Commentary

It’s a big number: $1.8 billion. And one I’ll be telling a lot of people about as I arrive in Baltimore for trans-Atlantic trade talks. The dollar figure is the total worth of all the goods and services that Maryland exported to the United Kingdom in 2019, just before the pandemic hit, making us Maryland’s fourth largest export market. In fact, it seems we Brits can’t get enough of Maryland’s world class goods: State exports to the U.K. are up 49% to $545 million in the decade leading to 2019, and services trade dollars increased by 30% to $1.2 billion over the same period.

Elected officials in Annapolis have a chance to do something great this legislative session. The faith community and Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake thank Sen. Paul Pinsky and the Maryland Senate for passage of Senate Bill 528, and we encourage the House of Delegates to support the Climate Solutions Now legislation. Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake works with hundreds of congregations of all faiths across Maryland who have made a strong commitment to our environment.

The Baltimore Sun editorial board’s apology is laudable for its intent, but only half the story was told. As a result, the full scope of The Sun’s role in constructing Baltimore apartheid was obscured and minimized. In fact, this is precisely emblematic of the ongoing problem with The Sun as a media institution — it rarely tells the whole story. Throughout its 185 year history, The Sun intentionally crafted dominant narratives that deeply damaged Black Lives and Black neighborhoods. The Sun maliciously deployed white supremacist propaganda while actively participating in slave trading at the Inner Harbor through advertisements, demonizing Black political representation and voting rights, and provoking white homeowners to block homebuying while Black.

Nobody asked me, but the new left field wall at Oriole Park is going to need a name. When the alteration is complete, the wall will be 26 1/2 feet deeper, at 384 feet from home plate, and about 13 feet high. That’s only about a third as high as Fenway’s Green Monster. But a 13-foot wall in a big, strange nook of left field has great potential for high drama. In fact, the wall could become notorious, and notorious will deserve a name. Please send suggestions, O’s fans, after you get a look at the thing.

On March 1, Ivan Bates, a Democratic primary candidate for Baltimore City state’s attorney, released his plan for decreasing violent crime in Baltimore City. One change that Bates would make: to resume prosecution of prostitution, something Marilyn Mosby has discontinued as state’s attorney. Bates contends that such prosecutions would allow for positive intervention in the lives of victims of sex trafficking. He could not be more wrong.

It is no secret that the American health care system is broken and immoral. While other industrialized nations have achieved universal coverage, we have millions underinsured or uninsured and can’t afford the care they need. We’ve prioritized profits over people for way too long. While it is true the expansion of Medicaid in Maryland has caused a significant decrease in the rate of the uninsured, there are still major gaps in health care access. Almost 6% of Marylanders are still uninsured, and Marylanders living in or near poverty are almost three times as likely to be uninsured.

In 1994, I was a young journalist in the information graphics department at The Detroit News, just two years out of college. In April of that year, the Rwandan genocide — a war of ethnic tensions — erupted, resulting in 100 days of unspeakable carnage. The United States, still stinging from its failed peacekeeping mission in Somalia the year before, refused to fully intervene. I saw it as an unconscionable abdication of moral leadership. I felt angry and helpless. It seemed to me that no one really cared.

When it comes to transit, Maryland hasn’t been lacking for studies or plans in recent years. Whether it be the MARC Cornerstone Plan of 2019, the 2020 bill to study extending MARC Penn Line service south to Alexandria and north to Newark, Del., the 2021 bill to study extending MARC Brunswick Line service west towards Hagerstown, or Prince George’s County’s 2021 plan to boost transit-oriented development (TOD) around its four Blue Line stations, the state has had no shortage of schemes to expand and improve its rail lines and the development that springs up around them.