Maria Wood - Chestertown Spy

Human Geographies on the Eastern Shore

September 4, 2023 by Maria Wood Leave a Comment

Before my memory begins, but not really so very long ago, the only way to cross the Chesapeake Bay was in a boat. Even after the first span of the Bay Bridge was built in 1952, a culture of geographical isolation persisted. Even after the second span was added, a trip to the Western Shore was a big, rare, deal in my growing up years in Centreville. As a result, pretty much everyone on the Eastern Shore lived a life deeply rooted in farming and immersed in the world of watermen. Even if you didn’t grow food in the soil or pull it out of the water yourself, blood or business linked you to those who did. Anyone you saw in the post office, be they teachers or bankers or car mechanics, were entwined in the specific geographies of this area in a material, dirt-beneath-your-fingernails, river-water-in-your-ears kind of way.

The defiant old refrain, “Don’t give a damn ’bout the whole state of Maryland, I’m from the EASTERN SHORE” came from resistance to building the Bay Bridge, and reflected the pride and fierce insistence on retaining a self-sufficient existence entwined in community and developed over centuries. There were two sides to this coin, of course (or more, if you want to get inter-dimensional about it). Self-sufficiency and a deep sense of place and community in the “land of pleasant living” also meant insularity, a lack of opportunities and resources from the outside world, and new ideas coming as fast as molasses going uphill in January, as my mother used to say.

It’s a bit different today. I left, as so many of us do, and returned years later to find that change does come eventually, even here, where the culture and the landscape seem to measure time on an entirely different scale from the outside world. Nowadays, farms and fishing no longer connect the whole of the population to the rhythms of the seasons, the taste of brackish water, and the squidge of mud caked on tractor tires. People can live on one side of the Bay and work on the other. Retirees are drawn here, contributing experience and perspectives from illustrious lives and all kinds of careers in all kinds of places. And of course, a generation of digital nomads can live where they choose while working in industries that weren’t dreamt of, not so very long ago.

Unequivocally, this is progress. Like all progress, it creates opportunities and uncovers gaps that didn’t previously exist… or hadn’t been recognized. It means things are different for the crop of farmers and custodians of the land who have been coming up into 21st century Eastern Shore life. They have access to resources, ideas, and possibilities unavailable to previous generations—but peers and colleagues are a little harder to find, and the average post office interaction is less apt to include someone who can tell you where to get a water pump for an old 1972 John Deere tractor, or how to navigate the paperwork for the newest USDA farm program, or how to ensure that the farm will still be here for your kids decades from now—that is, if the kids want anything to do with it.

Enter Next Generation Land Stewards!

NGLS is a new program under the ShoreRivers umbrella, conceived and created by two ShoreRivers staff members: Agriculture and Outreach Coordinator Laura Wood, and Director of Community Engagement, Darran Tilghman. Laura and Darran were each navigating this 21st century landscape with their families, and knew they couldn’t be the only ones asking the same questions and working through the same challenges. With a healthy dose of the hallmark Eastern Shore mindset of self-sufficiency, they recognized the need and invented a solution.

Darran and Laura sent out a call for others in similar situations to join an inaugural cohort of up and coming land stewards, assembling a group of active farmers with a variety of interests and specialties, people with non-farm day jobs, and members of upcoming generations preparing for the responsibility of protecting and preserving family farms. With a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, they developed a plan for a new program offering support, community, and resources to people working to preserve and protect Eastern Shore land while making them productive, profitable, and joyful for current and future generations. The first year, a pilot, would feature four gatherings where the group would eat together, hear from local experts on relevant topics, learn about each other’s farms and properties, and get to know each other. After the first two convenings, the program is already, without reservation, a raging success.

The first gathering took place on a sparkling late spring evening on the historic Hermitage Farm, beside the Chester River outside of Centreville. Dan Small, a field ecologist and manager of the Natural Lands Project at the Center for Environment and Society spoke and answered questions about how he helps public and private landowners navigate the incentive programs and access available funding to help generate income and support wildlife and clean water by installing wetlands and habitat buffers. Wildly Native Flower Farm in Chestertown hosted the second get-together, on an unbelievably hot morning in July. Liza Goetz led a tour of the farm and answered eager questions about the intricacies of a multi-generational business including grandparents, parents, and adult children participating and living on site. Michael Ports and David Satterfield of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy led a lively discussion about conservation easements.

Common themes emerged from the earliest moments of the first event: Love of the natural beauty and native flora and fauna; hope that today’s children will feel as profoundly connected to the place as their parents, and that they’ll be able to make it work on the Eastern Shore if they choose to stay. The struggle to make a small farm a viable business, and the creative approaches people have taken to generate additional revenue, such as Airbnb-ing, events hosting, and other side-businesses—or, indeed, full-time day jobs. The challenges of multi-generational decision-making and maintaining relationships with stakeholders who may be faraway and may or may not understand the joys and miseries of protecting, preserving, and working the land. Concerns about climate change, sea level rise, and market fluctuations.

Connecting the future with the past

Farms and workboats are still iconic elements of Eastern Shore life, but unlike in years gone by, it’s perfectly possible in 2023 to to live outside the daily dirt-beneath-your-fingernails, river-water-in-your-ears experience that was a matter of course until so very recently. The losses and gains of such changes are part of a natural flow; humans have always moved around and explored. What is constant are the impacts: of humans on the land and each other, and of the specificities of environments such as the Eastern Shore on the people who inhabit them. Our lives are enriched in these intersections, and at the same time, what we lose in the process makes us pine for a past that seems to slip away just as we begin to appreciate it.

Already, Next Generation Land Stewards seems to be charting a course between overcoming the challenges and embracing the possibilities of a forward looking vision. I foresee it becoming an enduring and essential source of information and community for upcoming farmers and custodians of the land as they find ways, in Laura’s words, “to navigate the responsibilities of multigenerational land stewardship,” in community with others who are also caring for the land with an eye on the future while managing it for financial and agricultural success in the present, and preserving the sense of timelessness and singularity that makes it feel so special.

Laura and Darran are full of visionary ideas for growing Next Generation Land Stewards beyond this initial year. Indeed, based on enthusiastic requests, additional informal get-togethers are in the works for this year to give the the group more chances to connect, share, ask questions, and hang out without agenda. ShoreRivers has already applied for funding to continue the program next year., If all goes well NGLS will become a deeply resourced and ongoing element of the organization’s portfolio, connecting and empowering successive new cohorts of Eastern Shore farmers and land stewards for years to come.

