Bloodlines by Robin Gabbert
after the poem Genealogy by Betsy Sholl

One parent was a dark suit, the other an emerald sheath.
One was Coke bottle lenses, the other—Waterford crystal.

Till late at night, the girl would see the light on in the den.
On the other side of the house, hear only sighs.

One parent was a red T-bird convertible, the other a Pixie haircut
before Mia made it fashionable.

The tattoo on her back was a whirlpool.

One parent was a mirage, the other too close to see without distortion.
One was an enigma, the other Good Housekeeping guaranteed.

One of her parents she read voraciously, the other she only skimmed.
One was a hunter, the other a nester.

In the revolving door of her becoming,
one kept raising the bar, the other kept tightening the safety net.
Thus, her troubled youth, unexpected early exodus.

Still, trying to be the best of both, she kept skinning her knees—
a girl swimming upstream, looking for purchase

Robin Gabbert is the winner of Redwood Writers’ 2025 Fran Claggett-Holland Award and is a Pushcart Poetry Prize nominee for her poem The Palm Reader. In 2024, her poem Invisible was a finalist in the San Francisco Writers’ Conference Poetry Contest and she was long-listed for the Frontier Poetry Tanka Challenge. She has a book of ekphrastic poetry—The Clandestine Life of Paintings, in Poems (2022) and a full-length book of poetry Somehow, I Haven’t Drowned published by Blue Light Press (2025) as well as poetry in state, national, and international poetry anthologies

Hassam won a bronze medal at the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris. American artists Innes, Whistler, and Sargeant also were represented there. Hassam wrote: “The American Section has convinced me forever of the capability of Americans to claim a school…An artist should paint his own time and treat nature as he feels it, not repeat the same stupidities of his predecessors. The men who have made success today are the men who got out of the rut…it was what I was trying to do myself.”

A feast honoring the French Republic was held on June 30, 1878, to celebrate peace, national pride, and recovery after the Franco Prussian war of 1870. The event was part of the Universal Exposition of 1878. French Impressionist artist Claude Monet made a painting Rue Montorgueil, Paris, Festival of 30 June 1878 (32”x20”) (Musee d’Orsay, Paris). The French tricolor flies above the crowds celebrating in the street. The painting is one of two that Monet made in 1878. The twin was The Rue Saint-Denis, Celebration of June 30, 1878.

A semi-official event had been held on July 14. In 1880, the French Third Republic decided to establish an official holiday. After much discussion and disagreement, the official holiday was established and named Bastille Day to celebrate the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, initiating the French Revolution.

Hassam and his wife traveled to and lived in Boston, New York, and Paris several times during his career. Modern life on famous streets in these cities in different seasons and times of day are major themes. Returning to Paris in 1910, he painted from the balcony of his hotel July Fourteenth, Rue Daunou (1910) (29”x20”) (Metropolitan Museum, NY). Rue Daunou is near the Paris Opera House. He wrote to a friend, “The town is all torn up like New York. Much building going on. They out American the Americans!”

Of English ancestry, Hassam was a patriotic American, but also a Francophile. When World War I broke out, he wanted to volunteer, but America was still an isolationist nation. The French Bastille Day celebration inspired him to make what is known as his flag series, 30 paintings made from 1916 until 1919. He commented, “I looked up the Avenue and saw those wonderful flags waving, and I painted a series of flag pictures after that.” The Fourth of July, 1916 (The Greatest Display of the American Flag Ever Seen in New York, Climax of the Preparedness Parade in May) (36”x26”) (New York Historical Society) was painted before America entered World War II. Hassam was a supporter of the Preparedness Movement that began in 1914.

Flags on the Waldorf (1916) (36”x26”) (Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas) is a depiction of New York City’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The red-brick structure occupied an entire city block. The white colonnaded structure in the painting could be the New York Public Library or one of the other colonnaded structures on 5th Avenue. The Waldorf-Astoria was demolished in 1929 and replaced by the Empire State Building.

Allies Day (1917) (36”x30”) (National Gallery of Art, DC) is a depiction of flags along 5th Avenue, but in the painting they commemorate America’s entry into World War I in the Spring of 1917. America had entered a military alliance with Great Britain and France. The British Union Jack, the Stars and Stripes, and the French Tricolor were displayed along the Avenue. Hassam dedicated the painting “to the coming together of [our] three peoples in the fight for democracy.”

Hassam’s The Avenue in the Rain (1917) (32”x22”) has been in the collection of the White House since the Kennedy administration. The blurred effect creates a sense that the scene is viewed through a window. During the Presidency of Barack Obama, the painting hung on the wall between two windows in the Oval Office.

New York City’s Fifth Avenue was officially designated the Avenue of the Allies for the Fourth Liberty Loan Drive in 1918. This three- block view is north from 53rd Street. The Avenue of the Allies, Great Britain (1918) (36”x28’’) (Metropolitan Museum, NY) includes the flags of Canada (containing the Union Jack), Brazil (yellow diamond on green with blue disc), Belgium tricolor (black, yellow, red), and banners promoting Liberty Bonds. The installation covered the Avenue from 24th to 58th street, each block devoted to an Allied country.

Happy 250th!

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years. Since retiring to Chestertown with her husband Kurt in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and the Institute of Adult Learning, Centreville. An artist, she sometimes exhibits work at River Arts. She also paints sets for the Garfield Theater in Chestertown.

I am an early riser; I mean an early riser. I am usually up sometime after 4 AM, but this morning, I couldn’t sleep, so I got up at 3:45 AM.

I began my daily routine. Then everything stopped—the power went out.

I peered out the window, all lights were out, even the streetlights. The dense night cloud cover concealed the moon and masked other ambient light, it was a soundless, deep darkness. The sunrise would be obscured by cloud cover, I knew that only a dim light would slowly appear outside.

Now what?

I searched in the dark for my phone, my only source of light. Grabbing my phone, I fumbled through the apps to find my flashlight (why can I never find it when I need it?). I forgot to recharge my phone overnight. My battery was low.

Trying to go back to bed was fruitless, so I decided to continue my routine in the dark. I found a way to dress and feed the dogs, but that was it. My tea depended on electricity, my morning rituals depended on the Internet and television.

Anxious to try to continue my routine, I took my dogs out for a walk. In that almost total darkness, I gradually became aware its total serenity.

No lights guided my path, no sounds of cars or other city sounds reverberated in the air, just total blackness. We had a welcome rain the night before and the ground was awash in puddles and dew. The humid morning dampened any noise and made the darkness seem closer. I cautiously stepped through it, painfully aware of the pitfalls of using night vision.

After the walk, I returned home. The power had not been restored so I found myself entering the hushed silence of my home. Sitting there, barely able to see my dogs, with my dying phone as my only light source, I lit my scent candles, rummaged through the closet and found a couple of flashlights and turned them on.

There is something cleansing about closing down the primary senses. The stillness was omnipresent, it surrounded me, it enveloped me. The humid darkness clung to me. And at that moment with the dim light of two flashlights, my phone (with its perilously low battery), and the tiny light from candles, I sat there with nothing to do.

The racing thoughts were silenced; and all that I could do was sit in the stillness, waiting for sunrise, waiting for the power to return. The scents from the candles wafted through the air. Everything was still. A dim light permeated the room.

In this clarity, in this stillness, I felt peace. No worries about the future, no recriminations from the past, just calm tranquility. Even my voice was tamped down. I remained there, not sure what I was waiting for. Was I waiting for daylight? for the power to come on? or for this peacefulness to continue?

After an hour and forty-five minutes, the whirr began. A few lights came on. (I had not turned on anything because it was pointless.) A few beeps notified me there was work to do to restore clocks and begin my daily routine.

“I have to write this down,” I thought, to write about the stillness, the tranquility, the calm feelings.

Of course I wanted to go back to technology, I can’t imagine life without it. But in the powerless home, I found a moment of peace.

Angela Rieck, a Caroline County native, received her PhD in Mathematical Psychology from the University of Maryland and worked as a scientist at Bell Labs, and other high-tech companies in New Jersey before retiring as a corporate executive. Angela and her dogs divide their time between St Michaels and Key West Florida. Her daughter lives and works in New York City.

I’ve noticed that I’ve been in a holding pattern for almost a year. There have been too many changes to count, most of them completely beyond my control. Life has felt like one long stretch of waiting for the other shoe to drop. I hesitate to commit to something as simple as taking a class because, at any moment, we could find ourselves back at Johns Hopkins.

This week, with Mercury in retrograde, I’ve felt especially fractious, grumpy, and impatient. Whether the planets deserve the blame or not, those emotions have been close to the surface. Still, I’ve made myself do the things I know must: walking my dog, watering the garden, cooking, cleaning, and grocery shopping, despite the excruciating heat and humidity. None of those tasks have sounded appealing, but I managed to gain a sense of accomplishment after completing them.

