For the Teachers

 

Local stories, local stories…yeah. That’s the thing, right? Put everything else out of mind. Think local. 

Think, think, think.

In local news today, teachers will have to go to work and face students whose whole worlds have just been shattered in an election they couldn’t vote in. My heart is aching for them.

Students from all manner of marginalized and vulnerable groups will be fearful or numb.  LGTBQIA students will be feeling less safe. Young women demoralized. Very young children will probably be unaware but they will certainly pick up on how the adults around them are feeling. They are like little barometers. They may not be able to articulate what is going on but they feel it, sometimes very deeply. 

Teaching is hard enough on an ordinary day. Today is beyond comprehending. 

Those who think that school is just about reading and math and that teachers should stay in their lane have probably never been in a classroom longer than occasional parent teacher nights. Schools have to deal with the real students who show up every day. You can’t just say “I’m here for the reading and math” and ignore hunger, fear, poverty, injustice, or any of the stumbling blocks that our culture puts in front of children.

How do teachers hold it all together on a day like today? How do they explain a political victory by people who reject feeding hungry school children, seek to actively persecute those who are “different”, or plan to literally round up and deport children and families? Our kids spend a big chunk of every day, five days a week, with their teachers.  There no way that this won’t impact the school environment.

To be sure, some students will be from families that are happy about the election results. Some teachers will be, too. That does not render those who are suffering invisible. That doesn’t make getting through the school day any easier. It doesn’t matter where you live in Howard County or what your school looks like. Today those schools will open their doors and teach and care for children because that’s what they have committed to do.

We expect teachers to do far too much in not enough time and for nowhere near enough compensation. And today they will be holding the world together in ways we cannot possibly imagine.  This post is dedicated to them. 

Village Green/Town² Comments 

More Than You Know - - Election Day Guest Post by Cindy Vaillancourt

Cindy Vaillancourt posted the following on social media yesterday and I immediately knew I wanted to share it here. She has graciously given her permission. - - jam

*****

I hear a lot of extremely negative comments about our elected representatives at all levels.

There is no doubt there are a lot of just icky-yucky-gross, unavailable, corrupt, buffoonish, porcine, and truly dishonorable people running for office, holding office, or even retiring from office.  

I would just like to take a minute to share with my Maryland neighbors some insight I gained as a result of my activism, and service as an elected official.

With very few exceptions, the people on all levels who represent Howard County work harder than most folks know.  I could not maintain the schedules these folks keep.  I was exhausted just trying to keep up with the obligations of my office - but, without fail, wherever I went on BOE business, many other elected representatives were already there, and stayed longer.

Anyone who complains that their representative is unavailable to them is just not trying.  Before his death, you could not go to a community event without tripping over the late, great Representative Elijah E. Cummings.  You want to have a word with Ben Cardin, or John Sarbanes?  Attend any one of hundreds of meetings or events. I had a lovely conversation with Jamie Raskin not long ago - and he doesn't even represent HoCo.  Chris Van Hollen inexplicably remembered my name after I first met him. Barbara Mikulski gave me an arm squeeze and said to keep up the good work. (ok, that one may have been pretty generic ;) ).

Our state delegation is even more visible and accessible.  Speaking of tripping over people,  have you been to any event in Howard County where you did not see Howard County Executive Calvin Ball?  or Allan Kittleman when he was a councilman, state senator, or county exec? Or Ken Ulman?  Or Jim Robey?  Even now that he is retired, Frank Turner is still everywhere supporting the community.  

I guarantee if you call Vanessa Atterbeary, or Senator Guy Guzzone, or Jen Terrasa - Howard County, or Katie Hester, or Courtney Watson, or Chao Wu you will get a callback. If you grab them at an event they will listen attentively.  I am sure that is also true for Terri Hill, Jessica Feldmark, Pam Guzzone, Natalie Zeigler and Clarence Lam- though I haven't tried to call them myself.

Our local council people are easy to reach, and in spite of many interactions being quite fraught for the BOE members, most of them (sure, there are exceptions) are responsive if you reach out, write, call, or happen upon them in the community at the dozens of events they attend each month.

I don't agree with all of them.  I don't agree with everything any of them do, or positions they take.

But with few exceptions, they put in more hours than you know, take more abuse than you would believe, and (for the most part) do it graciously.

So when you go to the polls and you see a candidate, a sitting official, or a retired official --- feel free to share your priorities, ask questions, or just make eye contact and smile.

UPDATE: I forgot to add former Governor Hogan, who stood with the BOE in our fight with a previous superintendent - and who could be counted on to attend functions and mingle.... and former Governor O'Malley who visited HoCo often and freely chatted with anyone around ... and speaking of electeds to trip over ...if you haven't tripped over Wes Moore yet, you probably don't get out much.

