Wouldn't it be incredibly satisfying to end Boston's baseball and football seasons in a span of just a few months? First, the O's turn into Red Sox-killers down the stretch and send them packing in late September, and now, the Ravens can send the Pats packing, too. After putting up with all those Sox fans at Camden Years over the years and enduring that Monday Night Football debacle in 2007—when the Ravens played a brilliant game but melted down in the final few minutes—it would be sweet revenge.   

And are you as tired as I am of hearing how much Belichick and Brady love Ed Reed? It's even more tiresome than the Reed/Flacco fiasco. 

In honor of Martin Luther King Day, The Daily Beast did some research to determine the most tolerant cities in America. They weighed the number of hate crimes per 100,000 people, the scope of anti-discrimination laws, attitudes regarding same-sex marriage and religious tolerance, and the diversity of the population.

It may be just that classic Baltimore inferiority complex talking, but I was happily surprised to see that we finished 5th in the country, ahead of New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago (all of which finished in the top 20). In at number one was the university town of Durham, North Carolina (Honolulu, San Francisco, and Miami finished 2, 3 and 4.)

Nice work, Baltimore!

[photo courtesy of The Daily Beast]

Education Week just named Maryland public schools the best in the nation for the fourth year in a row. Let's take a second to acknowledge that accomplishment. Okay, time's up. Now, let's take a few minutes and look below the surface. Maryland actually received a B+ grade (87.8%), and no state received an A. Maybe it's not totally surprising, but it is sobering that none of the 50 states can boast of having a truly excellent school system. The average score was 76.5 percent, a solid C, with the likes of Nebraska and South Dakota slipping into D territory. In Maryland, we nearly got a D (71.7%) in the Equity in K-12 Achievement category, and we scored a C in Teacher Accountability and a C+ in Assessments. So there's still plenty of work to be done, #1 ranking or not. And let's hope the poor folks in South Dakota recognize that getting F's in Teacher Incentives and College Readiness is probably connected to the F the state received for Spending.

In the January issue of Baltimore, writer Justin Snow previews the prospects that a gay marriage bill will pass the Maryland legislature this year after such a measure failed last year in "Gay Marriage, Take Two." Maryland would be the sixth state to legalize gay marriage and the bill seemed to have enough support to pass last year, until a strong campaign against it—organized largely by local religious communities—derailed it.

This year, both sides are gearing up for another fight—and, again, religious groups are among the most vocal. A group called Maryland Marriage Alliance held news conferences late last year to announce its plans to oppose any gay marriage bill. “God created marriage as a union of...