Commentary

First we would echo the sentiments of Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown who last week called upon the Maryland General Assembly to strengthen state employment law that protects individuals from workplace discrimination. A gaping hole has suddenly appeared that would seem to have potentially greenlighted discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. “We must not allow any gaps in our laws that could leave Marylanders vulnerable to discriminatory practices in the workplace,” Brown said in a written statement released on Tuesday, Aug. 15.

We applaud The Baltimore Sun for recognizing the importance of the Baltimore Blueway, a water trail plan for the Inner Harbor and Middle Branch, and the opportunities it offers to the people of Baltimore (”Baltimore Blueway: a good way to make a splash,” Aug. 10). In response to the reader who shared concerns about the safety of the Blueway (”Baltimore Blueway plan invites trouble,” Aug. 10), one major goal of the plan is to increase the safety of the Inner Harbor for paddle sports.

Donald Trump’s latest indictments, a raft of criminal charges — including racketeering — lodged this week against him and an army of 18 co-conspirators for plotting to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia, drew what have now become customary responses. After all, this was the fourth time the ex-president has been criminally indicted in recent months so there’s been no shortage of opportunities to establish a pattern.

A new elementary school is set to open this month in my end of Annapolis. It’s a yellow brick road to better education, I suppose. This $39 million edifice replaces old Hillsmere Elementary, a red-brick monument to ideas about education that are fading away in Maryland. When it opened in 1967, students stayed put in their seats, facing straight ahead to chalkboards and teachers’ desks.

As discomfiting as the “Free Kevin Brown” debacle proved to be — including a happy-to-be-back statement issued under the Orioles announcer’s name that read suspiciously like the work product of a soulless corporate AI computer (”John Angelos and I have a solid dialogue based on mutual respect…”) — the suspension of the well-regarded play-by-play man was far from the most troubling news to filter out of Camden Yards in recent days.

“Gun shots make everybody deaf and blind,” writes Jason Reynolds in his book, “Long Way Down.”It’s been more than a month, and we still do not know who committed what has been called the largest mass shooting in Baltimore history, at Brooklyn Homes. In “Long Way Down,” Reynolds suggests that neighbors avoid telling the police what they witness, fearing that they might become the next gun violence victim from a potential revenge shooting.