Village Green/Town²

Well, I have learned my lesson. Doing a Saturday activity calendar is time consuming, labor intensive, and just the kind of fiddly organizational work that drives me batty. I have made it until Labor Day but I am officially setting myself free after today. I commend other local outlets who are doing these kinds of weekly listings. Keep these links handy: Events  on Facebook (Choose Local and This Week), the activity calendar at  Visit Howard County , and  HoCo Calendar  from Guilford Gazette, plus the weekly  roundup  from the Baltimore Banner.  A few suggestions: Todays the last day to see “When Sustainability Meets Creativity” at the Miller Branch Library in Ellicott City. The upcycling artwork showcase is hosted by Clarksville Youth Care Group. More than 60 pieces of artwork are featured, all made by Howard County students from household items like magazines, shopping bags, toilet paper rolls, eggshells, glass, and more. Sobar Maryland will be gathe...

  In a week where Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has been essentially accused of consorting with dogs other than his own at the dog park, I shouldn’t be surprised that someone tried to pass off the following as actual news: NEW: Kamala Harris’s missing “summer job” at McDonald’s job. Her resume and job application a year after graduating college — @FreeBeacon obtained through FOIA — don’t mention it. Neither do either of her books, or either of the biographies on her. - - Joseph Simonson, Chuck Ross and Andrew Kerr, Washington Free Beacon Oh. Good. Grief. Yes, there  are  people whose jobs include digging up the past but how desperate do you have to be to think that not including a McDonald’s job on one’s résumé is NEWS? One of my favorite Twitter responses to this comes from Keith Olbermann: Note: you may have made yourself look like an idiot and your website look like Play-Skool My-First-Computer. At 16 I had a job that involved cleaning out a giant dumpster full of H...

I do not know how anything in government is ever accomplished. Ever. Imagine that you are in a college lecture hall and the professor has begun their presentation right on time when, at about ten after the hour, another student comes in.  “What did I miss?”  Imagine that in this world the professor must go back to the beginning of the lecture and start again, every time another student enters the room, because they feel entitled to receive the information that everyone else has received in that very moment and in the same format. No matter whether they had a perfectly good reason to have been delayed or they simply overslept: this is no way to teach a lesson.  This is one of the aspects of the discussion around the the Downtown Library that drives me to distraction. Whether you are inspired by the concept or not, whether you think libraries are valuable investments in communities or not, the process to get to this point has been going on for years and is well documented....

  In May the local Facebook “foodie” group was abuzz with the news that Red Lobster was closing restaurants in Maryland. The Columbia location was one of them. Financial woes forced the seafood chain to pare down as it went into bankruptcy and looked for a new owner. I haven’t thought much about it since then. Red Lobster wasn’t in our regular rotation, as they say.  This morning I saw a piece of news that brought it back into my thoughts. This is Damola Adamolekun. He is the new CEo of Red Lobster. He is 35 years old. That in itself is pretty astounding. But wait, there’s more. Mr. Adamolekun is from Columbia. Yes, this Columbia. He ran track at Wilde Lake High School. According to a bio published when he was the CEO of P.F. Chang’s, Adamolekun is the son of a neurologist and pharmacist who was born in Nigeria, and raised in Zimbabwe, Amsterdam, Springfield, Ill., and Columbia, Md. He now lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. Red Lobster's New Leader is a Millennial Wall Street Fav...

  Some folks just love to tattle. They may have a good reason, they may not. But they are just downright driven to tell on people who are transgressing the rules that they feel must be followed.  Think of our anonymous tattler providing HCPSS forms to Libs of TikTok, for instance. Or the folks who tagged the former Governor on Twitter when County Executive Calvin Ball did things they didn’t like during the height of the pandemic. I sometimes wonder if some people operate under the mindset that “It is not enough for me to be good. Others must be punished.” In Columbia each Village has very specific guidelines for the exterior appearance of their residences. (If you know, you know.) Normally one comes up against this only when wanting to make changes or requesting a letter of compliance before selling. However… This system is what is euphemistically called a  “complaint-driven system.” In other words, if someone objects to your house they can report you to the Village Assoc...

