Books in Bloom at the Merriweather Color Burst Park Sunday October 10th 11 am-5 pm

  "The Downtown Columbia Partnership and The Howard Hughes Corporation announced that award-winning journalist, Dr. Nikole Hannah-Jones, will headline the Books in Bloom festival on Oct. 10. She will be featured in a conversation with Shallal.  Hannah-Jones is the creator of the 1619 Project, a major journalistic initiative for the New York Times. Commemorating the 400^th anniversary of the beginning of slavery in the American colonies, the 1619 Project’s lead essay by Hannah-Jones was awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. 

 
Other confirmed writers featured in the fifth annual Books in Bloom include acclaimed writer of detective fiction and former Columbia resident Laura Lippman, journalist and author Jake Tapper of CNN, and Ram Devineni, creator of augmented reality comic books and a 2019 Merriweather District Artist-in-Residence.  The festival runs from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. and will include readings and conversations about timely and critical issues, as well as other activities. Books in Bloom is free and open to the public. Register here. "

Here is the schedule for the speakers:

Author	Book	Time	Stage
Amy Argetsinger	There She Was: The Secret History of Miss America	11:00 AM	6100 Merriweather
Jake Tapper	The Devil May Dance	12:00 PM	Main Stage
Maureen Corrigan	So We Read On	12:30 PM	6100 Merriweather
Ram Devineni and illustrator Ashley Woods	Jupiter Invincible	12:30 PM	Juniper
Laura Lippman	Dream Girl	1:15 PM	Main Stage
Stacey Vanek Smith	Machiavelli for Women	2:00 PM	6100 Merriweather
Aparna Verna	The Boy with Fire	2:00 PM	Juniper
Nikole Hannah-Jones	The 1619 Project	3:00 PM	Main Stage

#hocoblogs

They live among us!

 Anti-vaxxers of America

P.S.

    What must the Canadians think of their neighbors?

Ellicott City named 10th best place to live in the US by Money Magazine

     

    Naming the best places to live seems like a popular thing to do by a few different magazines.   Money Magazine has listed Ellicott City in the latest issue as the 10th best place to live.  Columbia has been listed in past years.  I tend to see our County as a whole as one of the best places to live so I am not sure how we can be broken up into individual towns.  I know I am biased as a Columbia resident for almost 45 years but I feel that the quality of life we have in Howard County is because of the impact of the Jim Rouse vision for Columbia.  Without that vision, we would simply be an overgrown suburban community of tract homes between DC and Baltimore.   You only have to look at Rockville or Towson to see the sprawl that unplanned growth around a city looks like.  Neither of those towns will ever be on a "best place to live" list.

     My intent is not to be dismissive of Ellicott City but exactly what defines Ellicott City? Main Street? Route 40? Tracts of expensive new homes? The seat of Howard County Government? Doesn't Columbia and Ellicott kinda blur together?  Doesn't the Columbia Village of Dorsey Search have an Ellicott City address? Doesn't Centennial Lake seem to be one of Columbia's lakes even though it is technically in Ellicott City? Maybe our area should only be labeled a "best place to live" when it comes to counties and not just towns.  By that criteria, we would be number one. 

P.S.

    I will give Ellicott City credit for the development of Korean businesses along Route 40?  Thank the high schools of Ellicott City for that.

#hocoblogs

Latest Howard County COVID Metrics

 

P.S,

States with the lowest positivity rate--All Democrat states 

STATE	PERCENTAGE OF POSITIVE TESTS
Massachusetts	2.05%
California	2.17%
Rhode Island	2.25%
Vermont	2.76%
New York	2.95%
District of Columbia	3.27%
Maryland	3.47%
Illinois	3.56%
Colorado	3.97%
Connecticut	3.98%
Maine	4.19%
New Mexico	4.87%

P.S. 1

      750,000 Americans were killed in the Civil War.  The US should match that number with COVID deaths by Halloween. Maybe it isn't "just the flu."

#hocoblogs

COVID-19 kills more Americans than died in the 1918 pandemic

     America now has a new pandemic record.

Weekend funnies- When you are old you can laugh at this!

 

Oakland Mills Road redesign

   Two years ago before the pandemic, I attended a public hearing on the redesign of Oakland Mills Road.  This road has changed a great deal from when it was a 2 lane rural road.  Widening came when the Sewell's and Ecker Hollow properties were developed in the 1980s.  Now it is a heavily traveled road with 2 red lights and a traffic circle.

   Recently the Howard County Transportation Office released its latest redesign that recognized a need for a turn lane and a bike lane.   Nice to see the bike lane as it is frequently used by bikers.  I am not sure how the redesign will impact the street racers that use the road on the weekends to see how fast they can go.

P.S.

     I remember in the 1970s picking strawberries and peaches at the Sewell's Farm.

#hocoblogs

9/11 just happened this weekend

   

     As the country remembered the almost 3,000 people who died on 9/11 it shouldn't be overlooked that more people died from COVID-19 this weekend than died on 9/11.  So when you hear Republicans politicians saying that we should not attack this virus that has killed 200 times as many Americans as died on 9/11 because it impacts personal liberties we should understand how hollow their statements are.  Overlooking the deaths of the citizens you have a responsibility to protect doesn't sound too "pro-life" to me.

Weekend funnies

 

Weekend funnies

Texas Taliban

 When does the airlift start to get women and girls out of Texas?