My Bag of Tricks, or: Assorted Newsbites

Let me reach into my bag of tricks here…

First off, I’m in negotiations with Najee Bailey of the Howard County Association of Realtors about setting up an interview with Cool Duck. As they say in the business: my people will talk to Mr. Duck’s people and we’ll see if we can make that happen.

In regards to the Martirano Super Socks initiative, I’m going to reach out to the Bright Minds folks and find out how you can donate actual socks. I’m sure they are setting up away to receive them - - possibly even in each school building - - but I don’t know the exact timeline. I’ll keep you posted.

I mentioned (on Sunday) about seeing what looked like an arrest in progress with four police cars to what looked like one suspect. I was hoping to get some feedback on that. Is that a typical Columbia/HoCo police response? I looked in the police reports that HCPD shares on social media but I’m not seeing anything helpful.

Now, here’s the thing. After I posted this particular piece I wondered if I might have gotten more response if I had titled it with something more (sorry) arresting. Something like “Who Called the Police?” or, “It Went Down in Town Center.” I often wonder how much titles affect whether people are moved to click and read.

Honestly, I try to avoid things that look like click bait but occasionally I succumb because the temptation is just too great. A recent example would be “Gangs in Columbia” as the title for a piece about gang mailboxes. And it did garner a healthy amount of clicks! Still, I continue to ponder how much titles matter in the grand scheme of things.

The Board of Education elected new officers yesterday. To newly elected Board president Jen Mallo I offer my congratulations and also my condolences. There were some hot words last night amongst board members in the course of voting on policy issues and I suspect that being in charge of this particular board will be a challenge. Considering the recent changes out on Route 108 perhaps it’s time to start watching Board meetings again more faithfully.

To those of you who have never stopped watching them, I salute you.

Finally, I was really jazzed to see the announcement over at The Merriweather Post that Columbia will soon have its own independent bookstore! It’s called Queen Takes Book, and is set to open early in 2024. They will be located on Oakland Mills Road next to Mother Nature’s, and across from Bon Fresco. I’ll be writing about them in more depth in the near future.

What do you have in your bag of tricks?

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