Elevators’ New Spot

The closure of Lupa at the Lakefront meant that the Elevate Maryland podcast, hosted by Tom Coale and Candace Dodson Reed, was looking for a new home. They’ve been hosting live podcasting events since last Fall.

It didn’t take long before various local dining establishments were putting out feelers to offer a new home to the podcast and its fans, known as “Elevators”. In fact, they must have had multiple offers.

@PodcastElevate : Thank you to all the restaurant owners (and friends of restaurant owners) who have reached out. We may turn this into the Elevate Maryland Road Show!

Well it looks like the suspense is over and Elevate Maryland will be hosting its next show from new digs at Clarksville Commons. You can come out this Friday evening at six pm as they interview Mavis Ellis and Sabina Taj of the Howard County Board of Education. It sounds like it will be a fascinating show. I hope they’ll be bringing on other BOE members in the near future.

This photo shamelessly stolen from the Elevate Maryland Facebook page.

Let them know if you plan to come at the event page here. I don’t think they have announced exactly which space is being used for the podcast, so keep an eye out for further instructions. Update: it will be in the Common Kitchen.

I recently wrote about the flags at the entrance to the Lark Brown Restaurant Park. It looks as though the silo at Clarksville Commons is shaping up to be a local icon.

Comments

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents. When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

F ³: We Are Not Entitled

A college student went missing. His family and friends were distraught. The community was encouraged to be on the lookout and spread the word. Days passed. They must have been agonizing days for those who cared about the missing student. Thoughts that foul play had been involved cannot have been far from their thoughts. Then, at last, the student was found. Alive. The news was shared with the public. So. Much. Relief. A family had been reunited with their child. Even though we know that life is complicated, I think it is okay to accept this as a happy ending and leave it at that. But the world of social media says no. For every expression of joy at the news came questions and even judgement. It became clear to me that some folks felt entitled to an explanation. They wanted the backstory. It’s as though they felt that, by enlisting the help of the public on social media, the authorities now owed them all the details. Television dramas often weave curr...

Separate and Unequal

Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not. It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...

Village Green/Town²

Search This Blog