Maria Wood traveled throughout the country as production and tour manager for award-winning musician David Grover, with whom she co-founded a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing education and fostering positive social change through music and music-making. She returned to school mid-career, earning a BA in American Studies and a Certificate in Ethnomusicology from Smith College. More recently, she has written and taught on the meaning and impact of the musical Hamilton, served as Deputy Campaign Manager for congressional candidate Jesse Colvin and was Executive Director of Chestertown RiverArts. She lives in a multigenerational human/feline household in Chestertown.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Mid-Shore Profiles: From Mr. Wood to Granpa by Maria Wood

July 19, 2023 by Maria Wood 3 Comments

Editor Note: This month the Spy will be launching a Centreville edition to complement its sister educational news portals in Chestertown, Talbot County and Cambridge. In keeping with a tradition of dedicating a Spy newspaper to unique Eastern Shore leaders we have long admired we have selected the late Howard Wood for that recognition. We asked Maria Wood, Spy columnist and granddaughter of Howard, to share her memories of one of Mid-Shore’s true conservation heroes and and put a well-deserved spotlight to a rare breed of citizenship. The Spy is currently having a startup campaign for the Centreville Spy which can be found here.

Howard Wood was a sailor, an attorney, a humanitarian, a conservationist, an adventurer, and my grandfather, not necessarily in that order. He devoted most of his long life to the Eastern Shore, particularly Queen Anne’s County. From the family farm on the Chester River, and his office six miles away on the corner of Lawyer’s Row in Centreville, he was a champion and steward of the natural beauty and abundance of the land and water, and an advocate, helper, and friend to the communities and people who live here.

A man can go by many names in 91½ years. There were those who called him Howard, but they may have been in the minority. To many, from all walks of life and of all ages, he was “Mr. Wood.” Even today it’s not hard to find people who speak of him with almost disbelieving affection, respect, and delight. Anyone in his family is familiar with the conversation:

“Oh, you’re Mr. Wood’s granddaughter/son/nephew/cousin? Oh yeah, I remember him, he was a good man. This one time, we were…”

…and off they go, telling a story, maybe of how he helped them, or improved something, or, just of a consistent reliability, doing more than required, in his methodical, mild-mannered, lawyerly view of the world. Off the top of my head, I can think of Black watermen, white farmers, skipjack captains, hunters, teachers, and many more with whom I’ve had a version of this conversation. Someday I’ll have it for the last time, but 15 years after Mr. Wood’s death, it’s still going strong. I feel both proud and inadequate every time.

To my grandmother, he was “R,” a mutual nickname they used nearly unfailingly, entirely mysterious to their grandchildren. In my own memory, he was “thee” to his siblings, with whom he followed the old-school Quaker practice of second-person singular pronouns. In possibly history’s politest protest movement, this usage was the early Quakers’ rejection of the second-person plural “you” customarily used to indicate deference to those in a higher social echelon. By the time it was in my grandfather’s lexicon, I think “thee” was somewhere between an endearment and a habit, but the Friends’ stubbornly egalitarian worldview in which it was rooted resonated deeply with the way he treated people and the way he presented himself.

Eventually he was “Dad” to his children, and then “Granpa” to grandchildren and great-grandchildren. One of my favorite memories is arriving at my grandparents house with my infant daughter, the first child in her generation. Granpa threw open the front door, bellowing “WHERE is my GREAT granddaughter?” At 84 years old, arthritic, and with little hearing left, his excitement at meeting the new baby made him perhaps more ebullient than I had ever seen him.

Sailing

At the helm at the end of his sail across the Atlantic, approx. 1982

He loved sailing more than almost anything. He was an original member of Corsica River Yacht Club, whose somewhat scrappy nature suited the Howard Wood ethic of focusing on what mattered. One of his guiding principles was “do what the weather tells you to do.” If the wind is right and the river is calling, don’t let the day go by without getting on a boat—there will be plenty of hot swampy days when the air doesn’t move to tend to bookkeeping or yard work. In his youth, he sailed on his Uncle Harry Wilmer’s sloop Elizabeth, and raced one-designs in regattas around the Chesapeake for decades. With Bill and Norman Grieb, his neighbors from across the river, he sailed on the log canoe Mayflower, exploits that Bill and Howard’s sons recounted just last week on a July 4th sail around Comegys Bight in Howard’s old daysailer.

He crossed the Atlantic Ocean by sail in a grand adventure that was a pinnacle of pride and delight. Maybe even more adventurously, he spent nine months in 1968 sailing down the inland waterway and to the Bahamas with my grandmother and my then-7 year old uncle. His 90^th birthday celebration was a sail on the skipjack Elsworth with a crowd of family and friends, courtesy of Captain Andy McCown of Echo Hill. His love of “messing about in boats” lives in his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. If everyone in the family has a little Chester River water in our veins, it’s from him.

Conservation

He’s been fêted for service of organizations and institutions around the bay. A pioneering conservationist on the Eastern Shore, he was a founder of the Queen Anne’s County Conservation Association, the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy, and the Chester River Association, which became one of the legacy organizations for the mighty ShoreRivers. He was a trustee with Maryland Environmental Trust, and in 1987 he was Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Conservationist of the Year.

He was involved with the Critical Areas Protection Act, which passed in 1984 and remains a significant tool for protecting the bay and its shorelines. In cooperation with the University of Maryland, he made Indiantown a demonstration farm in the 1980s, helping to establish best management practices for water quality protection while incorporating the economic and practical realities of real-life farming.

People

Yet, there was more to Howard Wood’s contributions than protecting and preserving the land and water. People had to be in the picture as well. For over 42 years in his law practice, he helped people who needed it, without regard to race or class, a not altogether common philosophy at the time. After his (semi-)retirement, his old clients still called on him for assistance. He said “they’re like members of the family.”

During the civil rights movement, he proposed that the Centreville Town Commissioners establish a biracial committee through which Black residents could express what they needed and wanted, and the white executive and legislative officials could, by listening and acting, begin to address the issues and possibly avert the unrest that would rock nearby communities in the years to come. There were surely other factors that kept Centreville relatively peaceful in those years compared with neighboring county seats, but this straightforward, reasonable approach from a community leader may have helped.

In 1992, responding to a severe housing shortage, Howard and Mary Wood established the Spaniard Neck Foundation to raise money for low-interest loans and grants to help with housing related costs. Governor William Schaefer recognized their efforts in 1988 when the He served on the board of the Kent & Queen Anne’s Hospital, as a director of the Centreville National Bank, on the Maryland state Attorney’s Grievance Commission, and on the vestry of St. Paul’s Church in Centreville.

Personal Connections

The list of such accomplishments is too long to fully explore here. But in my observation, personal relationships were his most important contributions to the Eastern Shore. That’s why so many people are still excited to talk about what he did for them, and with them, and the way he made them feel. Last week at a 4th of July crab feast, I heard just such a story.

Howard Wood with his great-grandchildren, approx. 2006

It won’t surprise you to learn that high-speed internet was a long time coming to the farm. As recently as 2009, in a quest to do better than dialup, a family member looked into broadband. There was a chance a signal from an old fire tower across the river could do the trick, so two technicians drove out to assess the situation. After a search for a suitable site—close enough to the house, with an unobstructed line of sight, and access to electricity, it was not looking good. There was some discussion of trying the roof, but the guys understandably looked askance at that prospect. During the friendly chitchat as they wrapped up the disappointing housecall, one of the technicians realized where he was.