*****

Cindy Vaillancourt served on the Howard County Board of Education from 2010 - 2018. In my opinion she “put in more hours than you know, took more abuse than you would believe, and (for the most part) did it graciously.” 

I have very strong opinions about today’s election, both national and local. It would have been easy to fill this space with words to that effect. Like many of my neighbors, friend, and family, I have fears about today and the days to come. The humanity in Ms. Vaillancourt’s words felt like the right touch in a troubled moment.

If you have other thoughts to share, let me know.

Village Green/Town² Comments

The Gift of Human Kindness

 

Despite the enormity of Tuesday’s election bearing down on us, I’ve seen some lovely things unfold on social media in the last twenty four hours. Not political, but examples of genuine human kindness. They aren’t my stories to tell but I would if I had permission. We’ll see if I can swing that.

In the meantime, perhaps that’s a reminder that there’s never a bad time for acts of kindness, no matter how small. 

That brings me to this announcement from the Howard County Department of Community Resources and Services:

Project Holiday needs your help! #HoCoAging's 50+ centers are accepting new, unwrapped items now through December 6 to add to gift bags for local older adults. For a list of suggested items or to make a monetary donation, visit www.howardcountymd.gov/projectholiday.

“…who would not otherwise receive a gift.”

Oof. That struck me. I’ve had some rough times in my life, especially during the holidays, but I’ve always been connected in some way with people who invited me to share a meal or remembered me with a gift of some kind. The need for this initiative speaks not only to poverty amongst older residents but also profound human disconnection. 

What does it mean when you have no one?

Holiday gifts cannot magically cure that but they can be a light in the darkness, as it were.

Check the bottom of this flier for gift suggestions. 

I’ve enthusiastically participated in toy drives for kids over the years and I have to admit I haven’t really noticed initiatives like this one in the past. It’s fun to buy toys, to remember your own childhood excitement. Imagining kids with toys gives us that unmistakable dopamine rush of unadulterated delight. Shopping for older people who may have no one reminds reminds us that aging comes to us all and that this could someday be us. 

This reminds me a bit of my musings that small children with special needs are often deemed adorable when the same people, grown, are considered undesirable and inconvenient.

I have found that my readers are a well informed and compassionate bunch. You may already know all this. For some reason it’s really hitting me hard this morning. 

*****

Today’s local HoCo shopping recommendation is Feet First, located in the Wilde Lake Village Center. You, or someone you know, has been spending long hours walking in the community and/or standing at the polls. A pair of truly comfortable new shoes might be a godsend. I’ve written about Feet First in the past. They’ve been in business since 1979 and are good neighbors in the community. Despite which you may think, they are not only a store for runners. 

If you haven’t been there, check them out. Maybe you will find yourself walking around the Wilde Lake Village Center afterwards with a new spring in your step.

The Land of Pleasant Living

I’ve been mulling over an article about the Board of Education race for the past few days. 

What a Howard County school board race says about the politics of education, Jess Nocera, Baltimore Banner 

The piece focuses on the District 5 school board seat, where the candidates are Andrea Chamblee and Trent Kittleman. 

One section stood out.

Kittleman takes issue with accusations that she’s an extremist. As a state delegate, she said, “Primarily I was looked at as a levelheaded conservative but not as a conservative that upset everybody.”

Democrats in the State House can attest to that, she said.

Del. Vanessa Atterbeary, a Democrat, said Kittleman was always cordial and never rude when they served as delegates together.

“She was pleasant to work with but certainly had values that do not align with Democratic values for sure,” Atterbeary said.

There’s a lot going on there.

First, Kittleman seems be claiming that being pleasant is proof that she is not an extremist. Some people do make this mistake (not just in politics but in life) but it is a big one. 

How could so and so do terrible things? They are always so nice when I run into them at the grocery store!

Being nice can be purely performative. It can be effective in greasing the skids in political life. But it is not by itself an indicator of goodness, kindness, fairness, commitment to justice, or even good leadership. Niceness is a thing one can put on like makeup or an expensive suit. 

Also, it’s hard to say if Kittleman’s colleagues actually viewed her as “not a conservative that upset everybody” because in politics people are not going to say these things to your face. Or they are going to word things very carefully so as not to gum up the works.

That’s why I was surprised to see a quote from Delegate Vanessa Atterbeary. I wonder how many of those colleagues Ms. Nocera had to reach out to before she found someone willing to go on the record. And you will see she has chosen her words very carefully.

“She was pleasant to work with but certainly had values that do not align with Democratic values for sure,” Atterbeary said.

Are we grading her on pleasantness? Atterbeary appears to be saying. Okay, she’s pleasant. But can we talk about values? Because that’s what matters.

I thought a lot about how Black women in leadership roles are perpetually being labeled as “angry” and admonished to be “nicer.” And then I thought about what it would feel like to be Vanessa Atterbeary being asked to pass judgement on a well-connected white woman.

