Thoughts From The Publisher’s Desk – October 14, 2016

Thoughts From The Publisher’s Desk – October 14, 2016
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Over the last month, including this weekend’s corvette event, there have been four large vehicle events held in the Ocean City area. The last five weekends have gone like this: the bikers, Sunfest, H2Oi (and WineFest), Cruisin and the corvettes (this weekend).

When evaluating whether this is a good thing, a balanced perspective is needed. Area residents understandably tire of these events because of the negatives associated with them — increased traffic, big crowds and a lot of noise. On the other hand, businesses need these events to attract people to the beach and lengthen their season to boost revenues. This was particularly the case this year because most businesses found themselves unable to make up for the losses from a terrible weekend weather trend that got the season off to a slow start.

With these events, I think they are particularly bothersome to residents because of when they occur. There’s an inevitable psychological drain that comes with living in a resort destination. It’s human nature to be more irritated by the annoyances of the visitors after a summer of playing host to millions.

On the other hand, residents have every right to express their disdain for these automotive events after seeing tourists trash their town by leaving their garbage in condo and hotel parking lots, cause damage to area roadways and testing police manpower to the limits. There is a certain lack of decency and respect from some groups associated with these weekends.

The good news for residents is the large special events — wheel weekends I call them — are over for the year and they now have seven months before the spring. Meanwhile, businesses are generally sad to see them go because they provided a huge economic boost during a time of year when they needed it.

There’s the good and the bad with these sorts of weekends and understanding that makes them a bit more bearable.

Gov. Larry Hogan was wise to revisit his executive order setting the start and end dates for local public school systems because it was flawed. School system leaders quickly realized it was short on details and they were rallying to easily meet the waiver criteria allowing them to start before Labor Day.

In his revised order, Hogan squashed those attempts, outlining what it will specifically take to have a waiver granted by the State Department of Education. An unavoidable hardship will have to be proven in essence.

On a related note, Harford County Public Schools quickly acted to heed Hogan’s order on school start and end dates this week. For the first time in many years, that school system will start after Labor Day and did so by going to school three days the week of Thanksgiving and several other obvious cuts. It seemed like an easy adjustment.

Later in the week, Baltimore County announced its three possible school calendar options and one includes the pre-Labor Day start, despite the mandate. Under that calendar, school will start Aug. 28 (which is much later than typical by the way) and end on June 19. No official action has been taken on that.

“Democracy is not easy, especially in a big, diverse country like this,” President Obama said during a campaign event for Hilary Clinton Wednesday. He is certainly correct on that.

This may be surprising, considering my line of work, but I confess to not watching much of the two debates so far. I watched the first 30 minutes of the first debate before getting disgusted. Sunday’s second debate I ignored altogether and instead watched highlights throughout Monday.

The election is less than a month away and I have the same feeling today that I did a year ago amidst the primaries. The USA is country of 320 million people with immense talents, brains and abilities. It’s appalling to me that these are the two candidates the people must choose from. They are both incredibly ill-equipped to lead this country.

This campaign season has been disturbing on so many levels. Aren’t we all desensitized to it all at this point? A couple times each week, emails, videos and statements are released that make each candidate look juvenile, inconsistent and unelectable. Yet one of them is about to become the next president of this country. That’s troubling and I can’t wrap my head around it.

During the Trump rally in Berlin last spring, I had to leave early. I couldn’t handle the baseless rhetoric, silly cheerleading and empty promises. I feel the same watching Clinton speak.

Most disturbing to me is there seems to be no tolerance or respect for opposing viewpoints from either candidate. Each of them fall back to the same tired accusations and juvenile mannerism rather than talking specifically about their platforms.

Ultimately, I have boiled this election down to a simplistic approach. Otherwise, when evaluating all their differences and all the mistakes each have made in their campaigns, it’s sickening. Do you want four more years of Obama? If so, elect Clinton. If you want major changes from the White House, elect Trump.

About The Author: Steven Green

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The writer has been with The Dispatch in various capacities since 1995, including serving as editor and publisher since 2004. His previous titles were managing editor, staff writer, sports editor, sales account manager and copy editor. Growing up in Salisbury before moving to Berlin, Green graduated from Worcester Preparatory School in 1993 and graduated from Loyola University Baltimore in 1997 with degrees in Communications (journalism concentration) and Political Science.