Village Green/Town²

Howard County Times released their Best Of 2016 yesterday, and for the first time ever, this blog  made an appearance. Thanks to all of you who made that happen.  The winner in the Best Blog category was Tom Coale for HoCo Rising. Best Blog HoCo Rising Honorable mentions: The Unmanly Chef Pilates, Pearls, and Peanut Butter Village Green/Town Squared Tom doesn't write much these days, a fact which I lament with some regularity, but his posts around the time of the Elliott City flood this summer are worth the win all by themselves. HoCo Rising held steady like a lighthouse in stormy seas. Of course, the blog posts pale in comparison to the work Tom was doing in the community to support those affected by the flood.  He's not just a writer, he's a doer. Possibly why he has so much less time to write these days. Rumor has it that he will be back on the scene doing a podcast with fellow- blogger and constituent services expert Candace Dodson-Reed. I'm look...

Oh, how I love Thursdays. My weekly digital issue of the Columbia Flier is delivered to my inbox and I revel in the experience of having a local newspaper. Yes, I'm a little bit crazy when it comes to local news coverage. This week's editorial puzzles me a bit. Entitled " Countering hate and bias, rekindling county’s civility theme", it feels like as assemblage of platitudes and truisms. I can imagine someone saying, "We ought to say something about this."  There's nothing innately wrong with it. There's just no "there" there.  But then came the sentence that almost made me laugh out loud. The anonymity afforded on some websites has made it easier for bigots to cloak their identities while spewing bile. I refer you to this post by Scott Ewart. A good place to see the spewing of bile would be in the comments section of the Howard County Times, where a certain toxic troll, widely believed to be (oh, never mind, I won't go there)...

Three new board of education members have been sworn in out on Route 108. Three qualified, experienced, motivated members. Three highly-informed, well-prepared members. Three women. I noticed something interesting happen as the evening's events unfolded. No sooner than Kirsten Coombs, Christina Delmont-Small, and Mavis Ellis were sworn in, a community member stepped up to the microphone during Public Forum to admonish them about what they must not do. They hadn't even done anything yet--other than win the election, that is--but a concerned citizen earnestly put forth suggestions about what they shouldn't do. Well, these three ran with the intent to listen to constituents. And listen they did. In fact, there was even a second Public Forum at the end of the meeting. And the current President of PTACHC  held forth on how the new board should comport itself. Welcome to public service. At midday yesterday I noticed an open letter to the new Board Members fr...

There's a party tonight at the Green Turtle. It's for bloggers and their readers, and it's sponsored by HoCoBlogs and Totally HoCo. This event, and a related one tomorrow, are in support of Toys for Tots. Read more here , and let them know you'll be coming. I don't think I will be there, although I'd like to, because I've finally succumbed to the cold that's been working it's way through my classroom and all I want to do is go back to bed. I went to the Board of Education meeting last night. I'd like to order the commemorative DVD of the event. Or perhaps an expertly curated sampling of the evening's events. They could call it "Highlights for Sharing." In a blog post over a year ago, I suggested: If parents and teachers truly united to seek improvement and change on shared goals, they would be unstoppable. I look forward to reading other bloggers' takes on last night's meeting. There's quite a bit to process. I...

There's  a countdown ticker running over at the Better Board of Ed website. Right now it reads eleven hours, forty six minutes. When the countdown runs its course a new Board of Education will be sworn in and a new era in the Howard County Schools will begin. It has been a long, long slog to get to this day. Those engaged in the work of bringing change to the school system might be forgiven for thinking that today is the long-awaited end to the process. Finally, finally, the majority has changed. The 5-2 voting machine has been broken, and the status has shifted. Finally. It will be time to breathe a collective sigh of relief. But when the counter runs down and the long wait is over we will be not at the end, but at the beginning. At the risk of sounding like Captain Obvious: we haven't yet begun the journey we have set our sights upon. We didn't elect a better Board of Education so we could go back to ignoring what goes on and let someone else take care of it. No m...

I got a message from a friend yesterday. "They're showing that video at the One Howard event," she wrote. I was incredulous. After what I had heard from members of the community, I thought that was an extremely poor choice. I wondered if it would cause discomfort for people in the room who had come to the meeting in good faith. It did. From a women at the event: I watched the video last week and felt horrified, not entirely just by the video, but also by the reactions- felt like they wanted someone to smooth it all over for them, and he complied.  It felt like all the pain of the victim community got shoved back down so the majority could not feel uncomfortable.  And, that's honestly how we who are minorities have been "trained":  don't ruffle feathers too much...  make it feel okay, even when it's not.  I'm sort of done with that. I'm not going to link to the video because, frankly, I don't want to give it any more publicity. I ...

"I think the ultimate way that art can be political is that it engenders empathy." - - Lin-Manuel Miranda Today is the day for OMHS annual WBAL Radio Concert for Kids. It has been a hard week over at the high school. The school community has been rocked by a student's very public racist and violent threats. Fellow-students who tried to call out his behavior found themselves subjected to lengthy interrogation by school administration. Students feel fearful at school. Parents have worried. Rehearsals continued. Preparations moved forward. The over-arching goal of helping others thriugh a celebration of the arts continues. The show must go on. I'm taking the liberty of running last year's post again (with updated information) because I feel very strongly in this cause and these people. Take a few hours of your day to enjoy this concert. Or donate. ***** Who Gives? We Do My #tbt offering today (for Throwback Thursday) is reaching way back to Giving T...