All of the jobs I’ve held in my life, including being a stay-at-home mom, required scheduling. Whether I was coordinating a household, managing appointments, juggling school activities, or balancing responsibilities in the workplace, success depended on planning ahead. Calendars, routines, and timelines gave shape to my days and helped me care for the people and tasks entrusted to me.

Now, living in a season where so much is beyond my control, I’ve realized that what I miss isn’t simply being busy, it’s being able to make plans. It’s difficult to commit to a class, a trip, or even a project when life feels like it’s always waiting for the next upheaval or emergency. Scheduling has always been one of the ways I created purpose and stability. Without that ability, I sometimes feel untethered.

The challenge isn’t learning how to be flexible. It’s learning how to find meaning in a life that, for now, resists being scheduled at all. My mornings feel solid. I know how to spend them, and I usually accomplish the goals I set for myself. There is comfort in that structure and satisfaction in seeing progress.

It’s the afternoons that have become more difficult to navigate. Once the morning’s momentum fades, I often feel untethered, unsure of what deserves my attention. It’s not that I have nothing to do; it’s that I’m struggling to feel that I’m using this unexpected season of waiting well. I find myself caught between wanting to plan for a future that keeps shifting and trying to be fully present contributing to a life that feels suspended.

Looking back on what this first year of retirement might really be teaching me is that the challenge of waiting is its own kind of work. It asks for patience without offering certainty, flexibility without a clear destination, and hope without a timetable. I know that I haven’t mastered any of those things yet, but I am beginning to recognize that this in-between season won’t last forever. Until it ends, maybe the challenge isn’t to fill every afternoon perfectly, but to give myself permission to sit and read even while so much remains unresolved.

Who knew that retirement could be so tricky?

Kate Emery General is a retired chef/restaurant owner who was born and raised in Casper, Wyoming. Kate loves her grandchildren, knitting, and watercolor painting. Kate and her husband, Matt are longtime residents of Cambridge’s West End where they enjoy swimming and bicycling.

Last month, eight members of the Freedom Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced House Joint Resolution 198 (HJR198). Congressional approval of this resolution is the first step in a long and complex process to repeal the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Approved in 1913, the 17th Amendment replaced electing U.S. Senators by members of state legislatures with voters electing U.S senators directly in statewide elections.

Congressman Andy Harris, Freedom Caucus Chair and a sponsor of HJR198, has issued a written statement to the media on his support for HJR198. His statement reads: I co-sponsored this resolution because the Founding Fathers designed the House to represent the people and the Senate to represent the states. The 17th Amendment disrupted that constitutional balance. Returning the selection of senators to state legislatures would restore the Senate’s original role and strengthen the voice of the states in our federal system. For instance, if a senator today refused to support (or even debate) a popular measure like the SAVE America Act, but the state legislature supported it, the legislature could replace that senator.”

Here is the political reality in Maryland. Democratic majorities in the Maryland General Assembly do not support the SAVE America Act. They will not support replacing either of the incumbent two U.S. Senators from Maryland.

The Freedom Caucus should also consider future political realities across the rest of the country.

Currently Republicans have full control in 28 state legislatures and Democrats have full control in 18 state legislatures. That could change dramatically in every future election cycle.,

It is not inconceivable that Democrats could have full control of 28 or more state legislatures and Republicans could have full control of 18 or less state legislatures. Without the 17th amendment every one of those Democratic controlled state legislatures could elect Democratic Senators and replace Republican Senators.

Some may suggest Maryland voters already and routinely elect Democratic U.S. Senators, so if a repeal of the 17th amendment is eventually approved it would not change anything They forget or choose to acknowledge that Between 1950 and 1980, a majority of Maryland voters elected and re-elected four Republicans to the United States Senate.

John Butler was elected in 1950 and re-elected in 1956; Charles “Mac” Mathias was elected in 1968, re-elected in 1974, and re-elected in 1980; J. Glenn Beale, Senior was elected in 1952 and re-elected in 1958; and J. Glenn Beale, Junior was elected in 1970. Three of the four were viewed as moderates. Even as moderates without the 17th amendment none of these Republicans would have been elected to the Senate by a Democratic controlled General Assembly

Some may also suggest a majority of Maryland voters may never again elect Republican candidates to the U.S Senate in statewide elections. Maybe so, but it is a given a Democratic controlled state legislature empowered to elect U.S. Senators will never elect Republicans.

Democratic control of the Maryland General Assembly is also a given. There have been Democratic majorities in the Senate since 1900 and in the House of Delegates since 1921. There is no reason to think that will ever change.

By far, the worst outcome if HJR198 is successful would be the elimination of the rights of voters in Maryland and in America to elect their U.S. Senators. That has been a constitutional right they have held since 1913.

For both parties and for America, the 17th Amendment has worked well.

Since the 1980s, neither party has had an irreversible monopoly over the U.S. Senate. The Republicans controlled it from 919 to 1933, and the Democrats controlled it from 1933 to 1981.Since then control has shifted regularly. All these shifts reflect citizens exercising their right to direct voting rather than conceding U.S. Senate elections to politicians in state legislatures.

Now is the time for every supporter of HJR198 to consider the wisdom of former President Calvin Coolidge. Coolidge is often remembered by the public, if he is remembered at all, as “Silent Cal”, due to his aversion to public speaking and his quiet demeanor.

As a conservative President, Coolidge had measurable accomplishments. He successfully championed federal tax cuts, reduced the national debt, eliminated waste in government, reduced government spending, and limited government intervention in private enterprise. Coolidge also fully embraced the 17th Amendment.

On that issue, Coolidge wrote forcefully and eloquently: “If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people.”

Excellent advice to be heeded when supporters of HJR198 make decisions about their next steps. The right decision is simple. Immediately abandon any further efforts on HJRJ198.

Instead, focus on being fully engaged in the hard work of governing and addressing a wide range of foreign policy and domestic policy issues of deep concern to Marylanders and Americans everywhere.

If the house catches fire, I’ll knot my twisted bedsheets together and scramble to safety from an upstairs window. Plan B? Jump to the mulberry tree after rallying the family for evacuation. If the pilot has a heart attack… if the brakes on the car fail...you get the idea. From the time I was in elementary school I have strategized the means by which I will save my family if disaster strikes. Tidal waves, earthquakes, collapsing bridges—there’s a plan.

In novels and short stories, it’s called “saving the cat”—the moment when the protagonist--who may have some pretty overt failings, redeems himself by running back into the burning building to rescue the cat. But when I was 8, I learned you can’t plan for these events. You have to already be a hero, and if that’s what you’re made of, the moment finds you.

Summer was stir-fry hot. My older sister, her pretty friend Patty, some neighborhood boys, and I were crabbing off the end of our pier while our collie, Beau, kept an eye on us. Normally, we combed the seaweed for doublers within wading distance of shore or searched for unwary crustaceans clinging delicately to the pier pilings. But this time we’d procured chicken necks and that’s where the trouble began.

The smell of creosote baking in the midsummer sun, the saltwater breeze off the river, and dragonflies flitting about in the beachgrass all conspired to create what could have been a typical July afternoon. There were more kids than crab nets, so there was the usual jostling at the end of the pier as we tied thick twine around each boney crook of chicken, securing the other end to a piling with an untoward number of knots before tossing the bait in the water. I’m not sure, but I may have been vain about my knot-tying. I may have thought they were exceptionally tricky or tight. Someone, my father or perhaps a Girl Scout leader, had taught me to tie a slipknot, a bowline, a half hitch, and a square knot.

Ernie, or more likely, Reese, peered over the end of the dock where we had several lines dangling and yelled, “Doubler! Give me the net!” We clustered shoulder to shoulder as he began gently tugging the string, inch by slow inch, towards the surface. The crabs, which had started the ascent as mere murky outlines, were now crystal-clear just inches below our own rippling reflections. An 8-inch hard shell with a softy attached. With one quick scoop of the net and a flip of the wrist, Reese had the pair scrabbling in our rusty bucket. The chicken neck lay on the splintery dock, a bony hook on a homemade line.

In that split second, before anyone could stop him, the enterprising Beau lunged between our legs and swallowed the chicken neck whole, the string still secured to the piling. Six kids shrieked with excitement at the new development as the dog began to take huge, panicked gulps of the string in an attempt to finish it off now that the chicken was stuck in his gullet. We desperately tried to unknot the twine as the distressed dog retched but the string had gotten wet, then dried in the sun. That chicken neck might as well have been soldered to the piling.

As we realized we couldn’t pull the chicken out, and no one had a knife, what had been exciting was fast becoming an emergency.

Suddenly, the resourceful Patty fell to her knees, grabbed the string as close to the dog’s mouth as she could get, and started to chew. Time slowed as the dog gagged, Patty chomped away, and the rest of us stared, silenced by the gross ingenuity of this development. The sun beat down, the dragonflies danced for their lives with only a few months to live, and after an intense minute, the string gave way. The dog polished off the last couple of inches with a happy bark, and we erupted in a rousing cheer.

