Commentary

It is hard to imagine that any governor of Maryland would approve Lenny Cirincione for parole from prison. A jury convicted him of murdering a Baltimore police officer in 1986, and no governor — Republican or Democrat — wants to be the one who declares 35 years of incarceration sufficient punishment for that. Not even an outgoing governor planning to retire to Ocean Pines would dare grant Cirincione freedom.

I had not watched a Carroll County Board of Education meeting in quite a while, but I did watch on Nov. 10. For those of you who are regular viewers, I commend you on your endurance. I’ve commented before on the county public schools’ long struggle to diversify it faculty. Regrettably, the results just posted by the school system show another year of no meaningful progress. The main excuse this time around for the lack of improvement recruiting minority teachers is everyone has the same problem, so the failure to make real progress should be viewed as understandable. We’ve heard this before.

There’s been a lot of justifiable complaints this year about how most states handle redistricting. Two plans released Wednesday give near perfect examples of how to do it right and how to do it wrong. Maryland’s legislature is the template for how to do it wrong. The Democratic-led body ignored the work of a good government committee co-chaired by Walter Olson (no relation, though he is a friend), and approved a naked partisan gerrymander on a predictably party-line vote.

In the United States, and around the world, protests are vital forms of political expression. The ability of protesters to deliver their message depends on the presence of journalists, who not only inform the public but also hold the police accountable when they engage in violence or abuse. But this fundamental right is being undermined by police abuse of journalists themselves, according to a new report by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

We rely on our cell phones, tablets and computers for work, school and life; even more so since the pandemic hit. One brand reigns large for personal electronics: Apple. After all, the maker of Macs since 1984 and iPhones since 2007 has put the world in our pockets and transformed the way we live. But while Apple often garners praise, the company’s extreme restrictions on repair have hurt consumers and small businesses across Maryland.

In the largest study of its kind to date, a 2020 analysis of more than 3 million U.S. patients’ hospital admissions between 2012 and 2017 found that adults who are Black or from other underrepresented racial or ethnic groups received up to 10% fewer early treatments for heart problems than white patients. Medical bias according to race and gender is so powerful that even mega stars like Serena Williams have nearly died from it.

Laughable. That was my reaction when I saw the four congressional district maps released by legislative leaders in early November. I laughed. Let’s call it gerrymander lite. The boundaries were less ridiculous than the maps drawn 10 years ago that had some of the oddest shapes in the country. But the proposals still bore the imprint of Democrats’ power to draw lines that favor their party. How could they not?

When I served in the Maryland House of Delegates from 2007-2011, my number one priority was making state government more transparent. At the time, votes taken by legislators in committees (and those are the most important votes) were not posted online. The only way a member of the public could access them was by travelling to Annapolis and requesting them in-person. I changed all that with the Legislative Voting Sunshine Act. Now those votes are promptly posted online and everyone can easily see them.

The three of us come from different backgrounds — one is a small-business owner, one provides biotech training to under- and un-employed people, and one runs a program to help people overcome obstacles and land family-supporting jobs. But we come together to plead with our elected leaders to pass legislation to fix Maryland’s inadequate transit system.