Commentary

Anyone can be a philanthropist, regardless of income, status or net worth. The origin of the word, philanthropy, perhaps explains it best. Derived from the Greek words, “philos,” meaning loving, and “anthropos,” which means humankind, philanthropy is basically giving of talent, time or finances. It means opportunity, aid and kindness in every sense of the word.

Fifteen years ago, I moved to Annapolis for love of two things: a woman and theater — the Bay Theater to be exact, where I worked for six years as the production manager. I’ve spent my life since here in town as a proud father, baseball coach, and local small business owner. I fell in love with this city during that time. No community has ever embraced me as this one has, and I’ll die here.

Every week, it seems, we are hit with yet another headline outlining the latest examples of corruption in the Baltimore City Public School System, which has been failing a tragically large swath of Baltimore’s children for generations. But there is another party just as culpable in this school system’s fraud and failure: the Maryland General Assembly. The General Assembly’s willful blindness to the multitude of problems facing Baltimore City public schools is only surpassed by its unwillingness to act decisively to address issues while simultaneously blocking the efforts of any other agency or body to step in.

Maybe Facebook can’t be fixed. Did anyone ever think of that? As a whistleblower releases damning information, as Congress holds another hearing into the harm the company does, the implicit assumption is that the social-media giant can be reformed, that with the right combination of algorithmic tweaks and legislative remedies, it can cease being a malevolent force.

This week, Mayor Brandon Scott signed into law legislation requiring Baltimore’s three employee pension funds to divest themselves from the fossil fuel industry. Given how controversial divestment proposals have been in the past when social responsibility has run up against high profitability (guns, tobacco, and alcohol to name a few), leaving Exxon Mobil, Chevron and their peer stocks behind proved rather anti-climactic. No protests. No harangues about pension costs down the road. No dissenting voices, frankly.

About an hour after news circulated Tuesday that his former chief of staff, Roy McGrath, had been charged by federal and state prosecutors for plundering the state treasury, among other alleged misdeeds, Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr.’s political committee, An America United, sent out a fundraising solicitation. The subject line of the email was, “He created this mess,” and the pitch began this way: “My friend, I’m frustrated. Are you?

Newspapers — especially community newspapers — are alive and well. We chronicle the lives and times of our neighbors and keep a close eye on the government. In addition to our print products, we maintain an up-to-date website to serve the public. This week is National Newspaper Week, from Oct. 3 through 9, and newspapers are encouraged to promote themselves. Frankly, we don’t do a really good job of self-promotion — not nearly as good as television, probably because we don’t try as hard. We’re generally too busy meeting the next deadline.

“We have been failed, and we deserve answers.” These are the words of Simone Biles, one of the greatest athletes of all time, in her recent testimony to Congress about the utter failure of systems at every level to protect athletes from USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, who sexually abused over 200 gymnasts. As Ms. Biles pointed out, the victims, mostly children and teens at the time of the abuse, could not even rely on the FBI to take serious, swift action after abuse was reported. Sadly, in many cases their own parents didn’t believe them.