Skip to main content

Best Of


 

I’m awake but all I want to do is sleep. No idea why. The alarm went off at the regular time and I didn’t stay up late last night. I’ve opened the curtains to let in more light but so far it hasn’t penetrated my brain.

You may have noticed that voting for the Best of Howard is up and going on. I was happy to see a generous number of blogs nominated this year.



Two nominations are for blogs I have never even heard of, so I need to get to work on bring myself up to speed on that.

It’s fun to win. I won’t deny that. And there was a time when I believed that winning was a huge validation. But in the end you have to remember that it’s a click fest. The winner will be someone who motivates people to show up and click every day for two weeks. I’m not sure that that’s the same as being the best writer or the most influential in terms of public opinion. It might be.

In some of the categories winning is a huge deal, most especially for businesses. So, if you have favorites you feel strongly loyal towards, you should definitely show them some click love. And, while I’d never tell you who to vote for in the best blog category, I have no qualms about recommending Bet Yeladim Preschool in the childcare category - - just in case you’re willing to make an extra click or two.

Best volunteer organization? Columbia Community Care. But you knew that.

I think the pandemic may have had some impact on the nomination process. Some local favorites are missing from some categories and I think that’s because people have had other things on their mindsjust plain forgot to nominate them. Ah, well. It’s not life or death.

It’s something fun we do in the summer and it helps boost ad revenue for the Howard County Times.

By the way, I see that the Best Restaurants issue has come out. What did you think of the results?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
1 comment
Read more

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...
2 comments
Read more

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 ...
1 comment
Read more