News and Views
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Who will win the race for county executive? Nobody.
Read more: Who will win the race for county executive? Nobody.As of this writing, there are five candidates chasing the Democratic primary win for county executive: Will Jawando, Evan Glass, Andrew Friedson, Celeste Iroha, and Mithun Banerjee. This guarantees that nobody will win a majority vote. Let’s get into the details. The “winner” of our local primary elections is the one who accumulates the most…
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Jawando’s Seven Black Fathers: Part 4—Catholic University vs. NAACP
Read more: Jawando’s Seven Black Fathers: Part 4—Catholic University vs. NAACPIn chapter 6 of My Seven Black Fathers, Will Jawando describes his struggle to improve the lot of service workers at Catholic University. He noticed how terribly the service workers were treated—by students, managers, and administration. He sought to open a chapter of the NAACP that would represent those workers. A social-justice sociology professor, Dean…
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Unions, conference centers, and Michael Bell’s three steps of local policy grief
Read more: Unions, conference centers, and Michael Bell’s three steps of local policy griefIn On Death and Dying, Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross describes what has become a useful model for the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. While not universally accepted, this model quite remarkably describes my recovery from two difficult losses, one emotional, another financial. The best part of Dr. Ross’s model is…
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Jawando’s Seven Black Fathers: Part 3—Education Reform (or not)
Read more: Jawando’s Seven Black Fathers: Part 3—Education Reform (or not)Throughout My Seven Black Fathers, Will Jawando returns several times to his experiences (good and bad) in school, as well as the differential treatment between white and black school children. In Chapter 2, Jawando relates horrific treatment at the hands of a teacher’s assistant at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic school. Being falsely accused of…
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Affordable housing: We need bulldozers, not corridors
Read more: Affordable housing: We need bulldozers, not corridorsGo to the soft-drink aisle of the supermarket, stand in front of the display for 16.9 oz Coca Cola bottles, and you will see something absolutely amazing. The level of the beverage inside the bottles is almost identical. You’ll probably never find a bottle with exactly 16.9 ounces, but all of them—millions of them—will be…
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Jawando’s Seven Black Fathers: Part 2—Choked Housing
Read more: Jawando’s Seven Black Fathers: Part 2—Choked HousingIn the lead-up to the vote on his 2023 rent control bill, Will Jawando mentioned that as a child he experienced what it’s like to live in sub-standard housing. How did that happen, and what was it like? He describes the deplorable situation in My Seven Black Fathers (p. 20–21): Dad paid child support when…
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Call To Action: Help Jane Decolonize Montgomery County Public Schools
Read more: Call To Action: Help Jane Decolonize Montgomery County Public SchoolsTLDR; Scroll to the bottom of this post and send urgent emails to the County Council and our Annapolis delegation demanding that MCPS issue a high school diploma to Jane Doe (we don’t know her true name). Forced conversion and assimilation is a topic that comes up in most histories of conquest and colonization. Canadians…
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Jawando’s Seven Black Fathers: Part 1—A Must Read
Read more: Jawando’s Seven Black Fathers: Part 1—A Must ReadIn 1930, the Soviet newspaper Pravda published an article by Josef Stalin in which he summarized his accomplishments in agricultural policy: The Soviet government’s successes in the sphere of the collective-farm movement are now being spoken of by everyone. Even our enemies are forced to admit that the successes are substantial. And they really are…
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John Locke, Tyranny, and MoCo
Read more: John Locke, Tyranny, and MoCoOne of DC’s architectural treasures is Georgetown’s Riggs Library. Quoting Atlas Obscura, “Riggs has four floors of cast iron walkways laid out around a central light court. Sixteen columns divide the hall into smaller alcoves and two spiral staircases connect walkways.” Trust me, Riggs is one of those spots for which viewing electronic images is…
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Attach Performance Metrics to All Future MCPS Budgets: Our Children’s Education Depends on Our Fiscal Prudence
Read more: Attach Performance Metrics to All Future MCPS Budgets: Our Children’s Education Depends on Our Fiscal PrudenceThe County Council, County Executive, and MCPS are placing its residents in a moral and financial bind. On the table, there appears to be a dialectical dilemma: our children’s future or fiscal prudence. However, an honest discussion regarding fully funding MCPS above and beyond historical trends demands that we resolve the following questions: How can…