“Oh, is this Mr. Wood’s place? Oh yeah, I’ve been here before, I remember him. He was a good man. This one time… ”

… and he was off. It emerged that in the days of the Spaniard Neck Foundation, in addition to conveyancing deeds, administering loans, and untold other tasks associated with such an endeavor, Mr. Wood had invited kids from the families the foundation was working with to the farm. He taught them to swim and to row a boat, and if my own childhood is anything to go by, probably got them to pick up some sticks, too. He gave them a good time and made human connections, making manifest his instinctive understanding that conservation means little if the people in this unique place don’t take the time or have the opportunity to commune with the land and the water.

Those warm memories of a childhood day on the farm buoyed the now-grown up internet specialist, and he had a brainstorm. Maybe he could catch that broadband signal after all. A little more testing and fiddling, and he found an auspicious spot on the far edge of the front lawn. Pretty soon, a clip from the David Letterman show was streaming in, at a bit rate beyond dial up wildest dreams. There’s almost nothing about that sentence that my grandfather would have understood, or found relevant, but that’s progress for you, even on the Eastern Shore.

Saving the Bay: People Working for the Future of the Chesapeake, quotes Howard Wood as saying “Part of the Bay is beyond the borders of the stream. It includes the land, forested shorelines, the historic landscapes, a sense of heritage and place, and the connection to the people who live on the land and water. Those may be more important than just straight water-quality issues. Certainly here on the Eastern Shore, along these rivers, in these communities, on these family farms, all of those things tug at our hearts.”

The practical, patient way that he lived that insight is what brings smiles to the faces of those who still remember Mr. Wood with such delight. Because sharing what he loved about this place was almost as important to him as helping people get into safe, clean homes, the splashes of a boy into the Chester River on a hot and sticky summer day rippled through the decades, eventually bringing YouTube to the 11th generation of this family on the old farm beside the river. Those ripples and many others, large and small, endure—a legacy, and an example for the rest of us.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

The Tyranny of False Security, or I apologize to my Neighbors by Maria Wood

June 9, 2023 by Maria Wood Leave a Comment

This is controversial: Maybe it’s time to rethink smoke detectors. Let me explain.

On a rainy evening after a long week not long ago, I had just settled down with a carb-heavy dinner and a soothing British period drama when an ominous chirrup shattered the quiet, and along with it any hope of a cozy tranquil night. OH NO! The pitiless call of a needy smoke alarm awoke a stabbing dread in my heart.

Thoughts of fire or suffocating from an unseen noxious gas never entered my mind. No, a far more terrifying fate was in store. My fears were confirmed moments later by another round of staccato chirps and then, even worse, a mocking silence. I sat in a hypervigilant state, heart pounding, pupils dilated, and nerves on edge, frozen in anticipation of the next aural assault, my sense of time kaleidoscoped by the waiting… the waiting… the waiting…

The moments ticked by, just long enough to con my nervous system into lowering its guard. Just as my pulse normalized and my focus returned to the rugged Yorkshire countryside and my warm, cheesy supper, BAM! As inexorable as death and taxes, three more laryngitic bleeps shrieked into the dark with sadistic glee and quieted before I could begin to suss out their point of origin. The source was almost certainly not where it belonged on the ceiling of a hall or bedroom inside the warm, dry house, where I could deal with it in good lighting. Oh no, this hazing ritual would have no such easy fix. How could I be so sure, you ask? Easy: our smoke detectors had long since been hastily dislocated from their proper locations, in incidents involving things like bacon or the fireplace flue.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not comfortable going commando vis a vis smoke detectors. Sparky the Fire Dog is embedded in my earliest neural pathways, so I’m fully aware it’s only a matter of time before we’re engulfed in flames. But life is to be lived, at least until the inferno, and this old world is stressful enough without earsplitting false alarms at breakfast time. Of course we had ripped the smoke detectors from the ceiling at some point, tossing them onto the porch, where the fresh air would make them Shut Up Already. Do I feel good about it? No. Has life been more peaceful since? It absolutely has.

A jilted smoke detector harbors a stunning level of narcissistic cruelty, expressed in a charming safety mechanism, used to demand attention when its battery is dying or it’s otherwise not in good working order. The system is, whenever a unit randomly decides it’s lonely, it emits a triplet of shrill, unignorable BLIPS, like an attention-seeking toddler chanting “Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. MomMomMom. Mom.” Only unlike a toddler, after those three cute but ear-splitting blips, it waits with malicious delight as you stare dumbly at the shards of your peace of mind scattered at your feet. Each chirp is just a fraction of a second long. The ear has no hope of identifying a location. The silent lull that follows is fiendishly timed to last just a few moments more than a human attention span. It’s kind of like playing a really slow game of Hot and Cold, but the only clue is “cold.” Ironically. It’s a system designed for torment.

So it’s a cold and rainy night, dark as a coal mine, and that alarm is getting its revenge. Frantically problem-solving, I get the brilliant idea to time the silent interval, so my echolocation powers can be at the ready for the next set of chirps. This strategy is successful as far as it goes, but it really just confirms that the device is indeed somewhere in the depths of the dark porch. When I try to home in on it, the sound just bounces around, sending me on a series of wild goose chases into damp and cobwebby corners.

“Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!” Move to the other side of the porch. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Shiver. Cold droplets on my neck. Stare at the stopwatch. Wait. Ok… almost time… get ready… Ears on alert. NOW! “Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!” Dammit, it doesn’t sound any closer! Where is it coming from? It’s everywhere! Maybe in this damp cardboard box? Nope, just ancient weatherstripping and a socket wrench in there. Ugh. Ok, three steps in this direction. Wait. Wait. Shiver…

It’s quickly clear that this operation is doomed until daybreak. I resign myself to an evening of torture and, with the benefit of sunlight the next morning, I’m able to find the alarm. Unearthed from the bottom of a pile of old ping pong paddles and someday yard sale items, the unmuffled sound is eardrum-piercing. It chirps on, merry. Intermittent. Ruthless. I can’t just put it out in the trash barrel; it wouldn’t be fair to the neighbors, and is probably not environmentally responsible, so I google desperately for a customer service number. After I refuse to feed my contact info into yet another insidious database, the nice lady on the phone officially recommends that I “wrap it in a towel or something and maybe if you have a garage, put it out there until the battery dies.” FANTASTIC. (I don’t have a garage).

Could I take it to the fire department? Sparky the Fire Dog would definitely arrest me. Also, I’d have to either drive with that infernal noise in my car, or walk down the street carrying it in ignominy. I ruefully wrap the thing in a towel and leave it outside the back door, wishing it a swift and very painful death.

48 hours pass.

Suddenly the alarm SHRIEKS. LOUDER THAN EVER. PROLONGED SIREN-LIKE WAILS. It’s unconscionable, even wrapped in a towel and outdoors on the far side of the house. I fear Chestertonians showing up with pitchforks, so I google “Can you smash smoke detector with a hammer,” only to learn that even wanton violence might not stop the sound.