In honor of the first day of school, here is the story of Miss B. I saw this unfolding on Twitter about a year ago and I’ve been saving it for just the right occasion. Miss B posted the following statement and it captured the imagination of fellow teachers and many, many others. I’m sharing the thread in its entirety today in honor of teachers everywhere who find ways to solve problems and cope with the realities of day-to-day classroom life with creativity and a special kind of brilliance.    Miss B @MissBThe3rd:   Giving my classroom gluesticks human names has been revolutionary. Does a student care if a glue stick goes missing? No! Do they care if DEREK the glue stick has not been returned? ABSOLUTELY. It's like a manhunt until Derek has been returned to his rightful spot. Haven't lost a glue stick since I labelled them all with names. Year 11 thought it was weird at first but now are totally invested in them. Year 7 think it's hilarious. It is win win. What do you do ...

  It’s been awhile since I’ve written about the Chrysalis. That may be because the Park has been a little quieter than usual this summer. Fear not: they’re gearing up for the big finish to the 2024 season. Today, from 5:00 PM  7:00 PM, the Accord Symphony Orchestra. Accord Symphony Orchestra returns to the Chrysalis stage to wrap up the summer with a bright medley of pops, opera, and classical songs sure to have the whole family singing along while enjoying the evening outdoors in beautiful Merriweather Woods at Symphony Park! Register for your free tickets here so they’ll know how many people to expect and are able assign parking accurately for the event. Accord Symphony Orchestra Summer Concert  , info and registration  Yoga in the Park is ongoing: Monday nights from 6:00 to 7:00 PM on the Chrysalis stage. It will run until October 28th, weather permitting. Start your week off right with an outdoor yoga class at the Chrysalis! Put on in partnership with the Columbi...

  Good morning, HoCo campers! Ahem. Maybe that’s a bit too enthusiastic. The weather predictions call for sun or partial sun with no rain and a high of 83 and I’m a bit delirious.  Today’s activities include the expected markets in Clarksville and Maple Lawn . (Freetown Farm is taking the Saturday off.) Maple Lawn Market is introducing a Children’s Activity Tent where you can pay for childcare while you shop. You can learn more here . The movie at the Wine Bin is The Princess Bride, 8:30 PM. A few highlights for your consideration: It’s Super Saturday at Howard Community College, featuring Dragon Days and New Student Orientation. Learn what’s happening at their website . 9 am - 2 pm Brewing Good Coffee Company at Savage Mill is hosting a Queer Art Hangout : make crafts and build community, 3-6 PM. At Turf Valley Resort: Rally for the Wreaths car show and summer concert to support Maryland Veterans’ Cemeteries, 12-4 PM. There’s a sunflower festival at the Clarkville Sunflo...

   We have seen this before, and not that long ago. The brutal violence of police towards Black Americans followed by the swift demonization of their victims. It starts with photos released to the public. They’re never graduation or prom photos or family scenes. The faces that look at us from news stories have been carefully selected: expressions and clothing suggesting to us that this was a dangerous person, or, at the very least, questionable.  And by now we know what’s coming next. No matter how unspeakable the treatment at the hands of police, we are told to look away and to justify it: he was no angel. We know what that means: blame the victims. They deserved it. I have come very late in life to understanding how these things work and I have become convinced that if we say we have standards (as to how police treat people they believe to be suspects) then they must apply to everyone. Honestly until about ten years or so ago I thought they did apply to everyone. I was...

  Well, here’s some disturbing news. Someone, very possibly an employee, thought they ought to “tell on” the Howard County Schools. Why? What terrible thing has happened that warrants this kind of intervention? Well, it seems that HCPSS encourages teachers to assess their classroom reading collections with an eye to how inclusive they are. Complete the guide below to assess your instructional space and resources. This tool is not an exhaustive list, nor is it a mandatory list. Use a lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion as you take stock of the learning environment that you have created for your students, and consider ways to supplement so that all students can see themselves within the walls of your classroom. To which authority did this self-appointed “whistleblower” report this information? The Maryland State Department of Education? The U.S. Department of Education? No. They ratted out the Howard County Schools to a social media account called “Libs of TikTok.” SCOOP: @HCPSS...