It has taken me years not to live as a strategist. To cross the Bay Bridge, admiring the sparkling shimmer beneath the span shadows instead of wondering how long I can float on my back when the guardrail gives way.

I don’t know if this daydreaming was a hope for attention or a childish savior complex. Or perhaps it was where a child’s mind goes who, for good reason, has learned she has absolutely no control over what happens to her. Who has learned that fear is a required course in childhood, but fun is an elective. Who has learned to prepare for the worst because no one’s coming. But for all my preparation, research shows heroes don’t stop to plan or to reason. They act instantaneously and intuitively on an innate urge to serve. The good they do is instinctive.

I hope if the moment ever presents itself, I save the cat. Or the dog. Or someone’s baby or an old man with a cane. I want to cure Juvenile Diabetes, to end addictions of every kind. To feed the starving on a global scale, foster abandoned children, bring laughter to the sad of heart.

But I think most of us don’t get the opportunity to save the cat. Instead, we have to live with the cat. Long days and unremarkable years of loving in the most ordinary of ways, steadfast and unacknowledged. Commuting insane hours on the beltway to provide for a family, repeatedly rising on sleepless nights to soothe fevers, and one day, reminding the parent who named us of our name.

Oxford and Cambridge both have real problems. Oxford can’t get short-term rental owners to bother with licensing. Cambridge has a genuine, decades-old blight problem in its housing stock. Nobody disputes either fact. What’s harder to swallow is the scale of the machinery each town is now building — machinery that, on close reading, sweeps up far more ordinary homeowners than bad actors.

Oxford: A Compliance Problem, Not A Crisis

By Commissioner Dave Donovan’s own count, Oxford has somewhere between 35 and 44 short-term rentals in town, and only five of them are licensed. That’s a real compliance gap, and Donovan deserves credit for doing the legwork to find it — he spent hours combing listing sites because the town had no other way to know who was operating.

His diagnosis was mostly generous: people simply forgot to renew, or never registered in the first place, not that they were running some kind of illicit hotel operation.

So what’s the fix under consideration? Not just a reminder postcard or a modest late fee. Oxford’s ordinance already bars a non-compliant registered agent from serving as an Oxford STR agent for three years, and bars the property itself from being used as an STR for three years — a restriction that runs with the land regardless of who owns it.

The amendment now on the table would extend that exile to the agent’s entire brokerage and every other agent who happens to work there, for three years. In a town the size of Oxford, with a handful of local real estate offices, that means an entire brokerage’s income and reputation could be at risk because one agent, for one client, on one listing, didn’t get around to the paperwork.

That’s not proportionality. That’s collective punishment for an administrative lapse, in a market of well under four dozen rental properties, enforced with a piece of software (Granicus) that already costs the town over two thousand dollars a year to do most of the detection work automatically.

There’s also a wrinkle here that ought to concern anyone buying property in Oxford: because the three-year ban attaches to the property itself, not just the offending owner or agent, a buyer can inherit someone else’s penalty without ever knowing it. The town does not appear to record the restriction in the land records, and at least one new owner is reportedly contesting a ban imposed on a property purchased in good faith.

Buyers, title companies, and Realtors working in Oxford should be asking the town directly whether a property carries an active STR restriction before closing — because right now, nothing in the public record will tell them.

Cambridge: Purportedly Solving Blight By Registering Everybody

Cambridge’s vacant-structure ordinance grew out of a genuinely serious situation. City staff reports point to roughly 900 vacant residential units — about 14 percent of the housing stock — and note that of more than 3,200 rental units, at least 1,000 were unregistered under rules that have existed since 2011.

Add persistent complaints about neglected, code-violating properties that owners refuse to even let inspectors inside, and it’s easy to see why the council felt it needed a bigger stick.

But the ordinance that emerged doesn’t just target derelict rowhouses. As the Mid-Shore Board of Realtors has pointed out, its language is broad enough to potentially catch: seasonal and vacation homes, houses listed for sale after an owner has moved out, rental units sitting empty between tenants, inherited or estate properties tied up in probate, homes mid-renovation, newly purchased homes awaiting move-in, and houses left temporarily empty because the owner is deployed, hospitalized, or working out of town.

City officials have argued, not unreasonably, that simply exempting “vacation homes” or “homes listed for sale” by name invites abuse — owners of genuinely blighted properties could just claim second-home status to dodge inspection. That’s a fair concern.

But the answer the council landed on was to make almost every category of temporary or intermittent vacancy register and prove its innocence, with fines starting at $500 a day and climbing to $1,000 a day for continued violations — the same penalty structure aimed at genuinely abandoned, code-violating structures. The ordinance also mandates annual interior inspections, without cause, for homes that are otherwise perfectly well-maintained, a provision that raises its own Fourth Amendment concerns. A grieving family sorting out a deceased parent’s estate and a landlord who has walked away from a collapsing rowhouse for five years are, under this ordinance, running the same procedural gauntlet.

Why Swing This Hard, Right Now?

Here’s the part that’s hard to ignore: these ordinances are landing at a moment when local governments across the Shore, the state, and the country are grappling with genuinely urgent housing and fiscal pressures — insurance costs pricing people out of coastal homes, property tax bills climbing, a real shortage of workforce housing, storm-related flooding risk reshaping whole neighborhoods.

Against that backdrop, building an elaborate new registry-and-fine bureaucracy to catch a landlord who forgot to re-license an Airbnb, or a widow whose house sits empty for six months while an estate clears probate, looks like municipal government solving the problem that’s easiest to define rather than the one that’s hardest and most important.

Both towns already had enforcement tools.

Cambridge already had a rental registration ordinance and code enforcement authority; the 2023 housing work session that led to this ordinance acknowledged as much, and even a local neighborhood association noted the city already possessed “sufficient municipal powers within Code Enforcement and Land Bank” to go after truly blighted properties without a new bureaucratic layer. Oxford already had a three-year penalty and hefty fines on the books for the offending agent, the owner, and the property itself — a real deterrent — before anyone proposed reaching sideways into brokerages that did nothing wrong.

Oxford residents should also know that the town has no obligation to warn a property owner before imposing the $1,000-a-month unlicensed-rental fine — it can be assessed the very first time the town notices an unlicensed listing, with no advance notice required.

There’s also a cautionary tale close by. Ocean City tried to tighten short-term rental rules with escalating minimum-stay requirements in 2025. Homeowners didn’t just grumble in a Facebook group — they petitioned, forced a special election, and voters overturned the ordinance outright, 834 to 800. When regulation outruns the actual size of the problem, the public tends to notice, and the backlash can cost officials more political capital than the original problem ever did.

A Lighter Touch That Still Solves The Problem

None of this means Oxford and Cambridge should do nothing. It means the response should be sized to the offense.

• Keep the individual penalty, drop the collective one. Oxford’s existing three-year ban on a non-compliant registered agent already gives commissioners real leverage. There’s no evidence an entire brokerage needs to share that punishment for one agent’s mistake.

• Lead with notice, not exile. A tiered system — warning, short fine, escalating penalty only on repeat, willful violations — gets the same compliance result Donovan wants without threatening a firm’s whole livelihood over a missed renewal.

• Narrow “vacant” to mean vacant. Cambridge can protect against gaming the system without net-casting every probate estate and deployed service members house. A workable standard already exists in the 2023 staff proposal: define vacancy by objective conditions — no utility service, structural damage, long-term uninhabitability — rather than by a homeowner’s travel schedule.

• Build in automatic exemptions, not case-by-case discretion, for active listings, active permits/renovations, and documented temporary absences (military orders, medical leave, work relocation), so ordinary residents aren’t forced to petition the government to prove their house isn’t a blight risk.

• Offer carrots alongside sticks. A short property-tax abatement for owners who bring a genuinely blighted property back into use, as neighborhood advocates in Cambridge have suggested, will likely do more to fix eyesore properties than an escalating fine schedule aimed just as much at people already trying to sell or renovate.

• Sunset and review. Both ordinances should include a built-in review after 12–18 months, using the registration data actually collected, to confirm the rule is catching bad actors and not just generating paperwork from good ones.

Oxford and Cambridge are right that unlicensed rentals and neglected houses are problems worth solving. But a policy built to catch a handful of scofflaws shouldn’t be engineered so broadly that it treats every seasonal homeowner, grieving heir, and deployed servicemember as a suspect.

There’s a difference between swatting a mosquito and swinging a sledgehammer at the whole porch. Right now, both towns are reaching for the sledgehammers.

Keith Watts is a lawyer and serves on the Talbot County Short-Term Rental Review Board (STRRB), previously serving as Chair. His views are his own and do not represent those of the STRRB or any other organization.