I try the 800 number again, and this time I get a much more self-assured weekday customer service professional. I’m a hollow husk of a person by now, so I cave and provide my phone number. I will receive spam calls until the end of time. I start to explain my dilemma, but Call Center Guy interrupts, telling me to slide the switch on the back of the device to “off,” as indicated on the back. Shockingly, I had tried that before I called the first time, because I can read and follow directions. CCG wants the model number, so I tiptoe outside to unwrap the alarm from the towel, which has been providing at least some degree of sound absorption. While I worry about my ears bleeding, CCG continues to ask questions. Finally, without his help, I discover that sliding the switch back into the ON position stops the shrieking. Naturally.

In the blessed quiet, CCG’s tone grows even more contemptuous. He says I need to vacuum the dust out of the device, insultingly (if accurately) insinuating that I haven’t kept up with my proper monthly maintenance. It dawns on me that he’s trying to tell me how to keep this infernal contraption alive even though it’s clearly no longer trustworthy, and also will possibly lead to murder, or suicide, or both. I explain that I absolutely do not want to restore the unit’s ability to chirp. He says, “if you want to disable the alarm [unspoken: you dumb broad], you have to slide the switch all the way under the tab, but then you won’t be able to use it, ever again” [unspoken: you deserve to die in a fire]. “Awesome,” says I, immediately sliding the tab. CCG continues talking at me. I say “Thank you” and hang up.

So I guess we’re currently in violation of the Maryland law requiring smoke alarms with sealed, 10-year batteries on every level of the home, and we have been for a while now (since the last Bacon Incident, probably). I suppose we’ll need to replace the one I disabled and can’t use ever again. But let’s be honest. We’ll surely end up right back on the same merry-go-round. A system to let people know when smoke detectors need attention is a good idea, and I truly appreciate the good intentions behind it. But now that we see how works in the real world, it could maybe use some adjustment. How about coming up with a system for people who occasionally burn their breakfasts and would sprain a wrist trying to vacuum a device attached to the ceiling?

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

You Want Drama? We got Drama with the IPCC Climate Change Report

April 13, 2023 by Maria Wood Leave a Comment

You’ve probably forgotten about the most recent climate change report because it came out in Olden Times, about three weeks ago. To refresh your memory, it carried the captivating title Synthesis Report of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. From what I could tell, the “About” section is even more boring than the name, but I fell asleep halfway through reading it, so it might pick up toward the end. I recall something about “the assessment report of its three working groups, three special reports, a refinement to the methodology… zzzzzzzzzz…”

Anyway, as a document, it does not fall short of its predecessors, in either the tone of dire urgency or the pleas for the world to pay attention for Pete’s sake and DO something, already. What I know about IPCC reports is: they seem to come out roughly every other day; they are written by scientists and bureaucrats, and probably scientific bureaucrats; and the message of each one is “EARTH PEOPLE: PLEASE CARE THAT THE PLANET IS BURNING AND LIFE AS WE KNOW CAN NEVER BE THE SAME.” Alas, comedic exaggeration falls flat, because the actual conclusions in the actual IPCC reports are truly dramatic, and yet astoundingly un-hyperbolic.

There is a helpful section called “Headline Statements,” designed for people seeking maximal panic with minimal scrolling, and for news reporters who’ve been given 30 seconds to explain meteorological catastrophe to a semi-attentive audience waiting to board an airplane.

Skimming bullet points therein, one learns that “Human activities, principally through emissions of greenhouse gases, have unequivocally caused global warming,” a sentence both incredibly dull and frighteningly clear. That word unequivocally shows up so casually in the third clause, hitting you right between the eyes while you’re still groggy from the soothing non-specificity of what came before.

Moving on, “Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.” I don’t know what a cryosphere is. I think Walt Disney might live there? But wow, the confidence this statement throws down! Widespread. Rapid. Have occurred. As the kids say, we’ve um… fudged around with fossil fuels, and now we’re finding out.

Confidence ratings, italicized and parenthetical, follow every assertion like a Greek chorus for scientist-slash-bureaucrats, the Oceanids of sea level rise, perhaps. “Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health (very high confidence).” “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all (very high confidence).” “Ocean acidification (virtually certain), ocean deoxygenation (high confidence) and global mean sea level (virtually certain) will continue to increase in the 21st century, at rates dependent on future emissions.”

There’s an awful lot of certainty and confidence around some seriously high-stakes facts throughout this report. Having attended elementary school before the invention of STEM, I can’t claim to understand the technical details of causal linkages between things like emissions, acidification, deoxygenation, and climate change. Not being a magician, I can’t transform the global economy with a snap of my fingers in order to “achieve deep and sustained emissions reductions and secure a liveable and sustainable future for all” (high confidence).

What I can tell you, though, is that having grown up in, on, and beside the Chester River, it’s plain to see the changes to the water, the land, the flora, and the fauna so abstrusely described by the scientist-slash-bureaucrats. Listen my children, and you shall hear of a time not so very long ago when the river did not encroach upon the land. It’s hard to believe, but High Street in Chestertown did not get its name because high tides regularly covered it. There used to be beaches on the shores of the river. One-hundred year floods only came around once a century or so. Raising houses, docks, and parking lots lest they need to be abandoned is not a time-honored Eastern Shore tradition. Don’t get me wrong, summer has always been hot, but there’s hot and then there’s what we have now. Now we have HOT hot.

Sober, buttoned down people and institutions like the IPCC have been dialing up the dramatic language about the severity, urgency, and imminence of climate change for a long time, and people really do understand it better than they did even a few years ago. Maybe all these reports have made a difference. Or maybe it’s because it’s gotten so much more visible, so rapidly. It’s especially hard to avoid for those of us living in a place where the line between the water and the land has become more of a suggestion than a border, and where a bigger proportion of the economy is devoted to adaptation, mitigation, and emergency response every year.

I have a semi-obsessive habit of photographing the high tides as they shove the river into places where it really doesn’t belong A few years ago, I would traipse someplace like the foot of High Street or the Centreville Wharf for this purpose, and almost always be alone. If anyone else was around, they simply launched their boat or took their walk, apparently oblivious to the really big, ah… puddle in their way. Last week, however, I felt almost superfluous among the swarm of people documenting the waves washing inexorably over the deck. This is progress.

Yet every time the IPCC drops a new truth bomb, it scarcely seems to make a splash. No wonder those poor scientists-slash-bureaucrats keep pushing the drama-meter higher. They must feel like they’re screaming into the abyss. It’s another iteration of the polycrisis I’ve written about in the past, but how can regular people possibly be expected to cope with climate change information? The systems are so complex and the changes needed are on such a massive scale, with so much global power and money at stake. We’re just trying to get through the day over here, and “Increased international cooperation including improved access to adequate financial resources, particularly for vulnerable regions, sectors and groups, and inclusive governance and coordinated policies” keeps slipping down the to-do list, below laundry, keeping track of grocery prices, staying updated on covid vaccines, and remembering when the new season of Ted Lasso comes out.

