Commentary

If you’re like me, you watch one of the local Baltimore news stations when you’re putting on your jammies at the end of a long day.  With luck and cool sheets, you’ll be asleep before you hear the lead stories about murder and mayhem in the big city. Forget about all the wonderful and impressive things the people of Baltimore do every day.  Crime is the lead story.

Frederick County Councilman Kai Hagen’s decision to interject himself in what appeared to be a lawful traffic stop being conducted by a sheriff’s deputy last month was wrong. Hagen, who was with his wife in the area of U.S. 15 and Catoctin Furnace Road on June 20, said he pulled over near the traffic stop as a “concerned citizen” and wanted to make sure the motorist, who was Black, was OK. The deputy recognized Hagen and told him to leave because he was blocking the road and interfering in the stop.

The paralysis in Maryland over Gov. Larry Hogan’s push to expand parts of two key important transportation arteries, the Beltway and Interstate 270, is a triumph of partisanship, myopia and parochialism that poses a threat to the Washington region’s long-term welfare. There are no victors in Maryland’s dysfunction, but the losers are obvious: commuters hoping to avert a future of increasingly nightmarish highway congestion.

Jarrod Ramos is on trial to determine if his killing of five innocent journalists at The Capital Gazette was due to his being “not criminally responsible” in the terms of Maryland’s insanity statute. To reasonable sentient people, the slaying of Gerald Fischman (editorial page editor), Rob Hiaasen (assistant editor and columnist), John McNamara (sports reporter), Rebecca Smith (sales assistant) and Wendi Winters (special publication editor) and the non-fatal attacks on others present were a wholly premeditated act.

The economic news couldn’t be better, right? U.S. employers added 559,000 jobs in May and the unemployment rate is falling. President Biden says his proposed $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan would create 19 million more jobs. The massive plan would rebuild roads and bridges, fund public transportation and affordable housing, modernize schools, replace lead water pipes and more. This is great news for cities hard hit by the pandemic. But Baltimore can’t just return to the pre-pandemic status quo of declining population and staggering inequality and hope for the best.

WEAA-FM, Morgan State University’s public radio station, will debut a talk show tonight co-hosted by Anthony McCarthy, who has served as spokesman for three Baltimore City mayors and two members of Congress. McCarthy will be co-hosting with Cara Williams, a former Baltimore City police officer for two decades who is now in her senior year at Morgan State’s School for Global Journalism and Communications, according to a university news release. The show titled “Two Way Talk” will air from 5 to 7 p.m. weekdays.

Montgomery County is currently debating 5G cellular technology and improving infrastructure. While MedChi, the Maryland State Medical Society, does not normally get involved in local zoning matters, we do think Montgomery County needs to consider health care as it considers its technology infrastructure. One only needs to look to the recent pandemic to see the importance of access to high-speed internet.

In April 2020, with the pandemic in full swing, The Economist published: “A Grim Calculus: COVID-19 presents stark choices between life, death and the economy.” Soon Americans were blaming the lockdowns for recession and, in the words of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, “the destruction of millions of lives across America … without any corresponding benefit in COVID mortality.” Before the end of the year, some states, notably Texas, were ending COVID restrictions with the goal of improving their economic activity.

If we needed any more proof about how unhealthy the American population is, and how bad the health care system is at addressing it, COVID-19 provided it. The lives taken by the virus itself made for the country’s deadliest year in history. But also contributing to the unfortunate milestone were increases in deaths from what have become some of the most chronic, yet preventable, diseases.

The past three elections saw record turnout and ushered in a new wave of reform-minded progressive officials in Baltimore City government and on the Baltimore City Democratic State Central Committee. In 2018, I joined a wave of young and diverse candidates seeking to reform and reenergize the central committee. We ran on a platform of increased voter engagement, reforming the Maryland General Assembly legislative vacancy appointment process, and ensuring the committee truly elevated younger, community-driven and diverse political talent, not just serving as a club for insiders and their family members.