This Fourth of July, in celebration of our country’s 250th anniversary, let’s make an American flag sheet cake - with rows of carefully sliced and diced blueberries and strawberries, with earnestly spread fields of whipped cream icing. Who can resist a good sheet cake? This is a big day for our country, worthy of cake. We, the people with fewer slicing skills, can also gobble up heaping bowls of glistening fat orbs of juicy berries, bursting with vibrant color and oozing with local flavor. Bring on the farmers’ market gems of blueberries, strawberries, cherries, and red, furry raspberries, with a generous handful of blackberries as we remember our childhoods where we slunk away from the parental units long enough to strip the neighbor’s berry bushes of warm, sweet, dusty berries that we crammed into our sticky, greedy maws. If you want to add a dollop of sweet, homemade whipped cream, I think that is a fine idea. Maybe a saucer of crisp Pepperidge Farm Bordeaux cookies will be on offer. Or a scoop of vanilla ice cream, if you planned ahead.

There are so many delicious ways to salute the red, white and blue. Look out for the Tall Ships. Enjoy a backyard full of fireflies. Does your town have a parade with the marching band? Maybe some sparklers would be fun, too. I can skip the fireworks this year - it’s too hot around here - and we have water restrictions. Luke the wonder dog was never a fan of the loud fireworks. He was happier when we stayed inside. Though he’d never refuse a stray hot dog…

In the foreign country that is the past, when the children were young, and we weren’t quite so jaded and worn down by politics, our old neighborhood held an annual Fourth of July celebration. We decorated our bikes, scooters, red wagons, and strollers with crepe paper streamers, bunting, baseball cards, and small flags. Then we strolled in a motley parade down the main street. Later in the day, more importantly, everyone brought a covered dish to share in someone’s back yard. We would all admire one friend’s signature centerpiece every year: the ceremonial red, white and blue cake. She baked a simple vanilla sheet cake and decorated it with a bucket o’whipped cream, and a precise arrangement of blueberries with some snappy red waves of strawberries, sliced with surgical skill and arranged just so. It was the annual crowd pleaser. We’d light a couple of sparklers and feel patriotic. And then we fall on the cake like a pack of wolves. Forget about always having room for Jell-o, give us Red White and Blue Cake, even though we had already stuffed our suburban bellies with all the standard cookout goodies. You know the drill: potato salad, cole slaw, deviled eggs, pickles, watermelon, beans, burgers, weenies…

Here is another homage to our founders:

(Thinking of George Washington) Cherry Pie

Pre-fab pie crust
4 cups fresh cherries, pitted
1 cup white sugar
4 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 cup water

Take the pie crust out of the packaging. Recycle the plastic, please. Bake as per directions.

Pit the cherries (very important!) and arrange most of them in the baked crust. Reserve about 1/3 cup.

Mash remaining cherries, and combine with sugar in a medium saucepan. Cook in a saucepan over medium heat and bring to a boil, stirring frequently.

In a small bowl, whisk together cornstarch and water. Gradually stir cornstarch mixture into the boiling cherries. Reduce heat and simmer mixture until thickened, about 10 minutes, stirring constantly. Allow the cherry mixture to cool slightly and then pour it over the cherries in the pie shell. Canned cherries never tasted like this!

Chill for several hours before serving.

Here is a fruit salad mélange that will use every bit of fruit you can find at the farmers’ market: Summer Fruit Salad

I could do this salad without the bananas, which always seem to get brown and sticky for me: Fruit Salad

Enjoy the Fourth of July. Hug your children. Walk the dog. Say hello to your neighbors. Don’t litter. Be kind. Cherish our country.

“You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.”
-Erma Bombeck

Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.

Every Thursday, the Spy hosts a conversation with Al From and Craig Fuller on the most topical political news of the moment.

This week, From and Fuller discuss the extraordinary financial disclosures of President Donald Trump with close to $2 billion in income from his investments since taking office. Al and Craig also discuss the president’s charge to his acting head of Central Intelligence to declassify “almost everything” in the agency’s files.

This video is approximately 14 minutes in length.

Background

While the Spy’s public affairs mission has always been hyper-local, it has never limited us from covering national, or even international issues, that impact the communities we serve. With that in mind, we were delighted that Al From and Craig Fuller, both highly respected Washington insiders, have agreed to a new Spy video project called “The Analysis of From and Fuller” over the next year.

The Spy and our region are very lucky to have such an accomplished duo volunteer for this experiment. While one is a devoted Democrat and the other a lifetime Republican, both had long careers that sought out the middle ground of the American political spectrum.

Al From, the genius behind the Democratic Leadership Council’s moderate agenda which would eventually lead to the election of Bill Clinton, has never compromised from this middle-of-the-road philosophy. This did not go unnoticed in a party that was moving quickly to the left in the 1980s. Including progressive Howard Dean saying that From’s DLC was the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.

From’s boss, Bill Clinton, had a different perspective. He said it would be hard to think of a single American citizen who, as a private citizen, has had a more positive impact on the progress of American life in the last 25 years than Al From.”

Al now lives in Annapolis and spends his semi-retirement as a board member of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University (his alma mater) and authoring New Democrats and the Return to Power. He also is an adjunct faculty member at Johns Hopkins’ Krieger School and recently agreed to serve on the Annapolis Spy’s Board of Visitors. He is the author of “New Democrats and the Return to Power.”

For Craig Fuller, his moderation in the Republican party was a rare phenomenon. With deep roots in California’s GOP culture of centralism, Fuller, starting with a long history with Ronald Reagan, leading to his appointment as Reagan’s cabinet secretary at the White House, and later as George Bush’s chief-of-staff and presidential campaign manager was known for his instincts to find the middle ground. Even more noted was his reputation of being a nice guy in Washington, a rare characteristic for a successful tenure in the White House.

Craig has called Easton his permanent home for the last ten years, where he now chairs the board of the MPT Foundation. He is a former chair of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum and is a former board member of the Academy Art Museum. He also serves on the Spy’s Board of Visitors and writes an e-newsletter available by clicking on DECADE SEVEN.

With their rich experience and long history of friendship, now joined by their love of the Chesapeake Bay, they have agreed through the magic of Zoom, to talk inside politics and policy with the Spy every Thursday.

I am a third-generation Wyomingite. My paternal grandfather was a Yale graduate who began his career as a geologist for Ohio Oil, traveling across Wyoming on horseback in search of promising oil fields. He and my grandmother were married in Laramie, Wyoming, and my father and uncle were both born in Casper, as was I. In fact, I attended the same schools as my dad and uncle. My family’s roots run deep in Wyoming, and our love for the state has been passed down through generations.

Wyoming became the 44th state in the Union in 1890. It has long been known for its strong sense of patriotism and service, with a significant portion of its population serving in the U.S. military. Wyomingites also take their civic responsibilities seriously. The state earned the nickname “The Equality State” by becoming the first territory and later the first state to grant women the right to vote, a legacy that remains a source of pride.

During the Bicentennial celebration in 1976, I was a new mother, having just completed my sophomore year of college. Laramie embraced the nation’s 200th birthday with enthusiasm. The streets were draped in red, white, and blue bunting, storefronts displayed patriotic decorations, and even the trains that rolled into town wore festive banners. Everywhere you looked, there was a sense of celebration and gratitude for our country’s history.

The entire month of July was one long celebration. Grand Avenue in front of the Buckhorn Bar was filled with the aroma of buffalo roasts as neighbors and visitors gathered to share food and fellowship. Rodeos (Wyoming’s state sport) and a concert featuring Waylon Jennings at the University of Wyoming Field House showcased the cowboy traditions that were such an important part of our state’s identity. Of course, the festivities culminated on the Fourth of July with a spectacular fireworks display that lit up the Wyoming sky.

That Bicentennial summer felt different from any other Independence Day I had experienced. Patriotism wasn’t just displayed in flags and decorations, it was lived. There was a genuine sense of gratitude for our nation’s history and optimism for its future. Looking back, I realize how fortunate I was to celebrate America’s 200th birthday in a state whose own history was so deeply intertwined with the pioneering spirit and love of country that the Bicentennial honored.

Celebrations took place all across Wyoming during the Bicentennial year. One of the most memorable events was the reburial of the legendary mountain man Jeremiah Johnson in Cody, with Robert Redford serving as an honorary pallbearer, a fitting tribute after portraying him in the film. The Northern Arapaho hosted a traditional powwow that welcomed visitors from around the region, celebrating both Native American heritage and Wyoming’s place in the nation’s story. The Laramie County School District received a Bicentennial grant to bring El Ballet de los Barrios to local students, reflecting the rich diversity of American culture. Communities planted parks, restored historic buildings, and beautified their towns as lasting gifts to future generations.

One of Wyoming’s youngest Bicentennial ambassadors was twelve-year-old Manus Hand, who represented the state at celebrations across North America. He shared Wyoming’s story with pride, reminding others that while every state has its own history, there is only one Wyoming.