At moments like these I like to turn to smart organizations and wise friends for real talk, no sugar-coating, perspective, and good advice, so I asked Darran White Tilghman, Director of Community Engagement at ShoreRivers for help. Unlike me, the folks at ShoreRivers do understand science. They can sort out what individuals need to know and point us toward what we can do.

Darran’s message helped rouse me from my jargon-induced slumber. She says:

“There is plenty of cause for grief and anger in the latest IPCC report, but it is so important not to give in to despondency and doom. The future isn’t written yet; we are writing it every day. Let’s make the story we write one of stubborn hope and joy. Put that hope into action by planting a native tree or River-Friendly Yard, by insisting that all sectors embrace the climate solutions that already exist, by sharing your love of our waterways and lands with a young person. There is still time to act, and if we act together we will create a shared future we want to inhabit.”

I believe in the truth of this message (very high confidence), and so does the IPCC. Even while dialing up the urgency, the scientists-slash-bureaucrats insist that “multiple, feasible and effective options are available,” and not just that, but that the solutions that will reduce emissions and slow global warming come with side benefits of reducing hunger, reducing poverty, and improving global health and overall societal well-being. Each of us has options for action, and if we come together even in small bands of neighbors or colleagues or friends, we have even more options. Let’s write that future—I’ll see you at the water’s blurry edge.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

The Hope for Rocket-Free Skies by Maria Wood

February 25, 2023 by Maria Wood 3 Comments

Vladislava Pleshkanovska

A few weeks ago when I spoke with my friend Vania, he was in the dark. His face floated, seemingly untethered in the middle of the otherwise black zoom screen. When I asked how he was, he said he was fine, and then elaborated: “Happy, but not very happy.”

Vania is in Lutsk, a small western Ukrainian city, about 50 miles from the Polish border, and I am in Chestertown, Maryland. We meet twice a week to chat via zoom. He’s improving his English skills, so our conversations move slowly, with occasional pauses to use Google translate—but these are less often now than when we first met. We repeat and rephrase frequently, echoing each other to reflect back what we’ve understood and ensure that the message received matches what we’ve tried to convey. We met through a program called ENGin (www.ENGinprogram.org), which matches Ukrainian English learners with conversation buddies who are fluent English speakers for one-on-one language practice and cross-cultural exchange.

That day, Vania explained that he was happy because he’d picked up his pay from a new, better-paid coding job he’d recently transitioned into. His unhappiness was because he was in the dark. Early in the winter, the Ukrainian government instituted scheduled power cuts to manage the damage being inflicted on the national power grid by Russian attacks. The purpose of the attacks was to freeze and isolate the civilian population during the short days of the cold winter. Rolling daily blackouts, four hours on/four hours off, reduced the demand for energy while allowing a modicum of predictability so people could plan their energy usage and organize their days.

I’m familiar with Wi-Fi frustrations caused by our occasional weather-related blackouts, so I was confused about how Vania’s internet connection remained strong and stable during a widespread power outage. Internet providers would have backup power sources, but home routers and modems need electricity too. When there is no electricity in the home, there is no internet. How was this meeting happening? Vania’s eyes lit up a little at the question, and he showed me a small white box that he had built: a power bank for his internet router. With this device and a charged-up laptop, he was able to meet with an American almost 5,000 miles away to practice English and compare notes on the World Cup, the darkness of war notwithstanding.

Based on what I’ve observed in twice-weekly zoom conversations, the reporting from western news sources about Ukrainians’ stalwart response to the blackouts is accurate. They’ve been ingenious and determined. There is no question of giving in to the darkness that’s trying to envelope their country from the east, not only destroying their cities and their power grid, but trying to crush their economy, their democracy, and indeed, their very identity. When an air raid alarm interrupted us a few weeks ago, Vania glanced at his phone to check that he was safe, then continued talking. Ukrainians are coping with daily crises while focusing on creating a future, with conviction and purpose, acknowledging moments of appreciation: such as for a paycheck and scheduled—as opposed to unscheduled—blackouts. Happy, but not very happy.

Slowly, aiming for extreme clarity, Vania and I can discuss complicated subjects and ideas, from covid vaccines to nuclear weapons, his PhD dissertation topic (I confess that I did not fully understand this conversation—not the fault of the language barrier but of my lack of knowledge of anything to do with advanced engineering and powder metallurgy), and whether Ukrainian children should learn Russian. Through forty-minute glimpses into each other’s lives, we’ve compare thoughts, exchanged ideas, and forged a connection. We’ve become friends.

A few weeks ago, I met another student who shows me a different way that Ukrainians are experiencing this war. For six months, Vladislava has been living in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, far from her family and her home city of Dnipro. She is a graphic designer and a stunningly accomplished artist with an impressive resume and a former member of the Ukrainian national rowing team. Since leaving Ukraine and her job at a print house in Dnipro, she’s been freelancing from Tenerife while looking for full-time work in Europe or perhaps the US. Vladislava and I don’t yet know each other well, but I already see her determination, her resourcefulness, and her bravery. She has allowed me to share the illustration above, which she posted on Instagram last April with this caption (translated automatically from Ukrainian by Instagram):

“I don’t want to write about pain. She is too much and getting bigger by the minute. In the second week of the war, while sitting in a asylum, I began to draw. I was slowly recovering from the shock. And this is my first job during the war. I have faith that the day will come when we all breathe and take a step. tip into a new bright and happy future. In which we will be even stronger, even kinder, even more united. And our soul will be filled with love and faith in the best. We will become a nation that only can be proud of! Together we are strong! Together we are Ukraine!”

A year ago, Ukraine was a vague, Russia-adjacent blur in the minds of many Americans. Today, even as we are collectively aghast at the wanton fury of Russian aggression carried out in full brazen view, public conversation in the US and elsewhere is riddled with questions about when the war will end and what compromise or settlement will wrap it up. Interviewers, pundits, and politicians plead for an exit strategy to make the barbarity end, and to quiet the fears that Putin stokes about nuclear weapons and further expansion of his aggression. They ask what Putin wants, as though the war itself is a negotiation strategy.

Ukrainians, from President Zelenskyy to my English student friends, echoed by historians, journalists, and diplomats with expertise in eastern Europe, tell us with unvarnished conviction and near unanimity that it’s not about a strategic agenda or a magic compromise. It is about the survival of a nation, a language, a culture, and an identity, and even more. It’s also about defining the worldwide political order in the 21st century, how we value human rights, and the strength of democratic principles.

The tragedy and pain of this war is too big for the mind to comprehend or the heart to hold, and yet human-scaled responses like conversations across oceans and borders and languages make a difference, to both sides. A filament of communication strung between individuals increases the measure of hope in the world, and diminishes fear. Acknowledgement, respect, and curiosity about Ukraine and its people are non-destructive armaments that anyone can wield in the battle against the erasure of a nation. That’s what I’m doing with Vania and Vladislava, and that’s why I’m writing about them.

