Commentary

What will it take for the interim state superintendent Carey Wright to live up to her advance billing, especially as a miracle worker for raising the reading proficiency of schoolchildren in Mississippi? Of course, Dr. Wright is quick to point out that it was no miracle, just a lot of hard work. What’s also crucial to understand is that the hard work – the recipe for success – is not some secret sauce. Educators know the instruction and teacher preparation that are essential.

I have been reading with great interest the lively commentary to David Plymyer’s excellent piece about proposed projects at Harborplace and Camden Yards and the need for urban design and community engagement. I would like to add my perspective as former chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority (MSA) and one who was part of the discussion of a comprehensive, transformative vision for these and many other developments underway in downtown Baltimore.

It’s beginning to look a lot like the holiday season in Frederick. The cold snap this week gave us a preview of winter. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or something else with your family and friends, you know what’s coming. Frederick is a great place to enjoy the festivities of December. The city is all aglow in lights, from the historic district downtown to the shopping centers to the north, south, east and west of the city, to the smaller towns and cities around the county. Homeowners are decorating, as are business owners.

I came to Baltimore as a medical student in 1995 in the midst of a raging deadly syndemic of substance use (heroin and crack cocaine), syphilis, hepatitis C and HIV infection. Toward the end of my four years of medical school, early, effective antiretroviral treatment “cocktails” became available, and the near certainty of death became less the norm and more an exception. For nearly two decades as an adult and pediatric infectious diseases specialist, I have provided HIV care to a majority Black patient population, spanning from infants to seniors, in Baltimore.

My old friend Calvert Bregel, gone 12 years now, used to treat me to trips on his great boat, the Miss Demeanor, to fish for Chesapeake striped bass — rockfish, as they are known around here — and we had many merry times on the bay. With Bill Burton, who was for decades the outdoors writer of the bygone Evening Sun, we caught lots of fish and released most. Now and then, we took a rockfish home for supper, but the idea was more camaraderie than consumption.

Nobody asked me, but people who claim that the late James Rouse faced virtually no opposition when he set out to build Harborplace 40-plus years ago are just plain wrong. I’ve seen this claim made in defense of Baltimore-based developer David Bramble and his plan to remake Harborplace with four large buildings, including apartment towers. “Bet y’all didn’t ask or question Jim Rouse and his vision,” a woman wrote on Facebook.

In the next week, Maryland Attorney General Anthony G. Brown is expected to decide how best to deal with the Nov. 21 federal appeals court decision overturning key provisions in a decade-old gun safety law requiring handgun purchasers be fingerprinted, trained and face a waiting period of up to 30 days. A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled that these restrictions failed the standard set by the U.S. Supreme Court in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen last year that such limits must be “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”