F ³: the Ballad of Wicomico County?

Today’s blog is brought to you by an old, old joke. Here’s one version:

Cop:

Do you know you were doing fifty in a twenty five miles per hour zone?

Elvira:

No, but if you hum a few bars, I'll fake it.

And that’s exactly where my mind went when I saw the title of a piece in the Baltimore Banner yesterday.

There’s an emu on the loose on the Eastern Shore, Julie Scharper, Baltimore Banner 

Reporter: 

Do you know there’s an emu on the loose on the Eastern Shore?

Me:

No, but if you hum a few bars, I’ll fake it.

(Insert rim shot here.)

This got me wondering about other songs which begin “There’s a…” but the only one that came to mind immediately was “There’s a green hill far away.” An impulsive Google search yielded questionable results.

After refining my search I did turn up the following on Quora:

No song about our missing emu - - yet. I somehow feel this could be a country-western themed lament. Right after your woman leaves you and you wreck your truck, your emu gets away. That kind of song.

Newspaper stories about animals on the loose are a part of any local journalist’s beat. I often wonder if they provide a kind of novelty or relief from the same old, same old. Baltmore had a bull on the loose, rogue turkeys roamed Towson, and who could forget the elusive Maryland zebras? And then there are reported but unsubstantiated sightings: recent examples include a lion and a red panda. (They weren’t.)

Reporter Julia Scharper does a fine job with this piece, although I would have appreciated a brief explanation of why on earth people on the Eastern Shore own emus at all. They’re not native to the U.S. and there’s not an enormous market for emu meat that I know of. That’s as big a mystery to me as how this particular bird made a break for it.

In the meantime, if you want a song you’ll need to write it yourself. Or there’s always that old standby from The Wiggles. It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it. 

Have a great Friday!

Village Green/Town² Comments 

Warning

It’s intellectually lazy. It’s mean-spirited and generally unhelpful. And, for about two seconds yesterday, I wanted to do it. I took one look at this photo and thought, 

“This man looks as though he was born without one shred of the compassion and human kindness necessary for leadership or, barring that, has had them surgically removed.”

Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

The photo appears in the Baltimore Banner article, Trump adviser warns Baltimore, Howard County leaders of alleged immigration law violations, by Emily Opilo.The caption reads:

Stephen Miller, center, heads America First Legal, which sent warning letters to nearly 249 officials in jurisdictions it accused of “concealing, harboring or shielding” immigrants. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

It is intellectually lazy, mean-spirited and generally unhelpful to use someone's physical appearance as a way of criticizing them or to equate their physical appearance with what you don’t like about them. It happens to women all the time and I hate it. When a woman in public life does or says something people don’t like they are quick to drag up her weight, her clothing choices, her make up or lack therof, her relative prettiness or assumptions of sexual morality.

And I am here before God and these witnesses admitting that when I looked at this photo of Stephen Miller and read the article that his physical appearance seemed to symbolize to me something deeply troubling about what I already know about the person within the outer shell. There, I admit it.

Let’s move on. Here are the facts.

America First Legal is a non-governmental organization with no legal standing. You could describe them as a pressure group. They have no authority. 

Howard County is a Sanctuary County because the voters here chose to be. This is not a policy foisted upon the community by one person (ie, County Executive Calvin Ball.) People cared about this issue and voted for it.

Question A: Local Referendum by Petition (CB63-2020)

County Resources – Federal Immigration

The law prohibits using County resources for the following actions unless federal or state law requires it: (1) enforcing federal immigration and nationality laws or assisting immigration enforcement; (2) helping enforcement by collecting or sharing a person’s information; (3) asking a person about their citizenship, nationality, or immigration status or the status of another person; and (4) sharing a person’s status with another person. The County also cannot discriminate against a person based on their citizenship, nationality, or immigration status. County police can enforce state and local criminal laws and assist federal law enforcement other than their immigration actions. The police can also work on criminal task forces, even if a task force includes immigration enforcement, if County resources are not used for such enforcement and the police follow the other requirements of the law. The County must take specific steps to put the law into practice, including developing policies related to it, disciplining County employees who violate the law, and reviewing complaints of violations.

Neither Stephen Miller nor America First Legal have the authority to overturn the will of the voters in Howard County Maryland. They are not authorized to interfere with with the legitimate workings of our democratically elected government. Period.

This has not stopped some gleeful gloating in some corners of the HoCoLocal internet, however. It pretty much comes down to this:

Some big famous guy is going after the guy we don’t like. Woo hoo. That’ll show him! 

If you want to see what a hotbed of local racism looks like (but, really, why would you?) there’s a certain Facebook page where you can see it all hanging out right now. The tenor of the current conversation reminds me a lot of when people were writing to Larry Hogan during the height of the pandemic to “tell on” County Executive Ball for his COVID public health decisions. 

Isn’t that at the root of all of this, really? Some people are looking for the Big Strong Man to impose their will on others. And that’s how they choose where they place their allegiance.

Now, that’s scary. It certainly is scarier than a photo of Stephen Miller, all gut reactions notwithstanding. And besides, what evokes that deeply troubling feeling has nothing to do with what he looks like on the outside, but who he is on the inside. 

Village Green/Town² Comments

The Big Boom

 

Did you hear it? Well, it depends on where you live. No, I don’t mean last night’s rain or any local fireworks. I mean this: 

Ellicott City Safe and Sound

Please be advised that blasting will occur between 9:00 and 11:00 AM on Tuesday, December 31st, at the North Tunnel construction site located in the 8800 block of Frederick Road. During this time period, there will be an approximately 10 minute stoppage of traffic.

The Howard County Police Department will be on site to assist in diverting traffic around the site during the brief closure. Once the blast is complete, the road will be reopened immediately thereafter.

I haven’t seen any comments on social media about yesterday’s blast but I can tell you that WBALTV News is on top of this story. Holy mackerel, are they ever.

Historic Ellicott City residents hear big 'booms' as part of flood mitigation plan, Kim Dacey, WBALTV News

ELLICOTT CITY, Md. —

Residents in and around historic Ellicott City may have heard a big "boom" Tuesday morning.

The blast was all part of the county's project to dig a tunnel under Main Street as part of the flood mitigation plan.

Do you want to know about yesterday’s blast? They’ve got that.

Do you want to know about the Safe and Sound Plan? They’ve got that.

Do you want to know the history of the Ellicott City floods? They’ve got that. 

I’m not kidding. All the information you could possibly want on this topic is laid out as a part of this article and includes all the necessary links. Did I check them all out? At five in the morning on New Year’s Day? No. But it does appear to be a very useful resource. 

So - - did you hear the Big Boom? If so, you may rightly claim that 2024 went out with a bang. For the rest of us it may have been more like a whimper, but, your mileage may vary, as the young folks say.

Happy New Year!