Fifty years later, I still remember the excitement and pride that filled our state during America’s Bicentennial. Wyoming celebrated in its own distinctive way, honoring its pioneer heritage, its Native cultures, its wide-open landscapes, and the independent spirit of its people. Just as there is only one United States, there is only one Wyoming, and its celebration of the Bicentennial reflected the unique bond between the Equality State and the nation it has proudly helped shape. Here’s a polished version that keeps your warm, reflective style:

This Fourth of July will be spent much as the last forty have been; swimming, bike rides, a family barbecue, and then a short walk to the river to watch the fireworks reflected over the Choptank River.

My husband will hang the red, white, and blue bunting across our front porch, a tradition that marks the beginning of our Independence Day celebration. Like so many familiar rituals, it reminds me that while the places I’ve called home have changed, from Wyoming to Maryland; the pride I feel in celebrating our nation’s birthday has remained the same. Every Fourth of July is a reminder that traditions, whether old or newly adopted, become part of the story of a family and of the country we are privileged to call home.

Kate Emery General is a retired chef/restaurant owner who was born and raised in Casper, Wyoming. Kate loves her grandchildren, knitting, and watercolor painting. Kate and her husband, Matt are longtime residents of Cambridge’s West End where they enjoy swimming and bicycling.

During Maryland’s 2026 congressional primary cycle, four candidates emerged as major self-funders for their respective campaigns.

They were David Trone, April McClain Delany, Robin Ficker, and Quincy Barabee.

Trone is the founder and owner of Total Wine and More.

In 2016, he self-funded a Democratic congressional primary campaign with 13 million dollars in an effort to succeed former Congressman Chris Van Hollen in Maryland’s 8th congressional district. At that time, it set a record for the most expensive self-funded House campaign.

In 2018, Trone self-funded a Democratic congressional primary campaign with 11.5 million dollars in an effort to succeed former three-term U.S. Congressman John Delaney in Maryland’s 6th Congressional District.

In 2024, Trone self-funded a Democratic U.S. Senate primary campaign with 52 million dollars to succeed former U.S. Senator Ben Cardin.

In this election cycle, he self-funded 25 million dollars in a Democratic primary campaign in an effort to reclaim the seat he held in representing the 6th Congressional District.

April McClain Delany is a first-term member of Congress and an attorney. She was a Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Commerce and was the Director of Common-Sense Media.

This year she has self-funded $5.2 million dollars in a Democratic congressional primary campaign for the 6th Congressional District

Ficker is an attorney who served for one term as a member of the Maryland House of Delegates. He is a perennial candidate who has run in at least twenty campaigns in Maryland.

This year Ficker self-funded 2 million dollars in the Republican primary election also held in the 6th Congressional District.

Barabee is the founder and CEO of a Healthcare Company in Prince George’s County.

This year, she self-funded $5.3 million in the Democratic primary to succeed retiring Congressman Steny Hoyer in the 5th Congressional District.

Exactly who and how much can be donated to federal election campaigns has been and continues to generate contentious debates ever since a 1976 U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision – Buckley vs Valeo. The court ruled that limits on the dollar amounts individuals can contribute to federal candidates were constitutional, but limits on dollar amounts self-funded by a candidate for their own campaign were unconstitutional. All that is required is reporting the self-funding amounts on their candidate campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. All that are available for public review.

What’s next?

Will wealthy candidates continue using self-funding for their primary and general elections?

Some will despite uncertain and predictable results.

It depends largely on how large the universe of wealthy Marylanders is who are positioned and willing to self-fund their own political campaigns.

It also depends upon the degree to which voters will support candidates with sufficient wealth to cly self-fund their own political campaigns.

Will self-funded candidates always win?

Not always.

In this Maryland primary election cycle, candidates McClain Delany and Ficker did win.
Candidates Trone and Barabee did not.

Will the U.S. Supreme Court’s Buckley vs Valeo rulings ever be reversed?

Very unlikely

Will current federal rules, regulations, and laws with regard to campaign financing can always be revised in the foreseeable future?

Very unlikely.

As is often the case in the political and legislative arenas there will always be a lot of talk about “reforms” on political campaign spending.

As is almost always the case on this issue, that talk will not result in meaningful if any action.

More than five centuries ago, Italian diplomat, philosopher, and astute political observer Niccolò Machiavelli wrote The Prince.

It is a classic treatise with observations on political dynamics that are still relevant today.

Machiavelli wrote: “It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. The innovator has enemies in all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.

We have just passed the summer solstice, which means, although school only let out a week ago, the world is moving toward fall, but it takes a calendar to convince me of that because light slips from our days so incrementally, we are unaware of its passing.

Then there’s this. I’ve noticed lately that when a friend brings up a mutual acquaintance neither of us has heard from in a while, our first response to the mystery of how that friend might be doing is a pause… and then a cautious, “Do you think he’s dead?” Followed by a bit of squeamish laughter at how ridiculous that is, and an immediate disclaimer, “I meant, ‘Retired! Do you think he’s retired?’” even as one of us is googling, “Fred Smith Obit.”

So many significant lines we cross are incremental or invisible. Summer to fall, story to backstory. So many changes within our own bodies are invisible until they aren’t, like conception, like the moment healthy cells go rogue.

You get your first mammogram, for instance, when you are 36 so we all remember what normal looks like. That is the first time the warm hands of a stranger position your body against a tilted metal plate jabbing a mean corner into your ribs while a vise is lowered, and just like in labor, discomfort breezes right on by your acceptable-pain threshold. You cling there, until the tech says, “Don’t breathe!” and a machine whirls over your head like a satellite scanning a planet for life.

Breathe.

Then, years later, the test becomes annual, and that’s cool until you come home from work one Friday afternoon and discover six messages have been left urging you to call your doctor immediately because the radiologist has seen something that needs a closer look.

Only it’s Friday afternoon in Margaritaville, and you’re just gonna have to sit with that little challenge to your sanity through the entire weekend.

Back at the radiologist’s office the following week, after 48 hours of bargaining with God, you wear your gold earrings with the little angels embossed on them because your dead mother gave them to you, so maybe they are a direct line to miracles, and you are feeling like you could really use one right about now.

You slip into the cotton gown again and are led to the sonogram room, passing the imaging cameras where this all began, and the cubicle-like changing closets where other women await their fate.

The tech tells you to climb up on the table and lie down, and you do your very best climbing and your very best lying down as if by being the most precise and polite patient in the world, the tech will like you, the spirits-that-be will like you, and this will affect the outcome of your exam.

Raise your right arm over your head. The tech brushes your hair off your shoulder. She runs a smooth knob over your breast, not looking at you but at the screen. Like automatic writing with her eyes closed. What will the message be?

Don’t breathe.

Was I breathing?

She leaves the room then, and you stare up at the ceiling where an interior designer, a woman, no doubt, has replaced one of the fiberglass ceiling panels with a back-lit image of a sunny blue sky and white cottony clouds. You know it is fake; that it’s not really the sky, but you love that picture. It’s quite beautiful; it’s a spring day in that panel, and you love the kind soul who knew you would need it, and your thoughts rise like doves, like hope, to fly up into those clouds, and you thank the artist who gave you the sky and the doctor who budgeted for it.

There is a three-word psychological technique called affect labeling—the three words wedge space between you and your current emotions. You are not your feelings; this reminds you. For instance, you don’t say, “I’m angry”; you say, “This is anger.” You don’t say “I’m sad”; you say, “This is grief.”

The tech returns with the radiologist in tow.

“This is fear,” you tell yourself. Only there is no distance.

This is fear, and I’m afraid.

The doctor smiles at you, says hello, and tells you it’s okay to put your arm down. It was still raised because fear is infantilizing, and no one gave you permission to lower it. You have been lying there like a good student waiting to be called upon, not because you have an answer but because you have a question. You are, in fact, only a question. No other part of you exists.

“This is anxiety.”

I am worried.

The doctor is so pretty. You have seen her before. She is leaving for the beach today after work. She takes a look at the screen and says, “Oh, that’s nothing. See these shadows here? She points at the screen for the tech’s benefit. ”That’s normal, just a benign cyst. Could even go away.”

This is grace.

It feels like love.

And you thank your mother, your angel earrings, the designer of the sky, and your good fortune to live in a world where your health is supported by a 15-minute appointment, five minutes from your house.

Summer is far from over, but like everything, it will end. You remind yourself that these diminishing days remain the longest days of the year.

This is mercy.

I am grateful.

Breathe.

Laura J. Oliver is an award-winning developmental book editor and writing coach, who has taught writing at the University of Maryland and St. John’s College. She is the author of The Story Within (Penguin Random House). Co-creator of The Writing Intensive at St. John’s College, she is the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Fiction, an Anne Arundel County Arts Council Literary Arts Award winner, a two-time Glimmer Train Short Fiction finalist, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her website can be found here.

Nature continues to be a source of inspiration to scientists. Today, scientists are looking to inhibit bacteria spread by using the pattern of shark’s skin. That’s right shark’s skin.

