Show and Tell

 

Oh my. I am truly sorry I missed this event.

From the Rotary Club of Columbia/Patuxent: 

JOIN US this Friday, September 23rd, 2022 @ 7:30 a.m. at The Periodic Table - Columbia. Our guest, Wayne Robey, Clerk of the Circuit Court shares everything you'd like to know.

As you may have guessed, this post isn’t about Wayne Robey or the Rotary. It’s about qualifiers. In this event posting, there aren’t any.

Our guest, Wayne Robey, Clerk of the Circuit Court shares everything you'd like to know.

Everything.

Everything?

Most people would be able to read this and keep on going. You already know I am not most people. The thought that Mr. Robey was tasked with “sharing everything you’d like to know” set off the wheels of my imagination. My first thoughts were, shall we say, less than serious.

• Boxers or briefs?
• Best recipes to get dinner in the table in twenty minutes?
• Pet Peeve?
• Favorite restaurant in HoCo?
• Where does the Tooth Fairy get her money?

This is why the world is better off that I don’t attend such events, and why you really should use qualifiers and say precisely what you mean. 

But, since we are here - - and completely unrelated to the local rotary organization or the Clerk of the Circuit Court - - I present to you a few things I’d like to know:

Why are people complaining that the County Executive is doing a lot of flashy things for the sake of his re-election compaign when they are the very same people who’ve complained at every one of his initiatives for the past four years? He can’t possibly have saved them for the last minute (and they know this) because they’ve been criticizing his leadership ever since he got elected, specifically that he had too many initiatives. 

Just say you don’t like him and be done with it. Don’t make up a whole new way to not like him that’s completely disingenuous. 

Why are people agitating for “parent voice” on the Board of Education when we already have Board Members who are parents of children in the Howard County Schools? Or perhaps a better question would be, why do some people think “parent voice” means “only my voice will be heard and heeded”? Having a voice means the ability to engage and participate. Not dictate.

Public schools are not meant to be the playgrounds of one faction with one set of ideas. 

Last one: 

Why do some people want to talk about food insecurity but refuse to include housing insecurity and inadequate wages in the conversation? It’s all interconnected. Who does it benefit to focus solely on one issue without taking into account the others? Certainly not the people who are struggling to get adequate food.

If you force people to pay too much for housing, or to commute from elsewhere, and if you keep their wages artificially low, they will not have enough money for food. It’s not a mystery. We could fix it in a more meaningful way if we wanted to.

Do you feel like asking any questions? 

I can’t promise I’ll share everything you want to know.