Friday, March 29, 2024 | Baltimore, MD
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Commentary

Dan Rodricks: A Baltimore landmark in shambles: Whither the Pepsi sign?

Nobody asked me, but if the Pepsi sign is going to continue to be a landmark on the Jones Falls Expressway, the Pepsi people should fix it. The sign is a tattered mess. While the billion-dollar business that once bottled Pepsi is long gone from below the curvaceous JFX corridor, Baltimoreans and traffic reporters still use the sign as a reference point.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Charter school leaders need to focus on improvement

The Frederick Classical Charter School is an educational conundrum for our community — but one definitely worth solving. Students at public charter school excel academically, consistently outperforming students at the county’s public schools. Families frequently praise the teachers at the school and curriculum. That is great.

Six Baltimore-related shows to watch during the writers strike that aren’t ‘The Wire’

It’s somewhat of an understatement to say that the current TV landscape is a bit … anticlimactic. A lot of shows are up in the air because of the Writers Guild of America strike, as filming has shut down while the people whose words are the baseline of all the stuff you like try to get paid properly for those words.

Navy chooses Baltimore for commissioning newest ship

The Navy’s newest warship, the guided missile destroyer USS Carl Levin, will be commissioned in Baltimore on June 24. Although it isn’t among cities with a Navy installation, the Navy chose Baltimore for the ceremony to commission its newest ship, demonstrating it still sees Baltimore as a Navy town. The city has a rich maritime tradition that was rooted centuries ago. The Navy’s first ship, the USS Constellation, launched in Baltimore in 1797.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison: His calming, steady presence was still not enough

When Michael S. Harrison was sworn in as Baltimore police commissioner in 2019 by then-Mayor Catherine Pugh, he pledged to achieve at least two things. He said he would make the city safe, while helping it meet the requirements of a court-ordered consent decree. In short, fewer murders and more constitutional policing. Four years and three months later, it was announced Thursday that he would be stepping down before the end of his five-year contract in March 2024.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Dan Rodricks: Pastor Hudson’s big dream starts to come true in West Baltimore

These words came to me exactly 55 years from the day I first heard them: “As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and those who sought to touch him: ‘Some men see things as they are and say, “Why?” I dream things that never were and say, “Why not?”’” Those were the last words of Ted Kennedy’s elegy for his slain brother Bobby, delivered June 8, 1968, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
What an 81-year-old swimmer can teach us about aging and identity

Marty Wasserman fell off his horse. Sitting in the screened-in porch of his Ellicott City home on Monday, he told a story of how he was riding his horse, T, last summer when the animal was startled by a noise and threw him. At 80, any fall can be a disaster. But this was a full-on flop to the ground from the saddle of a tall bay. Wasserman injured his face and his ribs.

Maryland’s lengthening commutes raise the reckless driving threat

Last year, researchers hired by the Maryland Department of Transportation conducted a survey to assess post-pandemic commuting in the state. The results documented some fundamental changes in society. First, the study found, two-thirds of the state’s workforce now works remotely or under a hybrid system. And second, while this trend takes some vehicles off the road, there has been an offsetting pattern of both longer commutes and a reluctance to take public transit, bike or walk to work.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Petty crime citations: Ivan Bates delivers on a Baltimore state’s attorney campaign promise

Ivan Bates emerged victorious in the pivotal Democratic primary last July to become Baltimore’s state’s attorney with the message that he would not only get tougher on those who commit acts of violence but that he would also hold accountable low-level offenders. Not that those convicted of loitering, drug possession or public drunkenness would all be locked up and the key thrown away, but that there would be enforcement and “consequences” depending on the “case and offender.”

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Viewpoint: Eminent domain preys upon city homeowners with few resources

The government’s right to take privately owned real property by means of eminent domain is one of few circumstances where a private property owner may be forced to part with his or her property. We saw an example of this with Baltimore’s use of eminent domain in the Poppleton neighborhood to make way for an apartment complex.

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