Honestly, I probably don’t fully understand what a minefield that is. 

Many of us, most especially white women, I might add, have been conditioned to believe that “niceness” is a positive indicator of goodness. Niceness is a language we have been acculturated to trust. When presented with new or uncomfortable things we so often seize on the way it was presented to us rather than do the work of wrestling with challenging ideas.

If they only hadn’t been so mean, so loud, so angry, so unpleasant…

What matters about who is going to serve on the school board is not who is cordial and never rude. Our schools need board members who are going to work to support and defend the value of public education and who will not actively work to promote policies which will hurt students and families. Someone who claims that they are not an extremist because they can “make nice” on the outside is probably someone who is hoping that you won’t check their record.

You should always check their record, no matter how nice they are.

Village Green/Town² Comments

HoCoLocal Video Vignettes

I’ve got two local videos worth watching for you this morning. They’re both engaging, brief, and informative. 

From WMAR-2 News, reported by Jonathan Hunter:

Local Historian Explains the Significance of Emancipation Day in Maryland

I’m not sure I knew that November 1st was Emancipation Day in Maryland. This piece explains how it all came about and it’s especially noteworthy since Hunter interviews HoCo’s own Marlena Jareaux to shed some light on the bare facts and put them into context. 

Do Howard County schoolchildren learn about Maryland’s Emancipation Day? I wonder.

From HoCo OHRE and be.luminus, a video about Día de los Muertos.

They explain: 

When the OHRE originally pitched this video concept to La Alianza Latina Commissioner and Luminus CEO Gabriel Moreno, we were planning on turning out a quick and humorous video about how Día de los Muertos is not a Halloween costume. Instead, Gabriel approached this theme with a deep reverence for the meaning of Día de los Muertos, not only for the Mexican diaspora, but for the Howard County community. He focused on the roots of shared community, warmth, and welcoming in Mexican culture, choosing to invite his Howard County community members into this tradition as honored guests. We are proud to stand with Commissioner Moreno in delivering this message focused on inclusion, cultural sharing, and what it truly means to be a multicultural community here in Howard County. 

Some of us know more than we used to about this annual remembrance and celebration tradition because of the movie Coco. But I think it makes a big difference to be invited in to the meaning of Día de los Muertos by a member of our own community. The collaboration between Moreno and the Howard County Office of Human Rights & Equity makes our understanding more personal and local.

Seen any good HoCoLocal videos lately?

Village Green/Town² Comments

*****

For your Local HoCo shopping pleasure - - don’t forget the pets! (Or your friends with pets.) One of my readers recommends Clipper’s Canine Café in Old Ellicott City. From their website:

Clipper's Canine Cafe is a family owned and operated pet boutique and natural pet food store located in the Historic district of Ellicott City, Maryland. We carry a great selection of all natural pet foods including raw food diets, supplements and gourmet bakery treats. We feature unique toys, spa products and apparel for pets. 

F ³: The Parable of the Subscription

 

And now for something completely different. It’s a point of view you probably haven’t been seeing since the Great NonEndorsement Debacle at the LA Times and Washington Post.

Tanzina Vega (Journalist/Host/Educator: Boston Globe, NYU, The New York Times, CNN, WNYC and more)

Telling subscribers not to vote with their subscriptions is wild to me. So you want them to ignore what just happened, cancel their *entire* Amazon account for you but not pull a subscription...! love journalism but this is asking a lot. People are angry that Bezos has influence.

This resentment has been boiling among news consumers for a while now. So they are taking action in the way they know how.

News consumers have choices today that they didn't have before. They can choose where to spend their money and they are doing that. That's the part of the equation folks aren't considering. They can take their $ elsewhere.

That's capitalism folks.

I don't want to see anyone lose their jobs but that's the organization’s issue to figure out, not readers. This is a Bezos problem and he doesn't seem to care.

It also assumes that subscribers haven't considered any of these issues and aren't smart enough to decide when they've had enough.

So what happens when you cancel that subscription and choose to put that money somewhere else? You will be helping to grow something better.

(Elie Mystal is Justice Correspondent: @thenation. Alfred Knobler Fellow: @typemediacenter

Author: Allow Me To Retort)

Which brings us to Baltimore. 

Baltimore Sun Axes Entire Features Department, Josh Dickey, The Wrap

In light of last Friday’s post concerning cuts to humanities programs nationwide, this action by Sun/Sinclair owner feels painfully apropos. 

Studying topics within the humanities (this includes the arts, remember) provides us with the tools to think creatively and critically, to reason, and ask questions. Additionally, it fosters the ability to look at things from different points of view, which, in turn, develops empathy. All of these things are crucial in becoming active and informed in civic engagement. They contribute to building better informed and more consistent voters plus they are strong motivators for community engagement and volunteering. F ³: The Numbers Will Shock You, Village Green/Town² 

Removing arts and culture coverage from the Sun is more than sneering at their importance or an arrogant dig that Baltimore doesn’t have any culture worth covering. 

