About fifteen years ago, I spent a few evenings in Mack Lewis’s boxing gym, working on a story for Baltimore Magazine. Vince Pettway was the gym’s star then, training for a super-welterweight title fight, and in those days he was something to watch. But what impressed me just as much were the other young men, […]
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Change as cooperative evolution
Monday, March 31, 2008Intricate ecosystems, such as the Chesapeake Bay Estuary or the Great Maya Reef, offer an opportunity for people to become aware of the importance of the interdependent functional and ecological roles that provide social security to a community. One can gain insight into the complex web of interactions that structure human life by looking at […]
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Rethinking street prostitution
Monday, March 24, 2008It seems as if age-old stereotypes and beliefs cloud our collective judgment when it come to dealing with street prostitution. Media coverage triggers our curiosity, pity, or disdain but does little to encourage a common sense approach to address a common “problem” – street prostitution in Baltimore. Over the years, I have talked to thousands […]
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Transforming the urban ecosystem
Monday, March 17, 2008Is urban ecology an oxymoron? Not at all. The sooner we recognize that cities, people, and nature are inextricably linked, the better off we will all be. In order to broaden our focus from fixing what’s broken, we can treat this city as a design problem, as a system of interrelated parts, and begin to […]
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Keeping people out of prison and embracing them in our communities
Monday, March 10, 2008One in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34 incarcerated in the United States?1 “Yet you have turned into venom the process of law and justice itself into poison.”2 As the Pew Center for the States released its report at the end of February, the numbers sent me reeling. Again. The astounding […]
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What if we let anyone who is smart enough to go to college…actually go to college?
Monday, March 03, 2008For some reason, the immigration debate is faceless. It’s easier to say “those illegal aliens” instead of “Juan, my nephew’s best friend.” We say we have no moral responsibility to “those that broke the law coming illegally to this country,” but things change when we think of Ana Maria, our neighbor’s housekeeper. For some reason, we […]
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Using television for literacy skills
Monday, February 25, 2008My audacious idea is to use television to help children learn their letters and, maybe, even to read. This may be a surprising suggestion given that TV is cited as a main reason for the decline in children’s reading. But, this heretical idea comes to mind for three reasons: First, children watch a lot of […]
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Keeping children from missing out
Tuesday, February 19, 2008My audacious idea: Track and address chronic absence in early elementary school so every child in Baltimore can reach their full potential in school and beyond. Last year, one out of six Baltimore children were chronically absent in kindergarten through third grade– meaning that they missed twenty or more schools days for excused or unexcused […]
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Suppose we voted?
Monday, February 11, 2008Here is an audacious idea. What if people actually voted? When the “founding fathers” first wrote the constitution, only white men could vote. Since that time, extraordinary citizens have given up life and liberty to expand voting rights to all citizens so that the United States could try to become a government of the people. […]
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Baltimore students explore solutions for two critical city problems
Monday, February 04, 2008According to a study by Baltimore’s Center for Poverty Solutions, 50% of those interviewed at soup kitchens and drop-in centers had been incarcerated, many for public urination, loitering, sleeping outdoors, and other nonviolent crimes that stemmed from being homeless. Of those incarcerated, 93% had been arrested for non-violent crimes, 41% received no services while incarcerated, […]
