Midday

Today, another in our series of Conversations with the Candidates: 2022. Tom's guest is Ashwani Jain. He is a candidate in the June 28 Democratic primary for Maryland Governor.

This is Mr. Jain's second attempt at elective office. He lost a race for the Montgomery County Council in 2018. He worked in a variety of roles in the Obama Administration, including in then-Vice President Joe Biden’s office, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. He has also worked in the non-profit sector. He is currently the Program Director for the National Kidney Foundation.

Mr. Jain is 32 years old. He holds undergraduate degrees in Political Science and Business Management from the University of MD, and a master’s degree in political management from George Washington University. He is single, and lives in Potomac.

Mr. Jain has chosen LaTrece Hawkins Lytes as his running mate. His campaign describes Ms. Lytes as a longtime MD resident, wife, mother and community activist.

Ashwani Jain joins us on Zoom from Potomac, Maryland.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

In the middle of January, the US was reporting more than 900,000 new cases of COVID 19 every day. The daily case count now averages less than 50,000.

Here in Maryland, two months ago the testing positivity rate was nearly 27%. Now, it stands at less than 2%. Maryland and the District of Columbia have the nation’s lowest daily case rate.

The vaccination rate is creeping up very, very slowly. More than a year into vaccine availability, only about 65% of Americans are fully vaccinated, well behind dozens of other countries.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revised its guidelines for masking in public spaces, changing the metrics it emphasizes as they determine what is best practice at this stage of the pandemic. Writing in the Washington Post, Dr. Leana Wen says, “The CDC finally got masking right.”

Dr. Wen is a former Baltimore City health commissioner and Tom's guest today for another edition of the Midday Healthwatch. She is an emergency physician. She teaches at the George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health. She’s a columnist for The Washington Post, a medical analyst for CNN, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of Lifelines: A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health.

Dr. Leana Wen joins us on Zoom…

And we welcome your questions and comments…

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

This is theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck with a special online review of Single Carrot Theatre’s production of "Is Edward Snowden Single?" The show is being performed at the former Windup Space.

"Is Edward Snowden Single?" is the only play I’ve ever seen where the actors tell the theatergoers they can use their cellphones at any time during the performance.

That’s the first indication that this play — written by Washington D.C. native Kate Cortesi — is a bit out of the norm. And it gets more out of the norm as it continues.

The actresses who play the two lead characters also play a slew of other characters. At times they even play each other. This may be the playwright’s way of showing that the protagonists — Mimi and April, roommates and best friends since college — are so close, each knows how the other thinks and acts.

But “Is Edward Snowden Single?” isn’t just a play about friendship, or just a play about two friends putting on a play, which is also what’s going on. Thematically, Mimi and April tell us early on, this is a play about integrity. I’ll let them explain. Here is a bit of dialogue between Meghan Stanton and Saraniya Tharmarajah as Mimi and April:

MIMI (to the audience) How would you define integrity? (pause)(to April) See? No one knows. Should we tell a story about something nobody knows what it is? (to the audience) It means follow through.

APRIL Totally, totally...except it’s more like the opposite of that. Follow-through helps you achieve a goal and be a success. Integrity means doing the right thing even if it sets you back. (I guess integrity could mean “following through on being a good person.”)

MIMI (That’s what I meant. Follow-through of the soul.)

APRIL (Cute.) Integrity is what you do when no one’s looking.

MIMI Okay.

APRIL Or what you cop to when (re: the audience) everyone’s looking.

MIMI Yup.

APRIL Integrity is honesty, moral uprightness. I think of it almost like areversing spell against vanity, exploitation, corruption, and greed.

MIMI Hot. We are proud to present the story of...

APRIL AND MIMI ...How Mimi learned that integrity...

MIMI ...is important. APRIL ...exists.

There’s a third actor in the play, Parker Matthews, who portrays Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower. Snowden appears on live video that is projected on surfaces around the Windup Space. Initially, his image is projected on a rack of clothing; in a later scene, his face is projected on the face of a large teddy bear.

Mimi appears to have no interest in politics or in Snowden, but watching a 2014 televised interview, she fantasizes that he begins to flirt with her. You can hear the change in actor Parker Matthews’ voice, and her reaction to it:

EDWARD SNOWDEN I was shocked that anyone in the UK government would go so far for so little. If the UK had been pursuing, say—(the magic is back) You, Mimi, then shoot, girl. I’d violate theGeneva Conventions, too.

MIMI I’d violate all the conventions with you.

EDWARD SNOWDEN That could get… unethical.

MIMI I’ve got lots of secret intelligence if you’ve got the skills to— hack it.

Romantic fantasy aside, the parallel that the playwright tries to establish between Mimi and Snowden is way out of proportion. Snowden released classified documents that revealed NSA infringement of privacy rights. He is still living in exile.

Mimi works in a coffee shop and has evidence of repeated thefts from the cash register by an employee. Blowing the whistle will have some consequences for the employee. At most. No human rights violations, no huge, overriding political considerations.

But while comparing Mimi to Snowden may be far-fetched, the play’s innate theatricality is exactly the type of imaginative, wild-and-crazy stuff that Single Carrot does best. Director Alix Fenhagen takes the play’s stage directions and adds her own wild-and-crazy touch.

The script suggests that Snowden be played by a puppet. Instead, Fenhagen and video designer Sean Anthony Preston use live projections — a choice that is not only tougher technically, but also more in keeping with the real Snowden’s motivation.

Snowden acted out of concern over the abuse of individual privacy. Doing double duty as a cameraman, Parker Matthews spends a lot of the play running around the Windup Space with a video camera. At any moment, this cameraman might be filming/spying on anyone on stage — or in the audience.

