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The news cycle is bleak.

Which, perhaps, is why I’m very focused on a story out of a community near where I grew up in Maryland.

May I offer you some counterprogramming – in the form of a controversy about an eggplant and a peach in Ellicott City, Maryland.

This image of eggplants was taken in 2018 by Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff. Sometimes an eggplant is just an eggplant.

We know the eggplant and peach emojis, and what they stand for in messages. (If you don’t know, please google. But think: body parts.

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