Commentary

Dear Baltimore: I have loved you and lived with you for the better part of a decade. I love you, I really do, but I think it’s time we have The Talk. You are failing me and your half-a-million residents. What happened? Roughly a week ago, my partner and I were woken by piercing screams directly outside our window near Patterson Park. We ran to the window in time to witness the tail-end of a violent carjacking in the street.

Holly Beach Farm is a garden of marshes, coves and coastal woodlands with sweeping views that include the Chesapeake Bay Bridge — a twin expanse of steel over blue-green waters dotted by boats and ships. Now this environmental treasure is up for grabs. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation on Wednesday posted a notice calling for letters of interest in taking over the 300-acre site just across the Severn River from Annapolis.

Twelve years ago, my son and I visited Maine for a fishing trip on the Androscoggin River. We went to a Walmart because those stores reliably sold licenses, and the experience would have been thoroughly unremarkable and forgotten if not for the guy who walked in and bought a rifle. Though his purchase process had started at roughly the same time ours did, he walked out of the store with the rifle — sorry, gun lovers, can’t remember which make and model — just before we left with our paper licenses.

The late Everett Dirksen, the conservative Republican who served as Senate minority leader in the 1960s, reportedly once said the following: “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.” Such gallows humor provided a small comfort while reviewing the latest state legislative audit, which revealed that the Maryland Department of Health can’t account for about $1.4 billion it received from the federal government during the final three years of Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration.

The full impact of social media on our children’s lives is still being studied and debated, but much of the ugly evidence of harm is right in front of our eyes. From body shaming to bullying to — in the most extreme cases — suicide, parents know how the pervasive social media environment is hurting young people. growing up in this brave, new world.

You know how at the end of “The Dark Knight,” Lt. Gordon (Gary Oldman) describes Batman as “the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now”? In the case of Baltimore, I believe that Jeremy Henry is both. In just a few moments of radio airtime, he cheerfully defended our beleaguered but beloved city to a national audience, bravely withstanding surprise and some good-natured light scoffing. Heroic, indeed.

“Women to Watch” in The Baltimore Sun lifted my spirit as I read about the 25 women who were highlighted for outstanding performance in Baltimore this year. Almost half are African-American, and at least one each is Cuban American, Asian American and a native of India. Think of the diversity of backgrounds that each one brings: family traditions and values; education and personal achievements. The Baltimore area is enriched by their talents and experience.

As Maryland’s 6th Congressional District representative and a candidate for the Senate, David Trone talks a lot about criminal justice reform, a subject embraced over the last decade by formerly tough-on-crime Democrats and even by a few Republicans who see potential dividends in smaller prison populations. Trone’s expressed interests in seeing fairness and integrity in law enforcement and second chances for ex-offenders appear to be genuine — not simply a way to flash progressive colors as he tries to convince Maryland Democratic primary voters that he should be the one to succeed the retiring Ben Cardin.