it almost feels more important to establish kinship first. Last night a bunch of Columbia folks shared something all together at the same moment. It was not a crisis. More like a minor inconvenience. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, in moments like that, we could stop and think how important our kinship as members of one community truly is? What have you done for Columbia ...

Yesterday I put out a call for information about the Elkridge branch of the Howard County Library. I didn’t have to wait long for an answer. From Sarah Russo, former teen instructor and research specialist at the Elkridge Branch: Elkridge is a fantastic branch. Slightly biased, because I worked there before I became a librarian for HCPSS. The new branch will have a DIY center, which sounds amazing - but honestly the librarians there are why I visit. Phil Lord, the branch manager, announces HoHS football games and is just awesome! Veronica ‘Ronnie’ Baker (legendary children’s librarian) and Phil Lord are original to the branch, which they opened in 1993. Ronnie also worked at the Elkridge ‘store front’ branch in the 1980’s. I am so excited about their new branch ! There’s history there at Elkridge as well... In the early 1990’s, it was announced Columbia was going to be getting a second new library (what would become East Columbia), and Elkridge had barely any service (just a s...

I’m a huge fan of the Howard County Library System. They offer so much to our community in so many different ways. I’m always seeing fabulous workshops for youth and teens at the Glenwood Branch. The Miller Branch in Ellicott City is always packed when I go there, and they also house the Howard County Historical Society archives. The Savage Branch has a Music Tech Lab. The Downtown Branch seems to be *the* place for teens who want to book a space to work on a project. I’ve been to each branch except for the Elkridge one, so I hope the Elkridge folks will clue me in on why I need to visit. But the very best branch is, of course, my branch.  Big surprise, right? The East Columbia branch wins as the sentimental favorite at my house. It’s the place where we took my daughter from the time she could look at a picture book. Once she could walk through the hallway to the children’s room she’d pat each tree as she passed. “Hi, tree!” Each one got an individual greeting. I must admit...

I waded in, uninvited, to an online discussion of Comptroller Peter Franchot’s Reform on Tap Task Force last night. I confess, I stuck my oar in because I was disgruntled about the recent announcement that inclement weather days have necessitated doing away with Spring Break this year. If this leaves you wondering what on earth I was thinking, here’s a reminder. Mr. Franchot has made his name and Office synonymous with the following: Reform on Tap Task Force Let Summer Be Summer William Donald Shaefer Helping People Award ( let’s not forget the BPW “Beg-a-thon”) He (and his trusty team) have worked hard to put his name and these topics in front of the people of Maryland, over and over again. It’s good to have causes. It’s good to believe in things. It looks like Comptroller Franchot is a man of energy and ideas. But my problem here is that I never liked the “Let Summer Be Summer” campaign. I felt like the needs of Ocean City tourism ran right over the notion of local school ...

And now, back to where we left off. The story of Wendell Hanes: musician, composer, founder/owner of  Volition Sound Branding , published  author , and entrepreneur. Oh, and a graduate of Howard County Schools. Oakland Mills High School, to be precise. Did you read the article? Go  ahead . Watch the multimedia bit as well. This article piqued my curiosity. Of course, the first thing I wanted to know: did Mr. Hanes participate in music programs while a student in the Howard County Schools? He did. And then he didn’t. Mr. Hanes told me he played in the concert band and jazz band in elementary and middle school and then he played on his own in high school. Why did things change in high school? Why didn't this budding musician continue on in the OMHS band? He played sports: soccer and basketball. You couldn’t do that and play in the band. So that was the end of his musical career—in high school, that is. But while a student at Brown University, H...

The best read of the week, in my opinion, is this: The Glenelg composer whose work is heard around the world Take a look at this piece in the Howard County Times by John-John Williams IV and we’ll talk more about it tomorrow.

