Dan Rodricks

As mentioned in my weekend column in The Baltimore Sun: The newest addition to the B&O Railroad Museum is a large model train layout of Baltimore landmarks — Oriole Park (on the day of a Baltimore-Seattle playoff game in 1997), the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower, the World Trade Center, the Lord Baltimore Hotel, the Hippodrome … Continue reading Model city: Baltimore in HO scale at the B&O Museum

My Sun column today is about someone many from the newspaper knew -- and someone I wish the rest of you could have known: Ernie Imhoff, longtime reporter and editor for the Sunpapers of Baltimore, an assistant managing editor of the bygone Evening Sun and its last managing editor. Ernie, who died the other day, … Continue reading E stands for Encouragement, Enthusiasm and Ernie

This Saturday, December 4, from 1pm-3pm ET  the #breathewithme Revolution and the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project present the World Premiere of Hidden in Full View, a short film that documents the lynching of 23-year old Matthew Williams in Salisbury, Maryland 90 years ago. The release is part of a national campaign that includes the upcoming publication of a book about the Williams … Continue reading Online premiere: ‘Hidden In Full View,’ the Matthew Williams lynching in Maryland

The guilty verdicts in the murder trial of the three men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia bring to mind something I’ve thought about a lot: How we in the news media missed the story so many times over so many years.  I’m in my 48th year in the newspaper world. I go … Continue reading After Arbery verdicts: All the injustices we missed or ignored

Haudenosaunee refers to the Six Nations of Native Americans commonly known as the Iroquois — that is, Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, Oneida, Tuscarora and Seneca. The Haudenosaunee (pronounced hoe-dee-no-SHOW-nee) are known for a tradition of giving daily thanks. “Haudenosaunee people give thanks everyday, not just once a year,” says the National Museum of the American Indian. … Continue reading Giving daily thanks: A Native American tradition

After sitting in the sun and listening to him for close to two hours, I asked Kenny Braitman to spend a few minutes elaborating on something he said during our conversation at his permaculture farm in Western Maryland — that having been in the Marine Corps was one of the best things that happened to … Continue reading Thanksgiving column: Kenny Braitman and a life of gratefulness

In the wake of the Rittenhouse trial and verdict, here's a hypothetical to ponder from Arnold "Skip" Isaacs, former Baltimore Sun correspondent and editor: Isaacs Imagine that last January 6 a concerned citizen -- let's call him LyleKittenhouse -- became worried that the Capitol police were beingoverwhelmed by the mob, that he picked up a … Continue reading What if Rittenhouse had taken on the Jan. 6 mob?

This terrible week in Baltimore got worse Thursday night with a 13-year-old girl shot to death in West Baltimore. My column in Friday’s Sun was written and filed before this happened so this girl's death is not listed among the others I cite from a week of violence that took the lives of a 69-year-old … Continue reading This I must do, this you should know

I always have more to share after I write a column, and today is no different. There are more things you should know about David Gordon and about the whole question of what we — this state, this country — do about teenagers who kill.  Clearly, there needs to be punishment for the taking of … Continue reading On time, crime and punishment: More on the David Gordon case and juvenile justice

Today is Veterans Day, formerly Armistice Day, originally meant to commemorate the end of World War I and the sacrifice of Americans who died in that absurd war’s last 18 months. But here’s the thing about 11/11/18: There was a period of time on the final day when, instead of quietly receding into history, The … Continue reading 11/11/18: The horrible, absurd end of the ‘War To End All Wars’

My Wednesday column in The Sun is about a depressing series of break-ins of establishments in the 1700 block of North Charles Street, in Baltimore’s Station North, but it could have been about graffiti. Graffiti and grime in the blocks north and south of North Avenue, along Charles Street and Maryland Avenue, are particularly disturbing. … Continue reading An epidemic of grafitti in Baltimore

In the recent New Jersey election, a Republican truck driver (in photo above) with no political experience beat the incumbent Democratic state Senate president while the Democratic governor narrowly won re-election. And now The New York Times declares that the “Republican Party seems to be marching back to relevance.” Only the Times could come up … Continue reading The Do-Nothing Party and Know-Nothing Politicians

