Commentary

Let’s say you hold elected office, and a San Francisco-based law firm that specializes in holding polluters accountable approaches your jurisdiction with an offer. So-and-so industry has misled government regulators and knowingly done great harm to your constituents, you are told. The law firm says is filing a lawsuit against these allegedly irresponsible companies, and if you agree to sign on as a plaintiff at no cost, your constituents will share in any financial settlement or court-ordered award, and, thus, potentially be made whole. If the law firm is unsuccessful, it will not charge you a dime. Many of your neighbors — municipalities, counties and states — have already signed on. So, what do you do?

In recent weeks, we have begun to see the truth behind the oft-told adage: “Elections have consequences.” Following this year’s gubernatorial election, a new measure, HC Bill 10-23, now challenges our basic conceptions of democratic rule. The chairs of the Howard County delegation, Sen. Clarence Lam and Del. Courtney Watson, proposed this legislation less than a week after the Nov. 8 general election. Their bill will fundamentally change our county’s all-elected school board model to include two appointed members and three elected by gerrymandered state Senate districts. Few measures have managed to unite Democratic, unaffiliated, and Republican voters. Leaders from all political leanings have voiced their opprobrium to this proposed legislation and to what they deem as a power grab by local politicians to pack what is to date, a locally elected body.

Until recently, when he set out on his own as an international consultant, Mike McClure had worked for many years as the general curator at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore. Many will remember him for two big reasons — Dolly and Samson. McClure was the zoo’s elephant manager. Whenever African elephants Dolly and, later, Samson, needed care and feeding, McClure was there. Given his 27-year tenure at the zoo, I thought McClure deserved an exit interview. He was in Nepal, leading an elephant care workshop, by the time I caught wind of his departure from the zoo staff, so he answered questions by email. I asked about Dolly because she had been a star of the zoo for years, starting in the early 1980s.

“Vox Populi, Vox Dei,” Elon Musk tweeted after he posted the results of an unscientific poll showing respondents favored allowing former president Donald Trump to return to Twitter. The Latin phrase, roughly translating to “the voice of the people is the voice of God,” might be a poetic expression of democratic sentiment. But it does not reflect what Mr. Musk is doing with one of the world’s most influential social media platforms. So far, Mr. Musk has governed Twitter according to his whims. The chief executive’s polls supposedly express the will of the users — but many of those who engage regularly with his account are his die-hard supporters, aware of his preferences and eager to see them enacted. This was true in the case of Mr. Trump, who so far has chosen not to return to using Twitter despite his account’s reinstatement.

The shelves lined with perfectly ordered clear jars of canned food immediately sparked decades of memories. Part of an installation at the Baltimore Museum of Art’s new collection — “A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration” — the shelves resembled the ones at my mother’s home in fall and winter, or canning season in many Black households of that era.

In a recent investigation into an alleged misuse of funds from Baltimore County’s Alley Reconstruction Program (ARP), Inspector General Kelly Madigan uncovered troubling conduct involving high-ranking county officials. Because she lacks the power to enforce consequences of her findings, the Office of the Maryland State Prosecutor should step in. The ARP program is intended for alleys in “residential, non-commercial” communities, but Madigan found that it was used to repair a private alley serving commercial properties in Towson.

Aristotle once observed that the only surefire way to avoid criticism is to do nothing, say nothing and be nothing. Or something like that, we weren’t there. But at least this much is certain about the Ancient Greek philosopher who had a profound impact on Western learning: He had no football skills whatsoever, and he never sent a Tweet. Yet, while he didn’t have a social media account like so many of today’s armchair philosophers, his wisdom holds up.

In 2018, I wrote a column calling the soon-to-be-elected Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO, a left-wing version of Donald Trump. Readers were unpersuaded. The comparison between the two men, wrote one person in the comments section, “was absurd.” Another called the column “shockingly ignorant.” Let me recant. AMLO isn’t just another version of Trump. He’s worse, thanks to being a more effective demagogue and bureaucratic operator.