Village Green/Town²

Tomorrow evening, at seven pm, at the Owen Brown Interfaith Center: We are a group of Howard County residents who are interested in how the implementation of the HCPSS dress code policy in our schools impacts students – particularly girls – in their learning and development. On June 1st, we are hosting a community "conversation that matters" around these issues. The meeting will be held at the Owen Brown Interfaith Center in Sanctuary A. The first meeting will be open only to HCPSS students, parents, and allies to listen to personal stories related to the implementation of HCPSS dress code policy without debate of the issues or defense of the existing policy. Please let us know if you can make it! PS - There will be snacks :) This is not a protest or a rally. This is a conversation. Dress codes and how they are enforced affect both boys and girls. Let's take some time to examine how it's happening here in Howard County.                  

My sister Pam graduated from Cleveland Heights High School in 1968. Her graduating class had over a thousand people, I believe. The event was held downtown in the Cleveland Public Auditorium which is immense . My parents had seats closer to the graduates. My grandmother sat with my sister Barb and I, much higher up. She brought opera glasses so we could occasionally glimpse a view of what was going on. I was about nine years old and I couldn't understand what the big deal was. I had been to the Public Audtorium once as a very young child to see the circus. That was a whole lot more interesting. Now I had to get all dressed up, sit for hours far away from the action, and couldn't really see what was going on. When it was over I asked my mother, "Why did they make such a big deal of this? They're not done with school. They still have to go to college." And then I learned the shocking truth. Some people didn't go to college. For some people, this was truly ...

I'm sharing this statement from BoE member Bess Altwerger this morning. As an elected member of the HC Board of Education, Ms. Altwerger voted NOT to approve the HCPSS Operating Budget. Here's the statement she read at the meeting: Before I vote on this budget, I want to express my appreciation to the Superintendent, my fellow board members, and especially the staff who put countless hours into preparing and revising this budget. My votes on the budget areas in no way reflect my lack of appreciation for all the many considerations and constraints that shaped the process of developing this budget. Beverly Davis went to extraordinary lengths in her effort to produce a budget that reflected the directions she was given. Thank you Bev and to the rest of the staff. I also want to thank the members of the Citizen’s OBRC who worked on their own to provide the Board very careful analyses of every area of the budget with recommendations for reallocation and revisions of the budget so...

I received a Tweet from a new local blogger last week. @hocorudkus: I’m just a blog. Yes, I’m only a blog. New political blog for HoCo. If you want to check it out, the most recent post is here . I welcome new blogs in Howard County but I have serious misgivings about writing anonymously. I have long wished that I could have the ability to include only the reader comments which were submitted under the writers' actual names. My personal experiences lead me to believe that we have a good deal more to learn from people who are willing to stand by their words with their genuine identities. Last week's unpleasantness at the hands of an anonymous letter- writer served only to reinforce that. Some well-known local bloggers passed through a phase of writing anonymously but eventually thought better of it, or through word of mouth their identities gradually became more of an open secret. There are reasons for wanting to write anonymously but the drawbacks far outweigh them--in my opini...

Howard County, purveyors as we are of a world class education, offers abstinence based sex education units as a part of its Health Curriculum. We must be extremely committed to that point of view, since the Board of Education thinks that even a passing reference to condoms in a dinner conversation where high school students are present constitutes sexual harassment. Forget about abstinence-based, their actions make us look as though we're abstinence only, abstinence all the way, wash out your mouth with soap, by golly! There's just one problem. Abstinence based programs don't work. Data on this is readily available. As the United States began to rely more heavily on abstinence based programs, the results have been linked to a crisis in teen pregnancy and the spread of sexually transmitted infections. In countries like Amsterdam where the focus is on open discussion of the realities of sexual feelings and experiences, plus emphasis on birth control, especially condom use...

This post ran last year on Memorial Day. I'm sharing it again because it remains the best way I have to honor the day and remember the fallen. ***** The Meaning of Days How do you write about something and not make it about yourself? How do I blog about Memorial Day and not make it about me? Because it isn't. It really, really isn't about me, my feelings or my views. I could tell you about how I was raised as a Unitarian during the '60s and how my sisters' friends were conscientious objectors. I could tell you that my Grandfather fought in Italy in WW1 and my father served in Japan in the Army of the Occupation in WW2. Oh, and have I ever told you that my family fought on both sides of the American Revolution and the Civil War? I was raised to believe that war was wrong, killing was wrong, but that sometimes you still had to do it, and you had to choose very wisely, because life is precious. But Memorial Day isn't about me. It is about choice, risk and commitmen...

Remember Fan Clubs? You could send away a dollar, maybe a bit more, along with your registration form clipped from Tiger Beat or 16 Magazine and become an Official Member. You would receive a membership card and other special memberships items in the mail. Perhaps even an autographed picture. Today it is not about joining a fan club. Today it is about Fandom, pursuing your fandom, and curating multiple fandoms. Fandom is a multi-modal explosion of entertainment, merchandising, technology, and social media. In an earlier age one might have had one big teen idol or crush, collected some popular item like ceramic ponies or troll dolls, and pursued a hobby such as roller skating, horseback riding or listening to records. Today's concept of fandom can reach into every aspect of leisure time. You watch a television show/ movie/ musical performer. You can watch again and again on Netflix or YouTube. You can join social media communities to discuss it, create Pinterest Boards to collec...