Election Day Musings

If you haven’t voted yet, today is the day. Make it the most important thing on your schedule, because: it is.

A few thoughts: the states where reproductive rights are safest in the nation are the states where Democrats hold the majority in the state legislature. Maryland is one of them, and yet, because of the actions of a Republican Governor, necessary funds for training providers haven’t been released.

I’m not seeing any Republican candidates campaigning on reproductive rights. In this case, the concept of people suffering and dying due to a lack of appropriate health care is not a top issue for them.

It is for me.

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I continue to be more excited by the candidacy of Brooke Lierman for Maryland State Comptroller than any other race in the state. (My apologies to all the other candidates.) If you want to know why, here’s my piece from earlier this year.

“Still Excited”

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Pet peeves: misplaced political signs and sign theft. For Heaven’s sake, people. Can’t we get a handle on this? Are candidates not able to communicate adequately to staff and volunteers where signs are allowed to go and that you never steal another candidate’s signs? Are human beings completely unable to follow the most basic rules imaginable?

I don’t have an answer for that.

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A huge thanks to all the people who will be working today to keep each poll location running smoothly. One of the things I miss about voting on Election Day is thanking them in person. Yes, I’m that person who actually says “Thank you all for being here today so that I could vote.”

You should try it.

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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...

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday. Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018. 2018 . But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest. In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...

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 ...

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