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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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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