Interesting...
- March 5
I just listened to a great podcast: Radiolab interviewed John Scott, a NHL player who skated for 10 seasons as a goon and was, improbably, voted by fans to be the captain of the All-Star team for his division. The story gets better from there:
You don't have to like hockey, or even give a shit about sports to like this story.
February 28
In The Washington Post, three former Baltimore City health commissioners question Governor Hogan's vaccine rollout and who exactly is getting it:
By our calculation based on the state health department data, White Marylanders are being vaccinated at a rate more than twice than that of Black Marylanders, and only around 4 percent of inoculations have gone to Latinos.
Hogan's response has been less than helpful:
He asserted that “as of last week, Baltimore City had gotten far more than they really were entitled to.” The governor did not share data to justify this astonishing statement, nor did he address how it might even be possible for Baltimore to receive excess vaccine and yet have a vaccination rate among its residents lower than that of every one of its surrounding counties.
This is the same guy who, almost immediately after being elected, canceled a long-planned, federally backed improvement to Baltimore City's mass transit system and diverted that money to building roads in rural white areas of the state.
February 17
This is also good Wednesday news: the Baltimore Sun, which has been owned by Tribune Publishing for years, could be sold to a nonprofit organization set up and funded by an area Democratic philanthropist. This would be fantastic for the organization, as the rest of the Tribune holdings would be bought by Alden Capital, a hedge fund with a history of buying and gutting local news outlets.
February 17
My leafy town has long been eyed by developers looking to stuff infill houses wherever and whenever they can, ignoring zoning laws and school impact studies. So this is good news: a proposed 12-house subdivision slightly southwest of us, and tucked up against the Patapsco State Park, was denied by a County judge yesterday.
Some context: The local elementary school, the one Finn just graduated from, is 40 students over capacity and has been operating that way for over a decade.
February 15
I've enjoyed every book of John Scalzi's that I've read, and his general observations on culture are just as good:
When I hear or read “I have been cancelled” I mostly translate that to “I am facing consequences for something I got away with before and I don’t like it.” When I hear or read “I will not be cancelled,” I mostly translate that to “I refuse to change my behavior, it’s the rest of the world that’s the problem, not me.” Which, you know, okay. You do you.
The whole thing is worth a read.