Under Fenhagen’s direction, Meghan Stanton and Saraniya Tharmarajah handle the play’s multi-casting with a switch of a prop or two, and a change of voice or posture. They frequently play several characters, of varying ages and genders, in a single short scene.

There’s thematic justification for multi-casting. Are any of us who we appear to be? And don’t we all contain aspects of the people close to us?

Despite Single Carrot’s excellent work, “Is Edward Snowden Single?” can be confusing. The stage directions acknowledge that it may be — quote — “barely comprehensible.” It may — quote — “[leave] the audience behind.” The playwright’s okay with that.

Integrity, it seems, isn’t just an issue for Snowden and Mimi; the play’s structural integrity is also at issue. And yet, at Single Carrot, director Fenhagen and company almost make up for this with a strong dose of technical ingenuity and inventive artistry.

“Single Carrot Theatre’s production of “Is Edward Snowden Single?” continues at the Windup Space on North Avenue through March 12. The show is also available virtually. I’m Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck. Thanks for listening!

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Today, we continue our 2022 series of Conversations with the Candidates. Between now and the primary in June, we’ll be talking to candidates vying for their party’s nominations for some of MD’s most high-profile offices.

Tom's guest today is Rushern Baker, III, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Maryland Governor.

Mr. Baker entered politics in 1994, serving in the Maryland House of Delegates until 2003. He lost his first two elections for Prince George’s County Executive, but he succeeded the two-term incumbent Jack Johnson in 2010. Soon after that election, federal prosecutors arrested Johnson on corruption charges. Mr. Baker was widely credited with improving the county’s image and ending its “pay to play” legacy.

Rushern Baker is 63 years old. He holds a Bachelor’s degree and a law degree from Howard University. He was married for more than 30 years to Christa Beverly, a civil rights lawyer who passed away in 2021 after a long struggle with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Mr. Baker was her primary caregiver. They are the parents of three grown children.

Mr. Baker has chosen as his running mate Nancy Navarro, a three-term Montgomery County Council member.

Rushern Baker joins us on Zoom.

You're welcome to join us as well. Call us at 410.662.8780. You can email us at [email protected], or Tweet us: @MiddayWYPR

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Now, we turn to Adam Harris, a staff writer for The Atlantic. He’s the author of The State Must Provide: Why America's Colleges Have Always Been Unequal--and How to Set Them Right, and he’s been writing in The Atlantic about the spate of bomb threats directed at HBCUs around the country, including here in Baltimore. On the first of February, the first day of Black History month, 14 HBCUs received bomb threats, and they continued during the month.

The FBI reports that from the first of the year to the middle of February, 57 institutions across the country were targeted.

Adam Harris joins us on our digital line from Manassas, Virginia.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Russian troops have gained control of the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine. A 40-mile convoy of troops that has been observed for days appears to be stalled on its way to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. Russia has kept up a steady stream of indiscriminate bombing, killing thousands of civilians, according to Ukrainian government officials, utilizing weapons that are banned by the Geneva Convention, and causing the most rapid mass migration of displaced people in this century.

It's been a week since Russia began its aggression into Ukraine, and an estimated one million refugees have already poured into neighboring countries on Ukraine’s Western border. UN officials say that if the Russian invasion continues, as many as four million more refugees could follow.

Joining Tom now is Krish Vignarajah, the president and CEO of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, an aid organization based here in Baltimore…

Krish Vignarajah joins us on Zoom.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

We’ve been talking about this year’s Maryland General Assembly Session in Annapolis. Tom turns now to Ovetta Wiggins, who covers the State House and Maryland politics for The Washington Post.

Ovetta Wiggins joins us on Zoom from Annapolis.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Next, we turn our attention to Maryland state government.

Two Republican leaders in the Maryland General Assembly join Tom to talk about their legislative agenda and how things are going, at the halfway mark in this year’s Session in Annapolis.

Sen. Bryan Simonaire is the Senate Minority Leader. He represents District 31, Anne Arundel County.

Del. Haven Shoemaker is the Minority Whip in the House of Delegates. He represents District 4, Carroll County.

Both lawmakers join us on Zoom.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

"Tonight, we meet as Democrats, Republicans, independents, but most importantly, as Americans with a duty to one another, to America, to the American people, to the Constitution. And an unwavering resolve that freedom will always triumph over tyranny..."

— President Joe Biden, State of the Union Address, 3.01.2022

President Joe Biden delivered his first State of the Union address Tuesday night, with a war in Ukraine raging, a pandemic waning, and inflation and a stalled agenda threatening to sabotage Democratic chances in the November mid-term elections.

Joining Tom to share her thoughts on the speech is Asma Khalid. She covers the White House for NPR, and she is a co-host of the NPR Politics Podcast…We reach Asma Khalid in Washington, DC on our digital line.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It's time again for theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck to join us with her weekly reviews of the regional stage. Today she spotlights A.D. 16, a musical romantic fantasy now getting its world premiere at Olney Theatre Center.

Set in Bible-era Nazareth, A.D. 16 imagines a romance between two Nazarene teens - a 16 year-old Mary Magdalen and that interesting boy next door — Jesus.

With story, music and lyrics by Cinco Paul (Despicable Me), and book by Bekah Brunstetter, A.D. 16 is directed by Stephen Brackett and features an ensemble cast, with Phoenix Best as Mary and Ben Frankhauser as Jesus.

A.D. 16 continues at Olney Theatre Center through March 20. For more information and ticketing, click here.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.