The Big Hello Thread

polystyle

Well-known member
Maryland side of the burbs — Montgomery County
Aaah yes. While i don't know Maryland so v well, do have cousins in Delaware.
When i see ' suburbs of DC ' my brain sorts semi auto to ' Arlington Va., Vienna Va. ' and so on around DC in that direction.
Was in DC a few years back to visit Congress, did a gig there a few years before that - how is in Maryland by now ?
 

Leo

Well-known member
Leo thinks that anyone who wasn't in New York during the Greenwich Village folk scene isn't a real New Yorker. @Diefreien one thing you should know about Leo is he's local legend. Went to CBGB in its heyday. Knew Lou Reed. Sinatra even came over to his house once for dinner when Leo was a kid.

Apocryphal tales. well, a couple of them, anyway.
 

Diefreien

Active member
Aaah yes. While i don't know Maryland so v well, do have cousins in Delaware.
When i see ' suburbs of DC ' my brain sorts semi auto to ' Arlington Va., Vienna Va. ' and so on around DC in that direction.
Was in DC a few years back to visit Congress, did a gig there a few years before that - how is in Maryland by now ?
Ahhh gotcha, well nowadays the suburban expanse goes all the way out to Clarksburg where there's been a bunch of new developments in the past several years. My parents have lived in this county for over 20 years and they're starting to lose track about all the local developments. Who knows, maybe one day the red line will start in Poolesville :p

Maryland's doing alright I guess. Been some recent controversy over Gov. Larry Hogan's oil pipeline -- it'd bring fracked oil down from Pennsylvania, while going through Chesapeake Bay waterways, which obviously has people angry. Funnily enough, the establishment Dem running for governor (2022 are the gubernatorial elections) also supports it. Hopefully we'll see a progressive challenger from the left-wing of the party. Baltimore's mayoral/city council elections this past November has at least temporarily taken powers away from the usual Dem machine, and now those in favor of defunding the police are in a prime position to push for it.
Leo thinks that anyone who wasn't in New York during the Greenwich Village folk scene isn't a real New Yorker. @Diefreien one thing you should know about Leo is he's local legend. Went to CBGB in its heyday. Knew Lou Reed. Sinatra even came over to his house once for dinner when Leo was a kid.
Oh man, can't wait to hear these stories haha
 

Diefreien

Active member
the rare GOP governor who Dems live. conservative but seems pretty level-headed, a straight-shooter, spoke out against MAGA craziness and Trump.

Republican governors in deep-blue states are more common than one may imagine. The governor of Vermont, a liberal Republican, won re-election in November with 68.5% of the vote. Sanders won his re-election as Senator in 2018 with 67.4% of the vote, and Sen. Leahy (also from the left-wing of the Dems) with 61.3% in 2016. My theory is that people want small state govt but large federal govt in order to get stuff like healthcare and stuff. Pretty interesting regardless.

Hogan has definitely become a media darling since Nov., particularly after the capitol storming. Still he has bungled the state’s COVID response, and is forcing all public schools to return to in-person school full stop by April. The counties do have the right to refuse Hogan’s demand, but Hogan threatened cutting funding, teachers’ pay, and possibly revoking teaching licenses.

The county I’m in gave in, and is arranging for special education students along with the youngest elementary schoolers to start returning first by the spring. The thing is that the county nor the state are giving any teachers vaccines, and they’re not on the priority list from what I know. So the county teacher’s union just denounced the entire re-opening plan, demanding that *all* teachers get vaccinated, even those who probably wouldn’t be returning. Ideally the special education teachers would get vaccinated then return, but maybe the county, state, and the union will work something out.

Tbh I don’t see the point in returning back to school by March or April or whatever. It’s just be for the final quarter- not even a full semester. And again, given the health risks and the logistical nightmare it’ll be with having some teachers and students at school, and the rest at home still and making sure schedules work out it seems to not be worth it. I think I saw somewhere we may have herd immunity by June, which is the end of the school year...

The thing is is that both sides here say they’re doing what’s best for low-income minority students. Hogan says that if we don’t return them to in-person learning they will flop their classes, the union says if we return they’re way more likely to get sick and not receive medical attention. Both are right, imo.
 

catalog

Well-known member
It was a guy on here called constant escape, I used to call him starb, others called him stan. You remind me of him a little. We all liked him.
 
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