Until now, I had assumed that Smith’s goal was to shape the Sun into a media outlet that would appeal to low-information voters. With this week’s action it becomes apparent that it’s far more than that. He’s attempting to grow low-information voters. To create them. How do you do that? A quick and dirty way would be to take away their access to information, most especially: the tools to think creatively and critically, to reason, and ask questions.

Taking away the parts of the newspaper that remind us that Baltimore is a place worth loving and caring about, the stories that show how much Baltimore has to be proud of - - that’s a crucial strategy if you want to create a demoralized and fearful electorate.* Those are the people who will reliably support the kind of ballot initiatives that Smith has been backing to change how Baltimore governs (and taxes) itself.

This is more than distasteful. This calls for more than a wistful sigh about how far local journalism has fallen. If you don’t like what the Sun ownership is selling, you do not have to buy their product. You absolutely have the right to take your money and invest it in the local journalism you believe in. 

May I recommend Baltimore Beat. They are writing the stories that no one else is covering in Baltimore and they are empowering the writers that no one else platforms in Baltimore. What’s more, they are a true nonprofit with absolutely no paywall plus they distribute free paper copies throughout the community.

I also subscribe to the Baltimore Banner and find myself enjoying a lot of what they are doing these days. But, if you already subscribe to the Banner and want to find a place where your Baltimore Sun dollars will do the most good, it is absolutely Baltimore Beat. 

It’s your money. What do you want to grow?

Village Green/Town² Comments 

*Absolutely a page right out of the Fox News playbook.

Do No Harm

 

There are many, many jobs involved in running a local political campaign. For every person you can see handing out literature or working at the polls, there are numerous others working behind the scenes at tasks you probably haven’t even thought of. Candidates must martial their volunteers strategically. 

That’s why they probably don’t have a specific election category called “Watching election signs at the polls after dark.” Nobody has that many volunteers. And besides, why should this even be necessary?

Why, indeed. 

Alas, Early Voting in Howard County has been marred by political vandals who are stealing and/or destroying campaign signs at voting sites. Perhaps I should simply be grateful that no one has of yet been threatened with a machete, but - - come on! - -  asking people to respect the other side’s candidate signs seems like a pretty low bar to me. 

People used to make fun of Howard Counth for our Choose Civility campaign. We’ve moved on from that, and with good reason. Still…Could we at least focus our efforts on making and encouraging good choices? This kind of behavior smacks of disrespect and not just from one candidate’s team to to another. It’s also part of a growing “the end justifies the means” sort of violence that seeks to make polling places and the very act of voting feel less credible and less safe.

If you really have faith in your chosen candidate, how does destroying someone else’s property show that? It doesn’t. It shows insecurity, fear, and possibly a sense of entitlement. “I get to have my say. You don’t.” If your campaign is doing this, or you are “ignoring” evidence that your volunteers are doing it, I sincerely hope that everyone in the county finds out what kind of a person you are. You should wear the truth about your behavior like campaign gear. 

That would be enlightening for the rest of us. Depressing, yes. But educational.

Today is the last day of Early Voting, Then it’s on to November 5th. Do me a flavor, will you? Do no harm. 

*****

Local HoCo shopping recommendations: what about local craft fair and seasonal second-hand markets? Here are some suggestions for this weekend.

Abiding Savior Lutheran Church Holiday Bazaar Sale, November 2, 8 am to 12 noon. 10689 Owen Brown Rd, Columbia, MD Proceeds will support Columbia Community Care, the Liberian Community, and Abiding Savior ministries. Please contact the Abiding Savior office, asic@abiding-savior.org, if you have any questions.

Jewels for Hope - - a sale of gently worn jewelry and scarves. November 2, 8:30 am to 12 noon.  Glen Mar Church, 4701 New Cut Road, Ellicott City, MD. This event directly benefits (100% of proceeds) HopeWorks - Howard County Maryland's Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Center. Admission is FREE with a suggested donation of $5.00. Thousands of items are for sale with prices starting at five dollars

Howard County Crafts Spectacular, Howard County Fairgrounds, November 1-3, beginning at nine am each day. A craft show featuring over 375 artists and crafters. Free Gift wrapping, package check, Free parking, Free courtesy shuttles back to your vehicle, Free door prizes every 15 minutes throughout the weekend. Magic Shows on Sat. & Sun at 11am and 12:30pm. Admission $5 or $7 for a multi-day pass. Children under 10 Free.

Oakland Mills High School Craft Fair this Saturday, November 2, from 10:00 to 3:00. There are always a lot of local artisans selling nice gift items, event benefits the OMHS PTSA. Come visit, see, and buy various works of art from our community members that are unique and one of a kind.