While it looks like shark’s skin is sleek and smooth like a dolphin’s, in fact it feels like coarse sandpaper to the touch. For decades, marine biologists knew this unique texture reduced drag and helped it glide silently through the water.

But in the early 2000s, materials scientists also observed that sharks are among the only slow-moving marine animals that don’t get coated in algae, barnacles, or bacterial slime. Their skin stays clean, even in stagnant waters.

To understand why bacteria hate shark’s skin, it is important to understand how its skin is constructed. Shark’s skin is covered in millions of microscopic, tooth-like scales called dermal denticles.

Under a high-powered microscope, scientists can see how these denticles form a distinct, repeating pattern of raised diamond-shaped ridges separated by tiny channels. The spacing of these ridges is the secret weapon. The gaps are so incredibly small—measuring just a few micrometers across—that they are perfectly optimized to disrupt bacteria.

When a bacterium lands on a surface, its survival strategy relies on colonization. It needs to attach firmly, reproduce, and secrete a slimy protective shield known as a biofilm. However, the sharp, tight topography of shark’s skin makes this impossible. The bacteria cannot stretch across the ridges to establish a secure foothold.

For the last century, human medicine has relied almost entirely on chemistry to fight bacteria, anti-bacterial and antibiotic agents are our weapons.

But bacteria are master adaptors. Every time a chemical agent is used, the strongest bacteria survive, mutate, and pass on their resistance. This has given rise to deadly superbugs like MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and C. diff, which thrive in hospital environments and kill tens of thousands of patients annually.

As modern medicine faces the rise of antibiotic-resistant superbugs, hospital designers are looking to the shark’s skin to design a permanent sterile surface. While shark skin cannot replace antibiotics, materials developed with shark skin technology can naturally repel microbes.

Bio-tech engineers have successfully replicated the micro-topography synthetically. By using advanced plastics and silicone, manufacturing companies have created a textured material covered in billions of these microscopic, diamond-shaped patterns.

In independent laboratory testing, sharkskin-inspired textured surfaces have been shown to reduce the attachment and colonization of dangerous bacteria like E. coli and MRSA by up to 94%.

Because the material requires no electricity, no chemical refills, and never runs out of potency, the real-world applications in healthcare are significant. High touch surfaces (like doorknobs) can be wrapped with sharkskin-inspired adhesive films to cut down on contamination. Medical devices can be developed using this texture methodology.

If we can harness this technology it will help us halt the spread and hence the creation of bacteria and superbugs. And we are doing it, not with a new miracle drug, but with the ancient geometry of the shark.

Angela Rieck, a Caroline County native, received her PhD in Mathematical Psychology from the University of Maryland and worked as a scientist at Bell Labs and other high-tech companies in New Jersey before retiring as a corporate executive. Angela and her dogs divide their time between St Michaels and Key West Florida. Her daughter lives and works in New York City.

The new Royalty has sped the world up but lacks the depth to understand much less lead humanity. They lead us through generation after algorithmic generation, but when it comes to humanity they resemble a fish flopping around on the deck of a boat, grasping for water.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has not changed the fact that Superman is a myth. Leading humanity is not the technologists forte and when they try, like Elon Musk for example, their weaknesses imperil us. After all, with their successes comes hubris fueled by power and wealth and the combination blinds them. Humanity, as they understand it, is the people who work for them and necessarily do their bidding.

The body politic seduced and scared by the careening developments want insight and savvy. They, the voters who decide general elections—want to go beyond narrow Left/Right ideologies. They elected The Apprentice King thinking him good at leading and found out he was a failing contestant. His victory was thanks to an even weaker Party which offered a California Leftist who had covered for President Biden.

Yet, when voters have invested in a candidate by voting for him/her, they like stock investors, keep waiting for the turn; ever so sure their decision was right. But as all of us have learned, beyond a reasonable doubt, in governance you cannot insult your way to success. President Trump should be pleased that the Constitution denies him the right to run again. Maybe a minority within a minority would nominate him again, but his failure would move Herbert Hoover up a notch in the loser category.

In the fast world, often a world of blinding speed—today’s world—how do we choose a President equal to the task? One who can rebalance America? One who doesn’t treat collaboration as a disease? One that sees AI as a complement to humanity not its replacement.

The polls in the early stages generally favor the familiar or “none of the above”. And “known” is a problem. How do you enter that rarefied space? Well money can get you there for better or worse. Generally worse because money concentrated on politicians creates suspicions, as it should. What is being bought and sold?

The “who is electable polls” are downstream of the culture. Today performative politicians tend to sell unless the performer chooses to flash the audience on one of Oprah’s Network’s shows. Thus, Governor Newsom of California shows up better than Governor Shapiro of Pennsylvania. What about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the attractive and voluble member of Congress from New York City, versus former presidential chief-of- staff and Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel? Or JD Vance facing off against a range of Republican Governors little known beyond their State?

Abraham Lincoln is the ultimate standard—the North Star. But, he is a ghost that haunts us as we fumble around with 21st-century wannabes.

Decades ago, a California politician named Jesse Unruh called money “the mother milk of politics,” and he was probably more right than wrong. Today really big money is often in the hands of the technology leaders who have taken advantage of scale to amass billions. And have one thing centermost in their mind, ME.

Technology leaders have their agendas. They want us out of the way. Artificial intelligence will take our place. Robots might literally do so. And they want perpetual life. Well be careful what you want, because as that pig organ extends life your vanity will require surgery to prop up your face and more.

It’s hard to know how we, humanity, find balance. Wisdom. Everything is in motion; frequently pushing us out of the way.

When we call on the Courts to remind the hubristic that we do have guaranteed rights, the Courts can’t keep pace. Courts and their procedures have a hard time in the fast lane. And institutional imbalance, in our carefully crafted national structure, is de-stabilizing. Pay attention to Great Britain, if you doubt our peril.

Tech moves fast. Congress only moves when missed deadlines close down the government. What an embarrassment. No wonder former US Senator, Ben Sasse, resigned from the Senate because he said it wasn’t doing anything important.

And today’s White House? It is moved by money and insults—getting even.

Our laws and institutions were founded in the slow world. Let’s take for example the guarantee of free speech. Now AI, with its visual and audio tools, is exploited to produce deep fakes and more. Should that speech be protected? Words and images matter. They move people and then nations.

The questions, as the fast world overruns the slow one, are numerous and often complex—who is optimistic that a Constitutional Convention to address the imbalance would work? Or that parents and schools can both teach and protect the next generation. How does inter-generational acculturation work when a family goes to dinner and the kids remain preoccupied with their phones?

The political response to these and other questions will be newly shaped beginning only months from now. 2027 will be the swing year. If the words and phrases sound like pandering, look elsewhere. Real leaders choose their words carefully but do not pander.

Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.

I’ve always found it disconcerting when people make negative comments about former spouses, love interests, bosses, neighbors, etc. My mom used to reprimand my brother and me if we made a negative comment about a neighbor or relative. She would say, “It’s bad form. Don’t air your dirty laundry. You weren’t raised by wolves!”

Now let’s ratchet it up a notch to occasions when U.S. politicians badmouth other U.S. politicians when traveling abroad. Such practices are generally frowned upon because they project disunity and undermine the nation’s geopolitical stability. They also can cause deep offense to international hosts who view such comments as a breach of diplomatic etiquette.

Airing “dirty laundry” on foreign soil is seen as being disloyal to your home country. Traditional etiquette dictates that while vigorous domestic debates are vital at home, a united front should be presented to the rest of the world.

Senator Arthur Vandenberg, a Michigan Republican, is credited with originating the famous phrase “politics stops at the water’s edge,” which is often paraphrased as “domestic politics stops at the border.” He coined the aphorism in 1947 to advocate for bipartisan unity in American foreign policy at the beginning of the Cold War.

Badmouthing current and former U.S. political leaders weakens our negotiating powers and signals division to our foreign adversaries, potentially emboldening them to take advantage of a divided political front.

It’s also incredibly uncomfortable for foreign dignitaries to listen to a guest insult their country’s current or former officials, forcing the host into a no-win situation. They must either awkwardly agree or awkwardly defend another politician from that country.

Last week, while on foreign soil, our current Administration repeatedly criticized Obama’s agreements with Iran, making a mockery of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. (This becomes even more ironic when you examine the comparison between that deal and the current one.)

In its first term, this Administration questioned the tactics of the U.S. intelligence community and took Russia’s word over ours, and, when in China, it blamed past presidents for out-of-control trade deficits. Plus, on several occasions, when speaking to foreign dignitaries on domestic soil, it has criticized various U.S. cities and domestic policies as “disasters.”

So, what’s with airing all this “dirty laundry?” Why do people do it? And what should we do if we become victims of this kind of malignment?

