Commentary

Few individuals are as powerless as the mentally ill patients housed Spring Grove Hospital Center, the historic, publicly owned Catonsville psychiatric care facility that has endured decades of neglect. This month, for the bargain price of $1, Spring Grove was sold to the University of Maryland Baltimore County, with the approval of the Maryland Board of Public Works, under what might generously be described as a plan severely lacking in detail and outside scrutiny. The deal was consummated over the objections of mental health groups, who were nonetheless assured that Spring Grove would continue to operate as is for at least the next decade and perhaps a decade more, under a lease-back arrangement by UMBC.

Given recent concerns about ethics in Baltimore City Hall — including those surrounding the legal defense fund of City Council President Nick Mosby and his state’s attorney wife, Marilyn Mosby — it was more than a little cheering to get word this week that at least one serious proposal to fix a lingering ethical concern in city government has arrived. The proposed charter amendment introduced by Councilwoman Odette Ramos seeks to correct a glaring problem involving Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming.

Maryland sports fans are in a good spot. The state already boasts retail gambling and is expected to launch mobile sports betting sooner rather than later. It’s helping lead the way for other states to do the same; for example, sports betting isn’t yet available in Texas, but it could be in the next few years and fans will be able to make use of Texas sports betting bonuses and platforms. Once mobile sports gambling is live in Maryland, bettors will be able to place wagers on the hometown Washington Commanders from wherever they please.

University of Maryland student Shreya Vuttaluru could have picked any topic to spend months investigating. She chose one that saw her pushing automatic door buttons across campus and considering what also comes to a halt when elevators stop working. Last week, Vuttaluru and a group of students who work for the Diamondback, U-Md.’s independent student newspaper, published a project under the headline, “Disability on Campus.” For it, they scrutinized multiple aspects of accessibility on the College Park campus and interviewed students, workers and faculty members with a wide range of disabilities.

I was born in July 1956 in Silver Spring, Maryland. When I was 6, my parents told me that I was adopted. There was a storybook about adoption gently explaining what it meant. I remember thinking, “but you’re my parents.” My parents also said “don’t tell anyone.” They feared I would be stigmatized. Times were different then. It felt weird when people would say things like, “you look just like your mother.” Aside from being white, I didn’t look anything like either of my parents.

White Americans who worry about being replaced by immigrants and other people of color need to get a grip on reality. The “great replacement theory,” along with general immigrant anxiety, not only perpetuates racist paranoia but works against our nation’s economic health. If you don’t care about the former — the paranoia that leads to hate crimes like Saturday’s massacre in Buffalo — then maybe you care about the latter: How hysteria about immigrants hurts the economy and likely contributes to inflation.

Area schools are reluctant to put mask mandates and other COVID mitigation measures back in place, despite rising COVID rates and abundant evidence that masking reduces the spread of COVID. According to news accounts, and personal communication I have had with Baltimore County officials, one of the main reasons for this reluctance is “pushback” from those opposed to a mask mandate, like the protests in August, before school opened, in Baltimore County and in neighboring counties. And no doubt, there have been many other complaints.

Nearly three years after the Fort Meade Museum closed, a contractor team moved three tanks from the vacated building April 18 and 19, so they could be transported to new homes and once again serve as educational tools. The Liberty Mark VIII and M-3A1 light tank will become part of the U.S. Army Armor & Calvary collection at Fort Benning, Georgia, and the FT17/M-1917 hybrid light tank will be on display at the 1st Cavalry Museum at Fort Hood, Texas.