A Backward Glance

The last post of the year. Here it is.

I just re-read the last post of 2022 and it’s honestly a bit sad to see how much is still relevant and/or unimproved.

My two most-read pieces in 2023 were

What Lurks Behind the Door, about M4L’s bait and switch tactics

Local Man in 2023, about Phelps Luck principal Ed Cosentino’s trip to work via scooter

As always, the most fun I have writing the blog comes when a post sparks lively conversation in the comments. Often those are posts like, “Did you ever go down this back road?” or, “What do you have in the back of your refrigerator?” Posts about controversial issues may get more clicks, but they aren’t necessarily the ones that get people chatting.

Go figure.

A great joy for me in 2023 is that the scariest people in town don’t read my blog anymore. Or, if they do, they aren’t talking about it anywhere that I can see. This may be because I have been deemed irrelevant and I guess I am okay with that. Columbia/HoCo has some mighty scary people. I’d just as soon be unworthy of their notice.

We lost the Columbia Flier this year, and TwitterX is disintegrating into jagged and distorted fragments. Learning about local news, issues, and happenings has become more like the childhood game of Telephone than ever. This space will never be an adequate substitute for local journalism but I hope to shine a light where I can.

I continue to learn so much from my readers. Thank you. What would a community blog be without community? Your engagement is what takes a village green and a town square and boosts it to something exponentially greater.

What local issues from 2023 will we be talking about in 2024? Let me know.

Village Green/Town² Comments

Comments

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents. When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday. Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018. 2018 . But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest. In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...

Separate and Unequal

Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not. It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...

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