1. This headline bugs me:

Minority Students Become Majority in Howard County

Minority students reach 51%, according to a report released this afternoon by the Howard County Public School System.

It doesn’t bother me that the ethnic make-up of the county has changed, so don’t go pointing fingers and getting all riled up like that. The headline bothers me because at the point that one group is larger than the other, you can’t really call them a minority anymore. In fact, it would seem to me that the group that is the other 49% of this equation would now be the minority. Right? So, does this mean that we actually have a new “different” meaning for the word minority? I was always under the impression that minority meant the smaller portion of a whole, but this headline makes it seem as though the lines between an ethnicity and the word *minority* have been blurred to almost mean the same thing.

2. I had an interesting night. I accompanied the singers to their rehearsal at the Baltimore Basilica this evening. After warming up and investigating the crypts – they seemed to like that – we went up to our choir loft to run through the program. In the beginning, they were mildly interested in their surroundings and perked up just a tad when the adult singers began to perform, but soon they were being the totally polite and quiet, but you could see that their interest had waned. That was, until the soprano stepped to the mic. From where we are located, the kids really can’t see much of anything except the organ across from them and the beautiful dome. (Benjamin Latrobe was the architect. Who here can tell me what else Mr. Latrobe designed?)

When they heard the soprano soloist, they suddenly took notice. All of them sat forward on the pews, craning their neck to get a peek at who the voice belonged to. The intense interest became palpable as they recognized another young singers voice. I watched them as they began to listen to her piece and couldn’t help but feel fascinated by the looks of concentration on their faces. I’m sure some were just curious, but there were others who were hanging on her every note. I just thought it was very telling of how serious they take their music to have reacted the way that they did after having just been down in the crypts, laughing and giggling and exploring all the little alcoves created by the inverted arches.