Commentary

Many years ago, the Chesapeake Bay’s seafood bounty — like hidden pirate treasure — generated its share of human conflict. Among the most memorable was the Oyster Wars, a series of clashes dating back to the 1830s with scalawags descending from all over, looking to cash in on the valuable bivalves. Later, the skirmishes mostly involved watermen from Maryland and Virginia looking to harvest more than state laws allowed.

The Fourth of July. Does any other phrase ring so strongly in the hearts of all Americans? The Fourth is an important and beloved national holiday. It is Independence Day, the day on which America’s united states (not yet a country but a powerful idea of one) came together as a Continental Congress to tell the world they were going to form a new nation.

In January, one man will stand on stage at the Capitol and take an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” For most of American history, this occasion has been a matter of ceremony, with little doubt that the president would fulfill his oath, regardless of which political party he represented. But this time we can’t afford to take it for granted.

It’s right there near the top of the Declaration of Independence. “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” are the unalienable rights bestowed on us by our creator. As we approach Independence Day, let’s not think too hard on whether Thomas Jefferson should have written “inalienable” instead of “unalienable.” Instead, what the heck did America’s most famously flawed founder mean by the pursuit of happiness?

A number of people have asked me some version of: “Why would you leave a lovely family and a perfectly comfortable home to traverse the East Coast by foot for half a year, climbing every mountain along the way?” To answer that question, I need to share a piece of personal lore that might at first seem unrelated, but I promise I’m going somewhere with it.

“The Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor declared in her dissent from Monday’s Trump v. United States ruling. The decision virtually guarantees that special counsel Jack Smith’s Jan. 6 case against the former president won’t move to trial before the election.

As disinformation and misinformation become major tools of global conflict, democracies need to decide when and how they should influence populations abroad. Influence campaigns are undoubtedly necessary, but how to conduct them according to democratic values is less obvious. The Pentagon has offered a good lesson in what not to do. A clandestine disinformation campaign against Chinese coronavirus vaccines in 2020 and 2021, a program just revealed in an investigation by Reuters, was a grave error.

For anyone living in Baltimore, it is all too easy to recognize the devastating impact of gun violence, particularly on young Black men from less affluent neighborhoods. We have grown accustomed to the yearly, monthly and even weekly body counts. While the number of homicides and non-fatal shootings has thankfully declined recently — falling to the lowest level in a decade last year — it is staggering to comprehend the broader and lingering impact of guns on our community.