You can see more of Vladislava’s art on her Instagram, at www.instagram.com/vladislava_pl/. When I asked Vania if there was anything he would like me to include in this article, he had an immediate response: “We Ukrainians respect your support from the USA and follow your democratic values, and our democracy will live on.”

After our conversation before the anniversary of the invasion, he texted me “See you on Friday then. I hope there will be no rockets)).” Let’s all hope for no more rockets, not just on Friday, but far into the future. Those of us who are safe outside Ukraine should understand, though, that as long as Russia harbors the ambition to wipe Ukraine out in the present, nullify its history, and deny it a future, the threat of rockets will hang over Ukrainian skies.

ENGin is actively seeking volunteers. Last month, they received a surge of thousands of new applications from Ukrainians seeking conversation partners. Volunteers need only be 14 or older, fluent English speakers, and able to commit one hour per week for a minimum 10-12 weeks, scheduled at the mutual convenience of the student and volunteer. I can’t recommend the organization and the experience highly enough. Information about the program and how it works is at https://www.enginprogram.org/.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

We Hate to See You Go, Jacinda by Maria Wood

January 23, 2023 by Maria Wood 3 Comments

I’ve recently learned a new word that I wish we hadn’t needed: polycrisis, first offered by Edgar Morin and Anne Brigitte Kern in their 1999 book Terre-Patrie (Homeland). It describes the complex enmeshment of large scale problems that must be understood and tackled as interconnected parts of a whole rather than separate and independent issues. Unsurprisingly, it’s gained traction in recent years. Last week’s World Economic Forum pushed it squarely into 2023 buzzword territory.

Relatedly, Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand, shook people up by announcing that she will not seek re-election in the fall, and furthermore that she will step down in just a few weeks. Like all world leaders, Ardern has been swept into the chaos of the polycrisis as it has ricocheted around the globe. She distinguished herself and won admiration with swift, compassionate, and decisive responses to multiple major crises, including the Christchurch mosque shootings, which were the first ideologically-motivated mass killings and by far the deadliest attack in New Zealand’s history.

At the helm of an island nation with over 3,000 melting glaciers, she’s confronted the escalating climate emergency. She focused her government’s attention on reducing child poverty, including food and housing insecurity. There’s also been the small matter of protecting New Zealanders from a global pandemic—interwoven with a vitriolic, sometimes violent backlash from those who apparently resented living in one of the only places in the world where life expectancy actually increased from 2020 to 2022.

New Zealand is also part of the larger global community, so in addition to the above, Ardern has led through multiple other intertwined crises, including the war in Ukraine, wobbly democracies around the world, an unpredictable global economy, high energy costs, supply chain disruptions, global food shortages, and refugee and human rights crises.

Announcing her resignation, Ardern said “I know there will be much discussion in the aftermath of this decision as to what the so-called “real” reason was. I can tell you that what I am sharing today is it. The only interesting angle that you will find is that after going on six years of some big challenges, I am human.”

She was correct about the widespread discussion; much initial speculation centered around her falling approval ratings. Mere moments after the news broke, talking heads theorized with knowing smirks that, waning in popularity, she was reluctant to face an uncertain re-election effort. I believe the Prime Minister’s explanation, which is simpler yet more complex. Her ‘surprise’ announcement wasn’t surprising to anyone paying attention to leaders of all kinds and at all levels—especially women—in recent years. She joins a strikingly high number of CEOs, college presidents, hospital executives, school principals, elected officials, and business owners who have made similar decisions. Their specific roles and stressors, and the scale and nature of the pressures upon them vary, but for many people in positions of responsibility, the equation of resources versus demands has become impossible to balance. For a lot of accomplished and ambitious people, the expectation to carry on with business as usual is no longer viable, or simply no longer worth the cost.

Such is the nature of the polycrisis: too immersive to perceive clearly; too entangled to unravel one thread at a time; too fast-paced and widespread for standard problem-solving methods. Danny Ralph, Professor of Operations Research at Cambridge University, notes “If you don’t have this word in your vocabulary you might think ‘Don’t worry, we’ll fix this problem and get back to normal.’” Normal was reasonably predictable seasonal patterns, an upward trend in average human life expectancy, and democratic leaders reliably staying in power as long as, but not longer than, their electorally-secured terms in office.

The polycrisis resonates from the highest geopolitical and global business stratosphere to the grassrootsiest levels of community, family, and individual. The effect is burnout and exhaustion and a level of social and market dysfunction that the world is reluctant to acknowledge, much less fix.

It sounds serious because it is. When a shooting star at the pinnacle of her career like Jacinda Ardern needs a timeout, something has to change. But there was a lot about normal that was never optimal, and change can bring improvement, if we let it. Just as the polycrisis has begun to scare us into using energy more responsibly, it could begin to encourage systems and institutions to use human capital with a little more care.

We haven’t yet discovered how this might look. Preventing the demands of leadership from destroying our leaders’ ability to lead may be even more complex than saving the planet for future generations while protecting and supporting today’s population with today’s technology and resources.

We can’t answer these questions on an individual level. What we can do is accept the complexity, recognize the needs directly in front of us, and offer grace and compassion to each other. We can believe that, in Jacinda Ardern’s words, “you can be kind but strong, empathetic but decisive, optimistic but focused. And that you can be your own kind of leader – one who knows when it’s time to go.”

Maria Wood traveled throughout the country as production and tour manager for award-winning musician David Grover, with whom she co-founded a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing education and fostering positive social change through music and music-making. She returned to school mid-career, earning a BA in American Studies and a Certificate in Ethnomusicology from Smith College. More recently, she has written and taught on the meaning and impact of the musical Hamilton, served as Deputy Campaign Manager for congressional candidate Jesse Colvin and was Executive Director of Chestertown RiverArts. She lives in a multigenerational human/feline household in Chestertown.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Women’s Rights are Human Rights

June 17, 2019 by Maria Wood

Missouri. Georgia. Alabama. Arkansas. Kentucky. Mississippi. Louisiana. Ohio. Utah. These are all states that have made news recently for passage or enactment of extreme abortion legislation.

It is important to understand that even in those states where such bills have been passed and signed into law, such as Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Ohio, those laws have not yet gone into effect. They will be challenged in court, and will likely be struck down, as recent attempts at such restrictive abortion laws have been in other states, including North Dakota and Iowa. The legality of abortion, as constitutionally guaranteed by Roe v. Wade since 1973, will not change… yet. Accessibility and affordability of safe and legal reproductive health care are other matters, but these laws will not be enforceable until and unless the Supreme Court decides to take one of them up.

