Welcome to another week of The Runback. Have you been enjoying The Duckpin? Do you have comments or suggestions? Do you want to write for us? Let me know at theduckpin@gmail.com. And please be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Thanks in advance.
March Madness!
Join us in our First Ever Duckpin March Madness group. The winner will get a Duckpin keychain and a Duckpin sticker.
Podcast Episode #24
This week we talk with Chris Jahn, Republican candidate for Anne Arundel County Executive.
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News and Politics
March 2021 Maryland Gubernatorial Power Rankings: The latest on our march to 2022.
Must-See TV: WBFF's Searing Baltimore City Public School Reporting: Did the Kirwan Commission's members visit Augusta Fells Savage Institute of Visual Arts in Baltimore before making costly recommendations? They should have.
Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Biden Voters Seem Shocked that this is what they Signed up for.
Sports
Give Us Mickey Jannis: The Knuckleballer would give O's Fans Something New to Watch this Year.
Coaching Carousel (Nearly) Complete: Grading College Football's 2021 Coaching Hires.
Shameless Plugs
The Duckpin’s JC Braz published an op-ed for The Capital: Social justice movement is poisoning Anne Arundel public schools.
The Monday Thought
A little over a year ago, everything changed. And by this time, we all knew it.
Nobody knew what was going on. Nobody knew what was going to happen next. Nobody knew what organization, what group, was next to shut down.
We quickly turned that “Two Weeks to Stop the Spread” wasn’t exactly accurate.
We have come up with new ways to work. New ways to shop. New ways to meet. New ways to communicate.
We have adapted.
We have been moved to grief.
We have been moved to anger.
We have seen the best of us. People coming together to serve. To help. To do what they can do to save lives.
We have seen the worst of us. People who refuse to respect their fellow man. People who use every excuse to rage and riot. People who attempted to derail an American election at the behest of a delusional President.
But as a people, we have made it. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Even if I still can’t get the damn vaccine:
Things, however, are not as great as they may seem. Sure, we may be near the end of the pandemic. But we are not near the end of the upheaval of society. Our society is changing. Government is growing. Spending is exploding. Thought is being policed, not by government, but by do-gooders.
But what is disturbing is that some people are questioning American exceptionalism. In a piece for The Sun, Scott Warren calls American exceptionalism a “myth.” Sure, it is just a regurgitation of discredited left-wing talking points, but it reinforces the fact that there are people in this country who do not believe our country is exceptional.
It’s kind of an absurd thought, really. Somebody born in the United States thinking their country is not exceptional is akin to being born on third base and thinking you hit a triple.
But American is exceptional. A country that invented western democracy. A country that virtually invented freedom and liberty. A country that saved the free world twice. A country that created most of the creature comforts and technology used by the entire world.
No country has the mix of freedom, liberty, representative government, and economic opportunity as the United States. Revisionist historians like Scott Warren would prefer to put their heads in the sand and pretend otherwise.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that America has had its problems over the years. But we are an exceptional country. An exceptional people. In the past year we have survived a pandemic, racial tension, a hotly contested election, and an attempted coup d’etat.
We also are the country that brought forth a vaccine in record time to help end a global pandemic.
Let us hope that we build upon the lessons learned in the last year to make the next year a better one.