Sometimes these maligners seek validation or sympathy. When a conflict ensues, they require reassurance that they are right and their predecessors were wrong. Sometimes people lash out because they are overwhelmed by anger. They just want to vent and seek some kind of release. And sometimes people want to make an issue public to hold another person accountable or expose a perceived mistreatment.

Airing dirty laundry can cause irreparable damage, tarnishing the reputations of everyone involved. It can also lead to a loss of trust and respect from work colleagues and friends. And certain attacks and “dirty laundry” accusations can cross the line into defamation suits, also at times drawing in unwanted bystanders.

When dealing with “dirty laundry” accusations, experts suggest staying calm, avoiding over-explaining and, if the accusations are completely false, stating your innocence simply and directly. Avoid giving the accuser the emotional reaction that they want. If the accusation threatens your reputation, job or legal standing, gather corroborating evidence to support your position, and back up the evidence in multiple locations so it cannot be deleted. Consult professionals if the “dirty laundry” accusations cross into defamation or harassment.

The French film director Francois Truffaut once wrote, “Airing one’s dirty linen never makes for a masterpiece.”

That’s an excellent reminder to this White House whose hampers are spilling over with piles of dirty laundry—and even a little algae--a tarnished reflection on the United States on its 250^th birthday.

Maria Grant, formerly principal-in-charge of the federal human capital practice of an international consulting firm, now focuses on writing, reading, music, and nature.

Father’s Day has come and gone. So has my own father who died in 1987. I can’t say I miss him because I still feel his presence. I’m glad he is home with his parents and his six older siblings, right back in Butler, Pennsylvania where he belongs.

Born on the very last day of 1906, he was a small town boy who made it relatively big in a relatively big city. He was a thoughtful lawyer, loyal to his clients. A kind and gentle man, born into a generation that understood faith and service. A young husband who met his future wife on a blind date in Boston during the Depression; the first family car would often sit idle the last week of the month because there wasn’t enough money for gas. A young father of three (I didn’t come along until much later) who went off to war, not to fight but to outthink and outplan the enemy. Then, when that duty was completed, a new father again, probably surprised—gobsmacked, even— but more than up to the task of me.

I don’t know if we were much alike. I can see a faint resemblance but being alike is so much more than that. He was calm and quiet; a Presbyterian and a conservative Republican in the days when that meant something very different than what it does today. He doted on my mother; I think he knew how lucky he was. He was the only one in his family who emigrated to the big city (it was only an hour away) but he retained all the mannerisms and attitudes of his small town origins. His friends and colleagues all respected him, but I doubt they knew him or loved him the way we did because he never actively sought their approval. He was not particularly social, just satisfied with what he had; I don’t think he had a frivolous or material bone in his body. He would read with his wire-rim spectacles on top of his head. He indulged me, perhaps too much, but I like to think he quietly approved of my more Democratic predilections.

When the first grandchild came along, he went from being “Bob” to “Kirkie.” That seemed to suit him better. Perhaps to better recall or renew his humble origins, he and my mother (now “Nanny”) built a weekend house on seventy acres of meadow adjacent to Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania. I say “built,” but their modest split-level house came up the gravel lane loaded on two flat-bed trailers; It was a Sears house, right out of the catalogue, but completely sufficient to our family’s modest needs. Kirkie loved to putter around the place: ride the John Deere mower, plant the rhubarb, play shuffleboard, or tinker at his work bench down in the basement. He wasn’t what I would call handy, but nothing seemed beyond his reach: if he couldn’t fix something, he knew someone who could.

In the photograph that accompanies this Musing, “Kirkie” is the little boy, front row, right. Of course, he wasn’t “Kirkie” then, just Bob, the baby of the family with his whole life ahead of him. I wonder if he had any inkling of what was to come; I doubt it. I’m just glad that it all came to pass as it did.

The territory of fathers and sons is a mysterious island, steeped in the mists of time. Its coastline has plenty of safe coves and rocky shoals, high cliffs and sandy beaches. I know that no father is perfect, but I was blessed. My father was a good and admirable man, worthy of emulation. I live in his shadow.

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives with his wife Kat Conley on both sides of the Chesapeake Bay. His editorials and reviews have appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. His most recent novel, “The People Game,” is available in bookstores and on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, and many other reader platforms. His website is musingjamie.net.

The summer of 1965 was a big travel year for my family. We drove first to Albuquerque then Houston to visit relatives, and I quickly discovered that Texans were a lot like Wyomingites, just with a Southern accent. My cousins said “y’all” while we said “you guys,” but beneath the differences in language, we shared the same independent spirit. There was a pioneer and cowboy heritage that connected us, even though all of us were growing up in cities rather than on ranches.

Our next stop was New Orleans. My grandmother took us on a tour of the French Quarter, and afterward we had lunch with more cousins. After spending a week in Houston and Galveston, I had become accustomed to Southern accents, but my Louisiana relatives spoke with what my grandmother called a patois, a rich blend of languages and traditions that was beautiful to hear but sometimes difficult for me to understand. Even so, I felt the same sense of kinship with my relatives in New Orleans and Shreveport that I had felt with my Texas cousins.

Our time in New York City was different. There, we were tourists rather than visiting family. I had my first real bagel and lox from the deli on the main floor of my grandmother’s apartment building, a taste unlike anything I had ever experienced in Wyoming. We visited the famous landmarks, rode crowded elevators, and looked up at skyscrapers that seemed to touch the clouds. New York felt exciting, sophisticated, and a world away from the wide-open spaces of home.

Our time in Boston was my first experience feeling like an outsider. We were swimming at my aunt’s country club with some local girls around my age when they noticed I was new and asked where I was from. When I told them Wyoming, they were incredulous. They asked if we had cars or if we still rode around in covered wagons. Did we even have electricity?

I was shocked and offended that they could be so rude and ignorant. Looking back, though, that moment was also when I first realized how proud I was of my home state. Wyoming may have been far away from Boston, but it was my home, and I loved it.

Despite that experience, I loved walking Boston’s Freedom Trail. I still remember seeing places like Paul Revere’s house and Old North Church. Learning about the Patriots and the Revolutionary War deepened my appreciation for our nation’s history and strengthened my love for this country.

The month we spent at my aunt’s summer house in Biddeford Pool, Maine, was a breath of fresh air. Everyone we met was kind, interesting, and welcoming. Maine felt like a beautiful postcard of America, with bonfires on cool evenings and clambakes on pristine beaches. After a day of sailing, we would stop at the lobster pound to pick up dinner, a tradition that felt quintessentially New England.

During that summer, I discovered that every place we visited had its own character and charm. From the wide-open spaces of Wyoming to the historic streets of Boston and the rugged coastline of Maine, each place offered something unique. Even as a young girl, I began to understand how vast and diverse America truly is.

I am grateful that those travels allowed me to experience different corners of our country and to appreciate both their differences and their shared spirit. Watching the National Anthem beautifully performed by Dan + Shay before the World Cup the other day brought those memories flooding back. It reminded me how fortunate I am to call this remarkable country home and how proud I am to be an American.

As different as Houston, New Orleans, and New York City were from one another, the trip taught me that family connections could bridge geography, accents, and cultures. Whether gathered around a table in Texas, strolling through the French Quarter, or sharing breakfast in Manhattan, I found pieces of myself reflected in relatives who lived hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

Kate Emery General is a retired chef/restaurant owner who was born and raised in Casper, Wyoming. Kate loves her grandchildren, knitting, and watercolor painting. Kate and her husband, Matt are longtime residents of Cambridge’s West End where they enjoy swimming and bicycling.

When my parents were dating in college, my mother took my father home to the farm with her one weekend. No one yet understood that my mother’s mother was dying of a slow paralysis. No one recognized that an inexplicable fall was the stealthy calling card of a disease she could not outrun for long.

But that summer, in the heat of an August weekend, the 19-year-old boy who would be my father remodeled my grandmother’s kitchen so that she could reach cabinets and counters, still make potato salad and strawberry jam. Could still be herself for a while longer.

He was her youngest daughter’s charming and generous new boyfriend, but as they packed up the car to return to campus, my prescient grandmother whispered in my mother’s ear, “He’s either the best thing that has ever happened to you or the worst.”

Decades after their divorce, my mother said, “He was both.”

My father and I didn’t have much time together. Memory must start to accrue around the age of three, and my parents separated when I was nine. After that, I saw him infrequently as he remarried the day their divorce was finalized and never lived closer than an hour away.

When you have little time with someone, you come to know and remember them through stories. In the end, that’s all we are. The tales others will tell about us. But beware of white hats and black hats, superheroes and villains, I tell my writing students. No one is all good or all bad, except in the world of Marvel, and no one should be confined by a narrative spun by others.

I don’t know the source of my father’s flaws, the drinking and companion vices that caused me to fear him, to seek his approval in place of affection. He never told me those stories, but I know each of us is born into this world wanting only to love and be loved, and if you are lucky enough not to be held hostage by your biology, stop pointing at those who are and say thank you.

