Commentary

2023 is proving to be a challenging year for Montgomery County food farmers. As recession fears take hold and the impact of inflation is felt by more and more people in our community, local farms that sell direct to consumers like us and often rely on a Community Support Agriculture (CSA) model are feeling the impact.

Sergeant Joe Friday of Dragnet fame advisedly said, “just the facts, ma’am”. So, here are the facts. The U.S. has warmed 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit since 1970 and the annual rate of warming is accelerating. The frequency of billion-dollar disasters in the U.S. has increased from once every 4 months in the 1980s to once every 3 weeks (after accounting for inflation).

Rep. Andy Harris, the Maryland Republican who strives to be on the wrong side of everything, has developed the same bizarre obsession with gender identity and trans rights as the higher-profile demagogues within his party. Harris, an anesthesiologist, presented himself at recent congressional hearings as an outraged doctor come to save civilization from the Biden administration, the American Medical Association and other organizations that support health care for those whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth.

Dementia in its various forms is rarely satisfied with only one victim in a family. In mine, it has claimed both parents, though only Mom has been afflicted. Dad suffers inconsolable, near-debilitating grief that has made him, too, barely recognizable as the person we have known our entire lives. In the more than 50 years I can recall, I never saw Dad cry. He now sobs regularly, often choking on his words and unable to finish a sentence.

Injustice happens in empty courtrooms. If any proof of the validity of this maxim were needed, one need only read the 21-page report “Inside Prince George’s County Bond Hearings” just released by Howard University’s Movement Lawyering Clinic.

With Earth Day 2023 having just passed, it brings to mind how we are dealing with the Earth – more specifically, how we are making use of our land resources. How we use land and how we control the use of land have been contentious matters over the years. The application of zoning, the use of laws by units of local government that govern how real property can and cannot be used, first took hold in the late 19th century.

Recently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agreed to increased enforcement over pollution entering the Chesapeake Bay from Pennsylvania as part of a settlement involving lawsuits brought by Maryland, neighboring states and environmental advocates. The proposed agreement is no small matter. EPA enforcement under federal Clean Water Act authority had clearly slackened under the Trump administration — both in the Mid-Atlantic and beyond.

There is no truer test of the morality and integrity of a state’s criminal justice system than its commitment to exonerate individuals wrongfully convicted of crimes through a process that is fair and impartial. If we learned anything from the Adnan Syed case in Baltimore, it is that a process that relies on elected local prosecutors is far too vulnerable to politics to consistently satisfy that standard.