What a crazy day yesterday. I found myself out in the pouring rain running errands in the middle of the afternoon. My attempt to get my hair cut at Floyd’s in Ellicott City was thwarted by the fact that they were packed with people trying to make it in under the early closing deadline of five o’clock. Yep, closing early for the Super Bowl. Who knew? If I thought that Floyd’s was popular, nothing could have prepared me for my next stop. Every single parking place was filled. Cars were circling slowly for a space. I drove around. And around. On the fourth circuit I finally nabbed one. It was a bit far from the entrance but I claimed victory anyway. It was clear that the most important place to be yesterday was this place . Yes, the library. The Miller Branch in Ellicott City, to be precise. My home branch in East Columbia has been closed for renovations (reopening this Saturday!) so I’ve been making the trek over here for my preschool read-aloud needs. If you have any doubts whatsoev...

Yesterday, disappointment. Today, discomfort. Something odd happened to me yesterday as I wrote these words: Yesterday someone launched a concerted attack against someone I admire and respect and, let me tell you, that’s a whole different story. When I see someone I care about being hurt, the desire to support and defend is fierce. I don’t feel one bit like walking away. I don’t philosophize that maybe I’ll learn something. Using the internet to publicly shame someone when one might have picked up the phone or dropped them a note is dangerously close to online bullying, in my opinion. We’re supposed to stand up to bullies. Aren’t we? I remembered. I remembered a post that I wrote several years ago, in the run up to the BOE election. It was a piece full of righteous indignation, a no-holds barred narrative of the actions of one person. I’m not going to go into the particulars. What matters to me at this moment is that I remember getting a lot of push-back from readers which said...

Yesterday someone hurt my feelings on the Internet. These things happen. I tried to resolve it but couldn’t. So I just need to walk away, sit with those feelings for a while, and move on. Maybe I’ll learn something from the experience. Maybe not. Yesterday someone launched a concerted attack against someone I admire and respect and, let me tell you, that’s a whole different story. When I see someone I care about being hurt, the desire to support and defend is fierce. I don’t feel one bit like walking away. I don’t philosophize that maybe I’ll learn something. Using the internet to publicly shame someone when one might have picked up the phone or dropped them a note is dangerously close to online bullying, in my opinion. We’re supposed to stand up to bullies. Aren’t we? Lest you think I’m nothing but a bundle of disappointment, I should let you know that I had a wonderful day at work yesterday. My students are the greatest, I adore my school. I capped off the day with a fun family d...

Let’s close the work week on a lighter note. It’s a running joke in my family that we’re always too full to order dessert in restaurants. “One of these days,” we say, “we’ll come back and just order dessert.” But we never do. And, calorie-wise, that’s probably okay. And yet. Will we ever taste the impressive-looking creations at the Double-T Diner? Sink a fork into the down-home options at Bob Evans? Howard County is probably teeming with delicious desserts and we’re missing out. Where’s the best dessert in Columbia/Howard County? Give me specifics. If I’m going to invest the calories, I want the cream of the crop. If I get enough responses I’ll write a follow up post with your recommendations. Today is Friday, and looking forward to the weekend is sweetness unto itself. But some well-chosen dessert would be the perfect “cherry on top”.

If you were listening very carefully to the recent testimony of Colleen Morris, HCEA President, you just might have caught the answer to today’s 64 dollar question. The question ? The answer:  https://youtu.be/E5ygmTTLQAA That perennially “leaky” Health and Dental Fund? It didn’t just spring a leak all by itself. It was raided to fund other, completely unrelated projects. Is that even legal? That money is specifically dedicated to Howard County teachers. Please tell me that our school system doesn’t decide to bankroll unfunded pet projects by sticking their hand in someone else’s cookie jar. Any of us who handle our own personal/family budgets know that robbing Peter to pay Paul will eventually have dire consequences. But this, my friends, is far bigger than Sister dipping into the egg money to buy new nylon stockings. The Superintendent serves at the pleasure of the Board of Education. The Board of Education is elected by the community to serve the people of Howard...