Commentary

As the weather turns cold, the threat of house fires rises. People spend more time indoors; they turn on portable space heaters or light fires in fireplaces or leave on stoves or ovens, and the risks naturally go up with the season. Open flames are a threat, but so are smoldering embers that produce poisonous carbon monoxide if not properly vented. Falling asleep with a cigarette in hand is a common cause of fatal fires, as are unattended children, who might be inclined to play with flames when there is no adult supervision.

I’ve been anxiously awaiting kicking the year 2021 into the dustbin of history. However today, I started to think about Dante’s long narrative poem “Divine Comedy.” Dante framed his book using the Christian construct for the afterlife, dividing the book into sections: “Paradiso” or Heaven, “Purgatorio” or Purgatory and “Inferno” or Hell. I had thought that there was very little positive about 2021. I then started thinking about my personal interactions with people I hardly know. I realized that, according to Dante, many of these people will end up in paradise. I have been treated so well by so many people.

Spider-Man: No Way Home not only concludes a trilogy, but it is the culmination of every Spider-Man film. It is the most ambitious Marvel film since Avengers: Endgame.

Continuing Spider-Man: Far from Home, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is revealed as Spider-Man which causes him pain and chaos for friends Ned and MJ (Zendaya) and his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei).  Desperate to have his anonymity back, he sees Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) for a spell to fix things, but it goes horribly wrong unleashing a multiverse of past iterations, especially major villains (Willem Dafoe, Jamie Foxx, Alfred Molina et al). To complicate matters, Peter realizes that these villains are doomed in their world and wonders if they can be “saved” even as the multiverse becomes more complex and dangerous. And so begins a battle royal between good and evil.

This dark, heartfelt storyline with its themes of redemption, personal loss, love, and sacrifice, has poignant moments throughout, especially at the end which serves as an endpoint for the franchise. Featuring countless Easter Eggs (amazing, surprise appearances), and call backs to the past, tears will be shed amid cheers and laughter as familiar, beloved faces appear. Major characters get substantial screen time and even achieve a degree of closure.   Despite early, slow moments, director Jon Watts deftly orchestrates a multitude of characters and subplots without losing focus. There are a number of memorable moments and emotional payoffs for those who have watched these films from the beginning.

This is Holland’s best performance to date as his Peter Parker matures right before our eyes while forced to confront crises with real stakes. For Spider-Man enthusiasts, this is Nirvana; this is as good as it gets. It’s a supremely entertaining, mind-boggling film made for its fandom. (There are two end credit scenes.)

When the pandemic hit, we started giving money to people who needed it — and it helped. Our efforts have worked so well, in fact, that the District of Columbia is building on our model and plans to launch a $1.5 million pilot program for cash transfers. We knew that our neighbors were the experts in their own lives and that they would know best how to utilize financial resources to support their families. And our instincts were right.

The Maryland General Assembly on Dec. 6 listened to its constituents and voted into law collective bargaining rights for community college employees over the governor’s veto. It’s an historic day for tens of thousands of Marylanders who have been denied this basic right. While I am overjoyed that my colleagues and I will soon have the same rights as countless other employees in our state, I am equally dismayed that it took a veto override to make it happen. I have always been a Republican.

As the city surpasses another tragic milestone, passing 300 homicides for the seventh year straight, much of the media and pundits try to provide answers to a perennial problem. Many would have you believe that the communities most impacted by the violence, want a return to zero-tolerance, tough-on-crime policing. But the reality is so much more nuanced than that. Everyone agrees that our homicide rate is too high, but those who seem to rally against the problem with no real solutions and want to return to the pre-2015 days should ask themselves what price they are willing to pay. A reckoning has occurred nationwide on policing, and that cannot simply be ignored.

Maybe it was the sudden and distressing news about a relative, or because 800,000 Americans have died in the pandemic, or because of the incessant gun violence in Baltimore. Whatever the reason, I decided it was time to pull over and watch a man carve a bear out of wood with a chain saw. Near Grantsville, in Western Maryland, Bob Wilt, the bearded bear carver of Bittinger Road, put on a face shield and hearing protectors.

For 81 years, the Harry W. Nice Memorial/Senator Thomas “Mac” Middleton Bridge has provided a crucial highway link between Southern Maryland and Virginia. But the two-lane Potomac River crossing on U.S. 301 has in recent years been regarded as wholly inadequate with increasing traffic congestion and delays. Plans for a replacement showed up on the Maryland Transportation Authority’s drawing boards about a decade ago with construction finally launched last summer.

Last December, Mackenzie Scott, the philanthropist and former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, donated $85 million to three of Maryland’s four Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCUs. The recipients of the generosity were Bowie State University, Morgan State University and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES). The gift generated a lot of buzz. But truth be told, there has been an abundance of good news unfolding at those three HBCUs as well as the fourth, Coppin State University, with more good news to come.