And so, I don’t imprison him in memories that are hard to endure because those stories are not the whole story.

When I was perhaps three years old, we had a swing set and monkey bars in our leafy side yard. Bored, in the doldrums of a warm September afternoon, I’d managed to scramble up and over the top of the rungs unobserved, precariously straddling the metal crossbeam, bare legs dangling, to survey the yard. I balanced there, gradually listing to one side, doomed without doubt to fall.

My father was replacing spark plugs under the hood of our Ford, too far away to save me, when he heard my mother call out my name. He looked up, knew he couldn’t make it, but he threw himself into the path of a miracle in case one was available.

I don’t remember this event, but my sister was witness to a plaid shirt and stained jeans sprinting across the grass, and the story has become my proof of love, as stories often are when facts are not in evidence.

And maybe in some deep neuronal recess of my subconscious memory, a bee laden with pollen weaves heavily, drunkenly upward, spun adrift off the sweet clover by the spiraling vortex of this hurtling, heroic dash. My grip slips, my inner thighs pinch with the mean twist of burnished steel against tender skin. Icy panic knocks the wind from my small chest as the earth rushes up, but slowly, in terror’s altered state. I fall for minutes, hours. I fall for years.

I squeeze my eyes closed to endure my fate, but instead of slamming into the ground, I am crushed breathless to a pounding heart; pressed vise-tight against a plaid shirt with a pen in the pocket. A rough cheek grazes my own. I keep my eyes scrunched tight as one might to receive a blow or a blessing. To a torrent of kisses raining down.

Successful stories, I tell my students, circle back at the end to the place they began—to that question, that mystery, that ambiguity that is all of us.

But stellar stories don’t close the circle. They open up again to infinite possibilities.

I use my hands to demonstrate this, wrists pressed together, palms cupped open in the air. I think of my father and hold them up as if to catch something falling.

I hold them up as if to set something free.

Laura J. Oliver is an award-winning developmental book editor and writing coach, who has taught writing at the University of Maryland and St. John’s College. She is the author of The Story Within (Penguin Random House). Co-creator of The Writing Intensive at St. John’s College, she is the recipient of a Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award in Fiction, an Anne Arundel County Arts Council Literary Arts Award winner, a two-time Glimmer Train Short Fiction finalist, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. To support Laura’s contributions to the Spy and other creative writers on the Mid-Shore, please support the Spy’s art coverage by clicking here.

My ancestors could have been turning in their graves had they read President Trump’s social media post of 9:11 a.m. on June 15. They would have been as deeply offended and horrified as I am that the President of the United States had written such a troubling post.

Trump’s post reads, in its entirety: “Sadly, if you import people from Third World Countries, you quickly become a Third World Country — And there’s not a thing you can do about it. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”

My ancestors (one branch of the family) were poor Irish immigrants, forever grateful to be in the United States, but not always welcome. Ireland was once the equivalent of a third-world country. People were leaving in vast numbers to escape poverty, disease, and lack of opportunity.

The descendants of my Irish ancestors include corporate executives, lawyers, doctors, PhDs, artists, and more. They took the opportunity to immigrate to America and ran with it.

With few exceptions, in my experience, today’s Irish Americans are not seen as a problem. Like the descendants of Italy, Poland, Greece, and other once-poor countries, they are now accepted warmly as fellow-citizens by people with “more pedigreed” descendants, such as the British, German, and French.

Unfortunately, many Americans whose descendants arrived in North America well before mine still face brutal racism. If you doubt this and know any Blacks or Native Americans, ask them. And several other “groups” in America face racism daily, which is why many patriotic Americans welcome efforts by our political leaders to address that racism, including searching for appropriate actions to end it.

The reality of America today—that we continue to face the challenge of racism—makes the social media post of Donald J. Trump even more disturbing. Rather than addressing the challenge of racism, he is lending the credibility of the Presidency (what remains of it) to reinforce racism and expand it.

Trump previously posted a disgusting and virulently racist image of President Obama and his wife as apes on his social media website. Trump’s June 15 tweet would define Kenya, the home of President Obama’s father, as a third-world country and suggest that Mr. Obama’s immigration into the United States risked turning America into a third-world country.

We also see overt racism in other places within the Trump administration. Secretary of Defense Hegseth recently removed various Blacks and women from a promotion list, denying America the leadership of more than capable military officers. Why did Hegseth strike the names? What do you think?

Curiously, Donald Trump married not one but two women who might be described as coming from third-world countries. I suspect Trump would disagree with the characterization of the Czech Republic and Slovenia as part of the third world, but race may have something to do with it. When Trump talks or writes about the third world, he usually is referring to countries with a large percent of people of color in their populations.

I am disgusted by Trump’s blanket condemnation of entire populations of people. Trump said this about Somalia in a cabinet meeting, ‘I don’t want them in our country... their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks and we don’t want them in our country.” Trump is also quoted as saying immigrants from Somalia “contribute nothing” and the country is a “shithole.”

Speaking of “shitholes,” Trump has used the same slur when referring to Haiti and El Salvador and suggested the entire continent of Africa (with the exception of the White Afrikaners living in South Africa) deserves the same condemnation.

America will never overcome its legacy of racism with a racist serving as head of state. We must remember what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail: “The greatest stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Cuonciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a negative peace which is the presence of justice.”

I do not consider President Trump to be a moderate, but some of his supporters are. It is past time for those moderates to focus on what Trump and his administration are doing and saying and speak up.

J.E. Dean writes on politics, government, goldendoodles, and other subjects. A former counsel on Capitol Hill and public affairs consultant, Dean is an advocate for democracy, sanity, and the rule of law.

Whenever I go to New York, it only takes me a couple of days before I find myself aching for nature. It is fierce need that can only be quenched by returning to green expanses of trees, bushes, and grasses.

Most of us instinctively feel a wave of relief when transitioning from an urban jungle to a natural one.

It is wired into our brains. Research in environmental neuroscience has revealed that our brains are mathematically hardwired to prefer the specific geometry of nature.

When we look at a fern or a cloud, our brains aren’t just relaxing; they are recognizing fractals, and that recognition acts as an instant neurological off switch for stress.

Fractals are complex geometric shapes that look the same no matter how much you zoom in on them. This core property is called self-similarity, meaning the object is made up of smaller, repeating copies of itself at different scales.

Nature rarely operates in straight lines or perfect spheres. Instead, nature builds using fractals. When we look at a fern, it looks like a single leaf. But if we zoom in on one of its sub-branches, we will see it is made up of smaller versions of the exact same shape. Zoom in further, and the individual leaflets repeat the pattern yet again. We can observe this identical mathematical behavior in coastlines, river deltas, lightning bolts, trees, and even broccoli (although broccoli is not calming to me).

While natural patterns relieve stress, modern architecture doesn’t. Urban environments are dominated by Euclidean geometry—straight lines, boxy rooms, and rigid, artificial grids. While highly efficient for construction, these shapes are an evolutionary anomaly.

When our eyes scan a city landscape, the visual cortex has to work incredibly hard. Because artificial grids lack natural, repetitive patterns, our brains must actively calculate where one object ends and another begins. This high computational load drains cognitive energy.

On a subconscious level, a sterile, featureless concrete wall can signal a lack of life, safety, or resources.

A team of neuroscientists discovered that the human visual system has evolved to process a specific mid-range level of fractal complexity with ease. Because our eyes and brains developed in natural landscapes, we understand nature’s geometric language fluently.

When we view a canopy of trees:

• The brain recognizes the self-similar fractal pattern instantly and doesn’t need to work to decode the image, as it does with Euclidean geometry.

• There is massive spike in alpha brain waves, which are associated with a state of relaxed alertness and daydreaming.

• The amygdala signals that the environment is safe.

Laboratory studies have shown that simply looking at images of geometric natural fractals can lower physiological stress levels by up to 60% in less than one minute. Cortisol production slows, heart rate variability improves, and muscle tension relaxes.

The discovery of this fractal fluency is changing everything from interior design to medicine. In healthcare, hospitals are increasingly using carpets with fractal patterns, installing window views of gardens, or hanging art featuring natural geometries. Patients in these environments report lower pain levels, require less medication, and recover faster.

I believe that this innate need explains why New York City has 1700 parks. They are restorative places filled with fractals. Central Park, designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and architect Calvert Vaux in 1858, transformed 843 acres of Manhattan real estate into a restorative respite.

Throughout the world, city planners have understood the need for these open spaces, before having scientific research to support it. This research confirms what we inherently know, nature is not just a “nice to have” but a necessity for a stress-reduced life.

Angela Rieck, a Caroline County native, received her PhD in Mathematical Psychology from the University of Maryland and worked as a scientist at Bell Labs and other high-tech companies in New Jersey before retiring as a corporate executive. Angela and her dogs divide their time between St Michaels and Key West Florida. Her daughter lives and works in New York City.