What is more worrying right now is the hostility and hypocrisy of the purportedly “pro-life” legislators who have written, defended, and voted for these bills. There is no way to understand the abortion debate without recognizing that supporting these policies is exactly the opposite of life-affirming or life-supporting. When abortion is illegal or inaccessible, more women die. That’s it. More women die. This is a known fact, and has been for decades, and any legislator who writes or supports these laws, and any governor who signs them, is signaling as clearly as possible his or her belief that women’s health—women’s lives—are not worth protecting.

Restricting access to legal abortion has only a minimal effect on abortion rates. When they are denied access to reproductive care, including safe and legal abortion, women and girls are driven in desperation to ingesting toxic substances, self-inflicted abdominal trauma, other attempts at self-induced abortion by horrific means. They turn to unregulated “back alley” practitioners who may or may not have training, experience, or knowledge, who may or may not practice proper hygiene, who may or may not have benevolent motives, and who in all cases are unsupported and disincentivized to seek qualified medical support should something go wrong. So, more women and girls are injured, sometimes permanently. More women and girls die.

The Guttmacher Institute, one of the most widely respected and cited research organizations in the area of reproductive health and rights, reports that abortion rates remain about the same regardless of legality, concluding that “restrictions simply make the abortions that do occur more likely to be unsafe.” This reality is worth restating: restricting legal abortion does not appreciably lower abortion rates. It only increases rates of injury, illness, and death in women. Supporting restrictive abortion laws is not a pro-life position.

Debates rage in this country about basic issues concerning the well-being of children and parents, including maternity leave, subsidized child care, public preschool, and so many others. Policies that force women to give birth against their will are doubly cruel because they strip women of their rights to self-determination and bodily autonomy and then abandon mothers and babies to a system that is currently without strong social safety nets.

The unfortunate conclusion to be drawn from this contradiction is that these anti-abortion policies do not arise from “pro-life” beliefs at all, but instead from a wish to control women’s lives through their bodies. Were this not the case, there would be far fewer examples of so-called “pro-life” politicians who have insisted on and paid for abortions for women in their lives—indeed in some cases, when the women did not want to terminate the pregnancy. Nor would legislation be written or enacted that forces women to carry to term fetuses that can never survive outside the womb.

There are many examples of laws and social standards that recognize the right of humans to protect their own lives when competing interests exist. We require prior permission or consent from immediate family to use the healthy organs of people who have passed away, even when people’s lives depend on those livers, hearts, and kidneys. We do not require bystanders to risk their own lives by entering a burning building to save others’. It is commonly accepted, even a cliché, to put on our own oxygen mask before helping someone else. Women need no less protection for their bodily safety and autonomy and their physical, economic, and social resources, and no less acknowledgement and respect for their inherent human rights.

Maria Wood returned to academic life in 2014, after a two-decade career in the music business, earning a BA in American Studies and a Certificate in Ethnomusicology from Smith College in 2018. Most recently, she served as Deputy Campaign Manager for Jesse Colvin for Congress.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Impeachment is Imperative by Maria Wood

May 2, 2019 by Maria Wood

Now that Congress is back in session, it is imperative that Members find within themselves the moral clarity to act on the release of the Mueller report and begin in earnest impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. Not to do so is insulting to voters, destructive to our democratic institutions, and political self-sabotage of the most breathtaking kind. Most importantly, it is a gross abdication of responsibility and a moral failure.

Every day that the Congress does not begin such proceedings, Members fail to uphold their oaths of office and neglect their obligations to do the job they were sent to Washington to do. The Congressional Oath of Office, taken by all Members of the House of Representatives, includes the words “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” and “I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

Members of Congress are elected by their districts to do the business of the government, to act in good faith and according to the law in the best interests of their constituents, and to adhere to the democratic institutions and norms of our democracy. The President of the United States has violated United States laws, institutional norms, democratic principles, and basic values of human decency since the moment he took office, and his misbehavior and mobster-style criminality is increasing by the day.

Let’s break down the reasons impeachment proceedings must begin immediately. First, anything less is an insult to voters. The American voting public deserve to make up their minds based on a full picture of the facts, with as much truth available as possible against the wall of lies erected by the Trump administration. To simply put the matter of blatant violations of American democratic values and norms on hold in order to wait for the next election is both supremely cynical and supremely disrespectful to the American people. It is also insulting and crass for Members of Congress to refuse to fulfill their duty in this matter and then ask to be re-elected.

Which leads us to the damage to democracy. Two elements of this damage are even now corroding the electorate’s faith in democratic processes. The more straightforward is the proven interference in the 2016 and 2018 elections by hostile foreign powers—interference that the Mueller report shows was welcomed and encouraged by the Trump campaign. For a candidate or his campaign to accept and participate in the undermining of American elections is patently anti-democratic and anti-American, and should be immediately disqualifying for holding elected office. Once these actions are revealed, the Congress has a duty to impeach to protect the integrity of future elections and assure the voting public that American elections are free of interference—otherwise, the logical conclusion is that voting is useless and futile.

The second element has to do with the trust and faith of the public in their Congressional representatives. Please recall the line in the oath of office: “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Duly elected representatives who abstain from this process abdicate a solemn promise made to their constituents. The least of the negative consequences of breaking this promise is the risk to individual Members’ re-election prospects. Far worse is the loss of faith in the institution itself and in democratic processes writ large. If elected officials are not going to do the job they’ve been chosen to do—why vote?

Finally, there is an important political argument for impeachment. Many discussions about whether to impeach or not impeach in recent weeks have centered on the political argument against the process. Looked at from another angle, though, the political calculus can be figured differently. The “blue wave” of the 2018 elections demonstrated the hunger among voters for elected officials willing to stand up and call out corruption and lies in government. Voters are more engaged than ever—although the danger that they will abandon the political process if they perceive that it is irrevocably broken is all too real. People of all political persuasions are calling for an end to the lies, bullying, self-dealing, nepotism, and performative provocation that characterize this White House and the party leadership that supports it. House leadership should consider that these voters will welcome and reward good-faith efforts to restore the rule of law and accountability to the highest office in the land. Should the Republican-led Senate refuse to uphold its duty by responding to the charges, House members should trust that the electorate will recognize where the process broke down, and who is to blame for the continued undermining of American democracy.

Call it moral clarity, call it leadership. But be assured, if there is a shred of our constitution still functioning when this tumultuous time in American history is over, we will owe our thanks to those who had the wisdom to recognize the existential threat of rampant corruption and manipulation at the highest levels of our government, and the courage and patriotism to take bold, decisive action on behalf of the best ideals of the American experiment.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Op-Ed: Us vs. Them by Maria Wood

April 8, 2019 by Maria Wood

Country music star Jason Isbell has a song on his most recent album titled “White Man’s World.” The song begins with the lyric “I’m a white man living in a white man’s world,” an acknowledgement of the systemic marginalization of those who are not male and are not white.

