Commentary

Even the most casual observer of current events has to admit there is much to be gloomy about. From public health (monkeypox and COVID-19 variants) to mass shootings (Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, among others) to the inability of opinion leaders to agree on basic facts (see the events of Jan. 6, 2021), there is a certain deficit of optimism of late. Throw in some election-year fearmongering on inflation, the stock markets and gasoline prices, and it does seem like the best way to cheer up might be to disconnect from all electronic devices.

A month before the Afghanistan government fell to the Taliban, the phone of a former Asymmetric Warfare Group soldier was already ringing nonstop as desperate interpreters he once worked with reached out for help. The retired sergeant major served several tours in Afghanistan where he relied on his interpreters to accomplish the mission. As it became evident the Taliban would assume control of the government, he feared for their lives and the safety of their families. Gonzalo Lassally, a former AWG integration troop sergeant major, wasn’t the only retiree from the unit receiving frantic calls and emails from Afghanistan.

Thirty years ago, I arrived at The New York Times as an intern. I never planned to be a “company man.” I had no real plan. This is just the way things worked out. Young people often ask me for career advice. Well, here it is. During a career conference at my college, I remember a journalist describing what I thought was an appallingly lower than average starting salary for newspaper journalists. Hyperventilating, I excused myself, ran to the bathroom and threw up. I had been poor my whole life, and I remember thinking, “I can’t go to college and still be poor!”

Baltimore City Council Bill 22-0238 seeks to place on the November ballot a proposed amendment to the city charter that would bar elected officials, their designees, state or government employees, and lobbyists from serving on a board that oversees the city’s Office of the Inspector General. It is meant to reduce conflicts of interest that could arise, given that investigation of any one of those individuals could come under the IG’s purview. Baltimore needs an independent and effective OIG. Council members who care about the city will vote in favor of the bill.

When I first heard that Montgomery County Councilmember Will Jawando (D) was writing an autobiography, with the title “My Seven Black Fathers,” the cynic in me raced to a couple of conclusions. There was something a little too Obamaesque about the title to make me think this was anything but a calculated political document by a very ambitious politician whose own history, with a white mother from Kansas, an African father and a Black wife named Michele, aligns very neatly with the 44th president’s. I was wrong.

Just shy of 30 years before he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln was grappling with severe melancholy, often telling those around him that he was thinking about suicide and wandering in the woods alone with his gun. On two separate occasions, those around him became so concerned that they took Lincoln in, cared for him, and kept him safe through his crises. Imagine how different our country — and the world — would look today if Lincoln’s loved ones had not intervened. And he was only one person.