Commentary

The Baltimore Police Department makes an inviting target for critics these days. Not only does the city’s high homicide tally continue apace, but other crimes from robbery to carjacking have been rising in recent months, too. Police accountability and a court-supervised consent decree to address longtime racial inequities that were spotlighted by the Freddie Gray uprising seven years ago are, at best, works in progress. And did someone mention public corruption?

Hiring men — but not women — is sexist. And in most cases, it violates the law. Recently, for the second year in a row, we joined migrant worker women and their allies in demanding that the U.S. government stop businesses from discriminating against women once and for all. And last week, U.S. Department of Labor Deputy Secretary Julie Su traveled to Mexico to meet with stakeholders, including my Baltimore-based organization, Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, about protecting women’s rights.

NASCAR fire suits resemble patchwork quilts. Golfers wear them on their jerseys and caps. Umpires sport a few, as do minor league baseball uniforms. And now, under a new agreement, so will Major League Baseball uniforms be stitched with patches advertising teams’ sponsors and underwriters, kind of like moving billboards promoting a range of companies and products that appeal to sports fans. It’s all about the revenue stream, and it’s part of a deal that Major League Baseball team owners reached with players’ negotiators after threatening the season’s start. Everybody gets money.

Horrific scenes of mass murder on the outskirts of Kyiv should appall everybody and surprise nobody. The brutalization of civilians has been the Putin regime’s calling card since its inception — from the Moscow apartment bombings of 1999, where the weight of circumstantial evidence points the finger at Vladimir Putin and his security service henchmen, to the murders of Anna Politkovskaya, Alexander Litvinenko, Sergei Magnitsky and Boris Nemtsov to Russia’s atrocities in Grozny, eastern Ukraine, Aleppo and now Bucha.

Near the geographic center of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, a narrow creek winds through a small rural Pennsylvania valley. Here, in the early 1700s, settlers built a dam that unwittingly damaged one of nature’s best water pollution filters — valley bottom wetlands — ushering in an era of water quality decline throughout the region. The 20-foot dam powered a grist mill and formed a pond extending more than a mile upstream, large and deep enough (as much as 20 feet) for people to boat, fish, skate or swim.

Michael Razzi shared his story during this year’s General Assembly session about how he began to experience memory problems at age 58. A battery of cognitive tests did not provide a definitive answer, and by his own admission, the St. Mary’s County resident “was in a pretty dark place.” He was later diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, finding help and hope through counseling and a community support group. Michael now tells his story publicly, knowing — over time — he will lose the ability to respond to his environment, to carry on a conversation and, eventually, to control movement.

On Monday in Baltimore, the Orioles will host the Milwaukee Brewers for the 2022 home opener. With any luck, some 40,000 to 50,000 fans will head downtown to take in the festivities; starting in and around the hotels, restaurants and bars near Camden Yards. Many will eventually file into our city’s beautiful baseball stadium, celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. And not a moment too soon. For one afternoon, toward the end (we hope) of a global pandemic and in a city that can use a boost of positive energy, here’s hoping the day will serve as a wonderful throwback to what once was, and what can be again.