UPDATE 2024/01/04: This post originally appeared on my Civility and Truth Substack newsletter. I’ve moved it to my main site in an effort to collect all of my writing in one place.
UPDATE 2021/07/04: I have discontinued this newsletter and am in the process of moving its articles to my personal blog. To keep track of what I write in future, follow me on Twitter (@hecker) or point your RSS news reader at frankhecker.com.
For many years now I’ve maintained a personal blog, now published as Civility and Truth, on which I’ve written about a variety of topics of interest to me, including the history of county council redistricting in Howard County, Maryland, the evolution of the Inner Arbor plan for Symphony Woods in downtown Columbia, Maryland, and the creation of the Chrysalis amphitheater, my data-influenced takes on political, economic, and social issues, and whatever else comes to mind, from Maryland’s restrictions on direct-to-consumer genetic testing to reviews of signs for local political campaigns.
I don’t update the blog very frequently, and it’s too much to expect people to check out the web site on a regular basis. Hence this newsletter: I’ll use it to send new Civility and Truth posts direct to your inbox at the same time I post them to the site—or even before I post them to the site, as a reward to subscribers. I’ll also send out other material that for whatever reason doesn’t warrant a full Civility and Truth post, including links to recommended articles, mini book reviews, and commentary on issues where I haven’t fully formed an opinion and/or haven’t yet done a lot of research. But I’ll respect your time: I plan on sending something out no more than once a week.
As with my web site, I will not include advertisements or other promotions for goods or services the sale of which would benefit me—although of course I’ll link to sources for books, movies, etc., that I review. However since I’m publishing this for free through the Substack service it’s possible that Substack itself may insert ads for itself or others, either now or in the future.
Finally, this is a free newsletter and will remain so for the foreseeable future. (In the unlikely event that I ever do get to the point where it makes sense to provide paid content, I’ll have some sort of promotion to reward early subscribers.) Please feel free to forward any of my posts to anyone you think may be interested.