Village Green/Town²

  An old timey news story might have begun, “Local Boy Makes Good.” But this particular local boy is 1. an adult and 2. was already making something of himself long before he left Howard County. I’m referring to former Student Member of the Board Zach Koung, now a student at the University of Pennsylvania.  Koung is featured in an article by Alia Wong in USA Today: Books are being banned from school libraries. Here's what that does to students. How did I learn about this? That’s easy: on Twitter, along with this helpful link: Book Bans and the Students Speaking Out , It Gets Better Project The It Gets Better Project executive director Brian Wenke and Youth Voices ambassador Zach Koung talked to USA Today’s Alia Wong about book bans in school libraries and what it means for LGBTQ+ students.  Youth Voices is the official youth ambassador program for the It Gets Better Project: …an annual cohort of exceptional young people ages 13-18 who team up with our organization to offe...

  The big local news yesterday was an announcement from the Howard Hughes Corporation detailing their plans for Columbia’s Lakefront. I saw it first from The Merriweather Post , though of course there’s plenty of coverage from area news outlets as well. Here’s one: “The aggressive redevelopment of downtown Columbia Maryland’s Merriweather District is expanding to the Lakefront District, surrounding Columbia’s Lake Kittamaqundi.” Jeff Clabaugh, WTOP  There’s plenty to learn about what HHC is planning to do. I recommend taking a look. As for me, what caught my attention in the WTOP post on Twitter was one word: aggressive. Hmm. From Merriam-Webster: Interesting. Aggressive is a word that can really go either way, when it comes to whether it has a positive or negative connotation. The word choice here gives me pause. This is most likely because I found the HHC attempt to influence the Columbia elections last Spring* showed a kind of aggressiveness which I felt was both unwarrant...

There are serious issues out there in Columbia/HoCo today, and I am not on it. Give me a day to catch up. In the meantime I highly recommend a thread on Twitter which begins: Baltimoreans! what is the most Baltimore thing that’s ever happened to you? Okay, technically it’s not a thread, but rather a question followed by many, many responses. If you know anything about Baltimore it’s a lot of fun. Today I’m shamelessly stealing this idea and asking a similar question. What’s the most Columbia Ellicott City Elkridge Howard County  thing that's ever happened to you? You pick the locale that’s most suitable to you. Perhaps you have one to add. River Hill? Western HoCo? Maple Lawn? I’d love to hear about those experiences which made you feel, “this could only happen here.” I’ll start the ball rolling. Some years ago a friend treated me to a VIP ticket to Wine in the Woods, which grants you access to the VIP tent where a lovely spread of catered food is laid out and attendants are there...

  Yesterday was the six-year anniversary of one of the most-read pieces on this blog. If you read it the first time, feel free to take the day off, but you just might want to take another look. I’d like to think that something like this couldn’t happen again, but, of course it could. You’d just need to have the right combination of factors. That worries me.  Truly, one of the largest contributing factors to this debacle was that the community just wasn’t paying attention to what was happening at Central Office and on the BOE. That lack of scrutiny allowed various players, one in particular, to amass a frightening amount of power.  As we ramp up for another Board of Education race, perhaps a reread of this piece is a good reminder: you absolutely must pay attention and fulfill your personal responsibility as a member of the community if you want our school system to be healthy enough to withstand power plays from bad actors. Believe me, there are usually folks like that wa...

  I must admit I haven’t really had Valentine’s Day on my radar this year. I have seen a growing stream of restaurants posting special Valentine menus, but I haven’t paid much attention, since I’m not eating inside restaurants and most of them seem to be aimed at in-restaurant dining. But yesterday I saw one that truly made me stop and smile. Yes, it’s outside the Columbia/HoCo bubble but I think this one warrants a mention.  Sorrento, established in 1965, bills itself as a casual family restaurant. Here’s a photo from their website.  A glance at their menu shows it to be your basic neighborhood pizza restaurant: subs, sandwiches, Italian and seafood dishes, and, of course, pizza. They have a license to serve beer and wine. Their most expensive menu item is a seafood platter at $24.95. This is not the sort of restaurant one normally sees trying to lure in money-spending romantics on February 14th. That’s exactly why I love this.  Their promotion has the sort of earn...

  This week a friend suggested I check out a Facebook group all about soup. Yes, there are groups just for soup lovers. Who knew? Considering how much I publicly long for soup in my blog and on social media, it seemed like a very good fit. It turns out that the greatest joy I have experienced from this group so far has come not from recipes or tantalizing photos but from posts like this: And: Does anyone  have a good potatoes soup, that is more brothers then creamy? Thanks in advance. Yikes. I am a sucker for typos and bloopers and humorous autocorrects. I grew up in a home that fostered word play. We listened over and over again to our two Kermit Schafer “Pardon My Blooper” albums on my dad’s hi-fi stereo system and got the same helpless giggles every time. Of course, the naughtier ones went over my head. (I never noticed.) Certain audio clips became catch phrases around the house, notably,  This is an educational toy. It teaches children how to cuss. In my late elementa...

It’s a “news and notes” sort of day today. Tonight, from 6:30-7 pm: Treasure Hunt for History: Exploring the Columbia Maryland Archives Digital Catalog Howard County Library System and Columbia Association (CA) are excited to announce Treasure Hunt for History: Exploring the Digital Catalog at Columbia Maryland Archives. We invite all levels of researchers, students, educators, and lovers of history to this virtual tutorial, focused on navigating the collections of Columbia Maryland Archives from your own computer. Columbia Maryland Archives Archivist Erin Berry will guide participants through the search and request process, highlighting the new Black History Month online exhibit and subject guide.  We are excited to share this wonderful tool that provides a map to the treasure trove of Columbia's story. To register, click here: Treasure Hunt for History  . I wrote about the digitizing of the Columbia Archives in December of 2020: “ Digitized! ” As I am a big fan of dance part...