Despite its squeaky, rubbery texture, Styrofoam is a type of plastic. Anne Arundel County is considering a ban on all polystyrene.

Polystyrene ban

In the last election, I voted remove Trumpian-style ignorance from the county government. I did not vote to turn Anne Arundel into Montgomery County.

Yet, the County Council and County Executive Steuart Pittman are moving us in that direction with their polystyrene ban. The proposed ban is bad public policy for three reasons.


First, environmental damage that crosses jurisdictional boundaries is properly handled at a higher level of government — in this case, federal action is required. When one level of government occupies itself doing the job of another, it is usually because it is unwilling to do its own. This proposal is a sign that the council is leaving critical local problems unaddressed.

Second, the way to deal with environmental damage is not by micromanaging individual consumption and production decisions. It is bad for society for a handful of officials to decide what is and is not frivolous use of resources. It is well established in the economics literature that the appropriate remedy is a tax on an item equal to the environmental cost it causes (another reason why local action is inappropriate).

Third, emotionally-driven, ill-considered actions such as selective bans are too extreme for the swing voters who ousted the previous administration. It's the kind of legislation that gives space for populists to rail against meddling government and will help usher them back in.

Members of the council and the executive won office portraying themselves as sensible centrists. They need to govern that way, or we will all lose as a result.



Elizabeth Warren

How wonderfully ironic!

In an edition highlighting blackface, you chose to depict Senator Elizabeth Warren as a caricature of a Native American (The Capital, Feb. 10).

Would The Capital have printed a cartoon showing Lt. Governor Rutherford in blackface? Why not? Because the area's minority community would take to the streets with torches and pitchforks, and rightly so.

Racism is not just about black and white. It's about power and seeing others as less than ourselves.

I believe the editors owe the public and the senator an apology for publishing such a racist cartoon. It's unseemly to appear to be siding with the racists and white supremacists that have taken over one side of America's discourse.

I will not threaten to cancel my subscription. I treasure the rag and the people that write and publish The Capital. I do expect better.


Cape St. Claire


Cell phone concerns

How many people opposing cell phone towers in their neighborhoods use cell phones?

Those who do should have to take the bitter with the better. Otherwise, let he who is without sin cast the first stone.



Defining racism

I have never liked the word “racism” which is used to describe the way people of different races react towards each other … especially, if it is in a nasty way.

When two Caucasians react toward each other in a nasty way, that’s not racism. If two, African-Americans offend each other in a nasty way, that’s not racism.

Some people of the same race and/or different races get along wonderfully. Some people of the same race and/or different races bicker and fight all the time.

Notice, I used “people.” Both sentences above start the same but end differently.

My point: racism, being nasty to one another, exists between/among people/ human beings. It exists in all races.

As people/human beings, we don’t always like everyone we meet. Those we don’t like, we shy away from.

If confronted, we just might, et nasty. That scenario is the same in both races.

The term “racism” separates people/human beings by having them believe they we are all so very different. In actuality, we are much more alike than we are different and led to believe.

What we really have in all races are “nasty people” who dislike some people regardless of race, creed, etc.

Bottom line … I refer to it as “peopleism” not “racism.”