Commentary

I was working on a column about AI fakes, motivated by allegations that a former high school athletic director had ginned up a phony recording of his former principal saying terrible things. Then somebody went and old-schooled me. A man taking photos of students at a local school Tuesday afternoon was approached by staff members who asked who he was and what he was doing.

I am writing to bring attention to a matter of utmost importance to Carroll County, the funding of our local school budget. Carroll County has been slowly starving its schools of the funding needed to best support students and communities, and implement the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. However, the blame does NOT lie with our current Board of County Commissioners. As Superintendent Cynthia McCabe has said at numerous town hall meetings, surrounding counties are better equipped to handle the national educator shortage because they retained the additional staff they needed to stay nimble.

The Baltimore region’s business community has long identified public transportation as a crucial component of our region’s economic competitiveness. A world-class transit system bolsters inclusive economic growth, ensures access to opportunity and attracts top talent to the region. That’s why it’s so important that we celebrate the action taken by the Moore-Miller administration and the Maryland General Assembly this session to make smart, fiscally responsible investments in our region’s transit.

Political campaigns are, by their very nature, theatrical events. Characters are presented — often with personalities larger than life — and a narrative emerges. We’ve certainly seen this throughout the Baltimore mayoral race, but the voting audience was hit with quite an Act III plot twist Wednesday. Attorney Thiru Vignarajah, running a distant third in the crowded Democratic primary for mayor, dropped out of the race and endorsed former Mayor Sheila Dixon after having loudly blasted her as “corrupt” in his campaign ads.

On an exceptionally hot spring afternoon at “The Beach” Tuesday, near the East Gate of Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood campus, a group of about 100 students (with some non-students mixed in) were, in the words of one participant, acting “pretty chill.” Most sat on the grass as if attending a picnic. Food and drinks were provided, there was a scattering of pop-up awnings for shade, and small groups quietly chatted.

Finding out a new acquaintance is a fellow rabid fan of “Homicide: Life On The Street” is akin to when that little girl dressed like a bee in Blind Melon’s “No Rain” video discovers a whole welcoming village of bee folk: It’s meeting your people. It’s an especially precious relationship based on a mutual love of a Baltimore-set show that went off the air 24 years ago, has only been sporadically available in reruns and is completely absent from streaming platforms.

This year’s session of the Maryland General Assembly had its share of achievements and disappointments, but it was the failure to pass Senate Bill 29 that should prompt some soul-searching, especially among the leadership of the House of Delegates. SB 29 would have placed a measure on November’s ballot seeking voter approval of a long-overdue constitutional amendment changing the manner in which vacancies in the state Senate and House of Delegates are filled.