Commentary

I have never considered President Joe Biden a thinker of big ideas. Former President Barack Obama, sure. Mr. Biden, not so much. But in his news conference last week, Mr. Biden said something that I have been thinking about since. And the more I chew on it as I try to sort through all the major stories vying for the media and the public’s attention this week, the keener an insight Mr. Biden’s words seem to offer.

Last week, CNN aired an interview during which former head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Robert Redfield said that COVID-19 “most likely” originated in a lab in Wuhan, China. This was unfortunate for a number of reasons, one of which being that it’s probably untrue. Most leading experts have dismissed the theory of accidental infection of a lab worker (deliberate release by the Chinese government is strictly the province of QANon conspiracy theorists) as doubtful, including the World Health Organization.

I have more than three years of full-time math teaching experience in two different school districts. Every year I have been in the classroom I’ve received a rating of either effective or highly effective. Additionally, I prefer to teach in Title 1 schools, which are traditionally harder to staff. It is my aim to teach in Baltimore City next school year and do my best to serve the Charm City community, but when I applied to Baltimore City Public Schools I was told I did not meet the requirements.

Google is everybody’s rap sheet. Grand juries usually launch with a paper trail and people wearing badges riffling through swatches of newspaper clippings, or, these days, printouts from news sites. Those stacks of paper are a form of autobiography. They tell who a person is, what the person does, where the person’s been, and, if the proctoscopic analysis is thorough, where the pot of gold is buried.

The Baltimore County Council is expected to offer some level of financial oversight of the county’s school system, its superintendent and governing board, particularly as budget time approaches. Asking questions, debating spending requests, even having conversations about sensitive issues like school redistricting or renovation priorities, all are part of the normal back and forth. But recently, the council dispatched a letter to the school system that should raise some hackles. It was not typical of the customary give and take. It was certainly cordial enough (there was no name-calling or direct threats). But where it went astray was in attempting to set COVID-19-related educational policy for Baltimore County Public Schools.

I remember how I felt when I played soccer for the first time. Long before I was winning World Cup matches, I was trying to keep up with my brother. Soccer has been a part of my life since I was 4 years old. I spent hours outside working to perfect that next move — I wanted to be the best. Being able to play sports as a child shaped my life’s path. It taught me so much more than is seen on the field and brought me so much joy. Every child deserves to have that experience. That’s why I believe that all kids, including transgender youth, should be able to participate in sports they love.

It was a normal transaction. A man went to a licensed gun store north of Atlanta, filled out paperwork, got an instant background check, paid the bill and walked out with a gun. No waiting period; no required safety or training class. And just hours later, according to authorities, that 21-year-old man used that 9mm handgun to kill eight people in a rampage that targeted Asian spas. The obvious question that emerges is “What if?”

What struck me the most was the noise coming from all the wrong places. Thursday afternoon, I sat in the chamber of the Georgia State Senate and watched as my colleagues, one after another, went up to the well to speak out against Senate Bill 202, a true Frankenstein’s monster of voter-suppression measures. It was clearly designed to ensure that a record Democratic turnout like the one in November — and in the state’s U.S. Senate runoffs in January — never happens again.

For nearly a decade, CASA, ACLU of Maryland, advocates and hundreds of immigrant families across the state have fought to end Maryland’s partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. After years of little movement in the General Assembly, Maryland lawmakers are in a greater position than ever to pass the Trust Act this session. Black and Latinx immigrants across Maryland live in fear of being unlawfully arrested, detained, separated from their families, and deported because of the cruel policies of state and local law enforcement.

I never thought I would cheer for a lawsuit against a media company with the word “news” in its title. But then, despite use of the word by Fox, there is very little that could be called news on Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing channel. From the moment of its birth in 1996 it was more a political tool of the right than a journalistic enterprise. That was the way founder Roger Ailes built it, and that is mainly how it has remained.