Rejecting the idea that this systemic oppression even exists is one of the tools of white nationalism, an ideology that holds that whiteness is an identity, not a construct, and that it should be the basis for our national identity. The gradual normalization of this ideology, clothed in the reassuring garments of patriotism and American exceptionalism, is one of the more insidious tools for the perpetuation of the power dynamics that have dismissed the traumatic legacy of brutality, oppression, and marginalization for centuries. It allows racist ideology to hide in the depths of an “us” versus “them” mindset, leaving the specifics of who is “us” and who is “them” unspoken but well understood.

A cruder and more predictable technique is the kind of “hate incident” experienced here on the Eastern Shore this week, in which residents of St. Michaels woke to find outlandishly racist literature, spouting hateful nonsense and exhorting people to join the KKK, waiting on their driveways and front porches. It is perhaps indicative of systemic racism at play that this vile and destructive act did not make the top of the front page of the Star Democrat on Tuesday. Other, smaller, acts are part of the local landscape. They go unnoticed except by those who endure them in a grinding and infuriating routine of logistical obstacles and low-level harassment: being subtly (or overtly) discouraged from patronizing a local business, or being explicitly, if indirectly banned by a property owner.

Is white nationalism on the rise? President Trump says no. But in February the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that the number of white nationalist groups in the US grew by almost 50% in 2018. Data released by the Global Terrorism Database in 2018 showed that more than half the terrorist attacks in the US in 2017 were spurred by racist, anti-Muslim, homophobic, anti-Semitic, fascist, or xenophobic ideologies. Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, has said “modern white supremacy is an international threat that knows no borders, being exported and globalized like never before.” This opinion is reflected in statistics reported by the ADL showing a 182% increase in incidents of the distribution of white supremacist propaganda—incidents like we saw in St. Michaels this week.

There is no question that white nationalism is on the rise. Intellectual honesty and lived experience require us to accept this. Ethics, patriotism, and—for many people—religious practice demand that we resist it, as we must resist all injustice and inhumanity. In Christian parlance, we must remove the beam in our own eye before we concern ourselves with the mote in someone else’s. We have beams in our eyes in the United States, in the form of systemic and institutional racism, increasing hate crimes, the continued dehumanization of fellow citizens and fellow humans who have black and brown bodies, or who speak accented English, or who practice certain religions.

In patriotic terms, national principles of liberty and equality—not to mention the rule of law—tell us that ideologies of white pride and white nationalism have no place in a country founded on the principles of liberty and equality for all. Common sense tells us that we are a richer, better, more stable nation when we do not discriminate, when we resist instead of embrace hatred, violence, and division. Yet we continue to debate and equivocate on the topic of racism and bigotry while allowing ever more extremist ideologies into the mainstream of our public discourse.

In 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said “for the good of America, it is necessary to refute the idea that the dominant ideology in our country even today is freedom and equality while racism is just an occasional departure from the norm on the part of a few bigoted extremists.” In 2019, we must continue to refute the idea that racism is an occasional departure from the norm. The KKK lit drop in St. Michaels was doubtless the work of a few bigoted extremists; it was also a tool to recruit more extremists, and it was another signal that we need to continue the work of eliminating the scourge of racism on the Eastern Shore.

Many people and groups on the Eastern Shore are working tirelessly and valiantly to improve things. The Coalition for Justice for Anton Black is actively pursuing justice for the death of 19 year old Kent County native Anton Black while in police custody, and going further, to seek legal recourse to prevent similar future tragedies. The Social Action Committee for Racial Justice in Kent County is working towards an anti-racist future in schools, with law enforcement, in businesses, and in communities at large. The Unitarian Universalists of the Chester River are hosting a series of book discussions and an art exhibition focused on anti-racism.

The efforts of these groups and many individuals all over the shore are how we achieve a better Eastern Shore, a better Maryland, and a better world. Progress is maddeningly slow, and sometimes seems to stop or reverse, but as Dr. King said, “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”

Jason Isbell’s song concludes,

“I still have faith but I don’t know why
Maybe it’s the fire in my little girl’s eye”

That fire in any child’s eye is an unparalleled motivator for all of us to keep working and fighting for real justice and equality, and to defeat both the insidiousness of normalized discrimination and the dramatic violence of overt acts of hatred.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love by Maria Wood

February 25, 2019 by Maria Wood

There are moments when we are lucky enough to see just how much work we still have to do. These are the times that galvanize us out of the complacency of believing “it’s different here,” or “it’s different now.” They are shocking and distressing, but we should appreciate these moments because they are preferable to the dull stagnancy of accepting a status quo as invisible as the air we breathe or, even worse, the quiet erosive slide of regression.

For some Chestertonians, news of the Town Council’s recent vote on permits for a Pride Celebration in Fountain Park was such a moment. To hear elected officials in this ostensibly close-knit, warm and friendly community espouse bigoted views and question their fellow citizens’—their constituents’—right to assemble in the public square for a family-friendly event designed to celebrate community members and build bridges among different parts of the population was disheartening and infuriating.

The second deadliest mass shooting in United States history took place at a gay nightclub, Pulse, in Orlando, Florida. 50 people died, and 53 more were injured. According to the FBI, more than 20% of hate crimes in the US are motivated by bias against sexual orientation or gender identity (commonly known as homophobia), second only to hate crimes motivated by racism. Even without considering acts and attitudes of discrimination and bigotry experienced by LGBTQ Americans that don’t rise to the level of hate crimes (including those displayed in the Chestertown Town Council last week), this statistic illustrates the significant hatred and intimidation that is directed towards LGBTQ people in America.

Leaving aside the panoply of legal and ethical reasons why denying a permit for this event would have been wrong and why the arguments that were made against it were destructive to the fabric of this community, this sobering statistic shows us why an enthusiastic and supportive YES to a Pride Celebration is the only correct answer if a town expects to be known as a place of acceptance, where all community members know that they can enjoy their full rights as citizens to a life free from intimidation and harassment. A resounding YES to a Pride Celebration is the only answer if a town wants to fight back against hatred and move toward a day when the promise of freedom, opportunity, and equality is a reality for all its citizens.

An unqualified YES is the only answer if a town wants to show its LGBTQ youth that they are championed, valued, and loved. And an emphatic YES is the only answer for a town that wants all its citizens and the wider world to know that bigotry and hatred of any kind have no home here. For if we allow discrimination and intolerance against one group, no group is safe.

The permit was granted, albeit by a close margin, and the event will go on. Chestertown excels at parades and festivals, and this one will surely not disappoint. It will be an affirmation of the right of all Chestertown residents to exist and to celebrate who they are and who they love. For after all, love is the operative word. As composer Lin-Manuel Miranda put it on the night of the Pulse nightclub shooting:

We lived through times when hate and fear seemed stronger;
We rise and fall and light from dying embers,
Remembrances that hope and love last longer
And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside.

May the morning of May 4 dawn bright and clear this year, and may a beautiful spring afternoon provide the backdrop for a joyful celebration in Fountain Park, a celebration in which the LGBTQ people of this community can be themselves: openly, proudly, and secure in knowledge that their town accepts, appreciates, and embraces them.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

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