Commentary

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.”

When confronted with a vexing and evolving problem, managers are sometimes tempted to go for the big solution, to bite the bullet and create a plan that will fix the problem for several years, rather than make incremental change. When the problem is simply a matter of numbers, that can sometimes be the right path. But when the problem involves people, the big idea can be disruptive and divisive.

One of the great things about working at Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, was the constant stream of candidates for U.S. House and Senate who would come by for interviews. When I was there, from 2002 to 2010, Roll Call shared offices with The Rothenberg Political Report. Getting grilled by our reporters and the Rothenberg folks became part of the ritual for congressional contenders on their visits to Washington, D.C., along with meetings with party leaders, campaign strategists, interest groups, lobbyists, and donors.

Students tell Hopkins researchers about impact on their lives and education And I know, maybe, it’ll probably be a little bit more expensive, but at the same time, it’s, “How much do you care about the student?” That comment came from Kendra, an 18-year-old Baltimore City Public Schools student who participated in one of 187 interviews conducted and analyzed by the Nobody Asked Me research team in the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University.