It does not matter if your sports team has a winning season. It does not matter if your marching band aces the competitions. You may think it does but you are wrong.  What matters is that you take care of the kids in your care and send them home each day: alive. Franklin High School student dies after experiencing medical emergency, school says , Lilly Price, Glenn Graham, Madisson Weyrich,  Baltimore Sun The Baltimore Sun is careful to describe the student’s death as the result of a “medical emergency.” Autopsy results are pending.  But in a related article in the Capital Gazette  by Lilly Price: First responders with the Baltimore County Fire Department  arrived at the football field Wednesday morning, responding to a call for an “unconscious subject” who “had a heatstroke.” There, Leslie Noble, a junior guard on the Reisterstown school’s varsity football team, was undergoing resuscitation efforts. He was transported in critical condition to a hospital, w...

  The Columbia, MD subreddit continues to be a refreshingly drama free source of local information and lore. Consider the following: What’s something about old school Columbia that newer residents never experience? There used to be a peacock farm visible from 175.      Where was it? The farm house was about where the hotel (was a Hilton, now Double Tree?) and the barn was about where the funeral home was. Back along Twin Knolls. The hill was great for sledding before it became a bunch of businesses and peacocks wandered a bit. - - Where the Walgreens is. A peacock farm? I live right down the street from the site of a former peacock farm and no one ever told me? A quick Google search didn’t turn up any record of this place, but, I’m not done looking yet. In the meantime, I did discover two HoCoLocal places that raise peacocks. Breezy Hill Alpaca Farm , Woodbine  Clark’s Elioak Farm , Ellicott City Neither of these businesses has photos of peacocks on their websit...

  One year ago I was writing a Saturday sampler of local events. Five years ago I used a popular meme to discuss school redistricting. Ten years ago I attended a  soft-open event for the Columbia Lakefront Whole Foods. It’s kind of amazing that I have an organized way to look back on what I was thinking about over the last…thirteen-ish years or so. Some issues that I cared passionately about back then have moved more into the background for me. Some problems still have not been solved. Some beautiful things have come to fruition. On my mind today :  This thank-you video from HCC President Daria Willis recounting her many reasons to be grateful to her staff and members of the HCC Foundation.  A Facebook post from a local law firm that asks “Can women have it all?” while revealing a roomful of white people and, from what I can see, one Black woman.  I’ve noticed that (at least ) two HCPSS schools (Homewood and Stevens Forest) are designated as Community Schools...

  Here we are again, Saturday. There’s a chance of rain but no storm warnings. Do you have any immediate plans? You already know about the markets. Community Ecology Institute at Freetown Farm, 9 am - 1 pm Maple Lawn, 9 am - 1 pm Clarksville Commons, 10 am - 2 pm Abiding Savior Lutheran Church Youth Group is hosting a car wash and food truck fundraiser beginning at ten am. Queen Takes Book is celebrating Bookstore Romance Day from 10 - 6. Patuxent Jazz Band and Gotta Swing free concert and community dance event at Carroll Baldwin Hall tonight at 6:00 PM. Dancing lesson starts at 5:30. Tonight’s movie at The Wine Bin in Old Ellicott City is “To Catch a Thief”, beginning at 8:30 PM. The Major League Quadball Championship is again in Howard County this weekend at Troy Park. This is a ticketed event. You must purchase tickets to attend. If you are wondering why it’s not called Quidditch anymore, this piece from NPR will bring you up to date.  Check out these other resources ...

  In the relentless march of patriarchy, one thing is certain. Just because they have not come for you today does not mean that they are not coming for you.  As offensive as recent verbal attacks on women have been and, in spite of how emphatically I reject them, they haven’t been personal.  I am not childless I do not own cats (allergic) I am not currently in need of birth control or abortion access And then yesterday an old interview with now-VP hopeful J.D. Vance surfaced. While on a podcast with host Eric Weinstein, Vance agreed with his statement that “the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female is to raise children.“ I should have known they’d eventually come for me: a post-menopausal woman. The whole point of the patriarchy is to maintain power by seizing that of others. For men to be the default leaders, women must be required to be the followers. The structures of society and the stories we are told from birth must reinforce those notions in order to perpetu...