Plan for the next week or so

It’s been about a month and a half by my reckoning. It’s almost like we should think about this period of time in dog years rather than human years. So it’s probably more like a year. What I tend to do with gaps like this is make up by posting more than once during the week. I’ve got a number of drafts that I didn’t get around to finishing so I am going to try to do that over the next week but I want to push a couple of announcements out first. 

Pikesville Library Democracy Series (Wednesdays in June 6:30-7:15)

Starting this week, the Baltimore County Public Library will be hosting three lectures on democratic backsliding. Early in the spring semester I reached out to them with the idea and they gladly agreed. The Pikesville Library will host three lectures (every Wednesday in June, starting this week at 6:30pm) and then the Perry Hall Library will host three lectures (I don’t have the dates in front of me but they will be in August).

Each lecture will feature two political scientists with expertise in some aspect of the phenomenon. In the first and third lecture I will be one of them, and then the second lecture will feature a couple of my other colleagues. (I’ll be in the audience though.)

• The first lecture introduces the concept of backsliding.

• The second lecture focuses on causes of backsliding.

• The third lecture focuses on what societies can do to reverse the trend.

To be honest, I think this is something that political science departments should’ve taken up a long time ago, not just outside the university. (I’m no longer a university senator, but one of the things that I think would be really useful is a series of internal faculty lectures…these lectures could develop a critical common sense that can then generate a critical consensus over how universities should respond.)

No Kings March (June 14 Patterson Park 3-7pm)

On June 14 people all over the country will be hosting No Kings protests against the Trump administration. There will be two major protests in Baltimore, one on the east side (Patterson Park) and one on the west side (Druid Hill). I’ll be MCing the east side protest. Right now I’m scheduled to MC the entire thing, which will start at 3pm and end about 7pm. I was asked to MC the May Day march about a month ago, and that went well enough that people asked me to do it again. Please spread the word about that too. 

Last week I celebrated by 56th birthday at the JHU Racial Politics Summer School I co-founded. More later, but this picture was taken at Devin Allen’s BMA exhibit (Devin’s in the middle). These are troubling times, but it’s a blessing to be facing them with you.