I wrote this column about Raoul Middleman in December 2013. The artist died Friday night. His obituary appears in today's Baltimore Sun. The photo above shows Raoul with one of his portraits of the Great Dantini. The photograph is by Algerina Perna This update on the life of Raoul Middleman was not meant to be … Continue reading From the archive: Raoul Middleman, the artist at work in Baltimore, his city forever

Dear Michael Bloomberg: Now that you’ve given another $43 million to Johns Hopkins University, on top of the amazing $3.55 billion you already gave your alma mater, maybe you can do something directly for Baltimore. I’ve suggested it before in my column. Here’s another try: Give $1 billion over 10 years to the nonprofit Baltimore … Continue reading Dear Mike Bloomberg: A request and an invitation

My latest column in The Sun is another about Living Classrooms, and I'll tell you why:  Until recently, I considered myself to be among the many Baltimoreans who think of Living Classrooms as “field trips on boats for kids on the Chesapeake.” But it’s turned into a lot more than that over the last 36 years. I … Continue reading Catching up with Living Classrooms, a Baltimore do-good that’s grown far beyond ‘field trips for kids’

Norway has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world at 20%. The U.S. has one of the highest: 76.6% of prisoners are rearrested within five years. -- Harvard Poltical Review It seems to me there are three purposes to prisons: They are clearly essential for public safety, to keep criminals away from the … Continue reading What’s the purpose of our prisons?

Ordinarily, I don’t engage or indulge topics such as this: The prospects of another civil war in the United States. Such things seem too far-fetched, speculative, even ridiculous to bother with, unworthy of 900 words. But the prospect of civil war — an actual split in the country and violent confrontations between red and blue … Continue reading Civil war sounds crazy, but so did a Trump presidency

Updated post, with this New York Times story: As Manchin blocks climate plan, his state can't hold back floods Having read my Oct. 3 column in The Sunday Sun, my friend Tom recalled a trip to the Louisiana Gulf Coast a few years ago to do some birding with his wife, Gaile. As they travelled … Continue reading Joe Manchin’s legacy: Wealth from fossil fuels and putting the nation at risk of more Trumpism

I've written about this problem in the past. Glad to see this new law on the books. Here's the press release from the state: The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) and Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) remind Marylanders that a new state law that prohibits intentional balloon releases takes effect October 1, 2021. … Continue reading Great news: Intentional Balloon Releases Banned in Maryland

Beauséant  So this is what happens: I'm driving through Mount Washington after visiting my old and beloved Evening Sun editor, Ernie Imhoff, at Springwell retirement community. I see this amazing carved sun face in the remainder of an old tree and, inspired by memories of Ernie assigning stories in the newsroom, I snooped around. I … Continue reading A carved sun face, a for-sale sign and the ‘General’s House’

Please note and mark the moment: Justin Tucker’s 66-yard field goal to win today’s NFL game in Detroit for the Baltimore Ravens belongs among the Greatest Feats in Sports History. It’s up there with Bob Beaman’s amazing Olympic-record long jump in Mexico City (1968), Don Larsen’s perfect game in a World Series (1956) and Usain … Continue reading 9/26/2021: Justin Tucker’s foot records his greatest feat

Question for the house: What takes more, being the best player on the worst baseball team or the best player on the best team? I’m looking at the Marvelous Mullins of the Baltimore Orioles as one of the greatest seasons by an individual Oriole comes to a close. Cedric has hit 30 home runs while … Continue reading The Marvelous Mullins kept his eye on the ball

In doing some research on the Progressive Era — in part, the subject of my Wednesday column in The Baltimore Sun — I tripped into a fascinating corner of Maryland history and the record of a long-gone governor from Conowingo named Austin Crothers. He was a man of contradictions in an age of ambiguity, a … Continue reading History lesson: The contradictions of Maryland and its Governor in the Progressive Era

The pandemic cancelled Little Italy’s Madonnari Arts Festival again. The next one is scheduled for September 2022. Still, art is happening in the old neighborhood. During the hiatus, the organizers of the festival invited Mexican street artist Carlos Alberto Garcia-Hernandez to create a permanent 3D mural on the wall of the Hospital Support Services building … Continue reading A wow-inducing new mural for Little Italy

What we are facing, my fellow Americans, is not simply a difference of opinion. You all know what a difference of opinion looks and sounds like. What we are facing is not mere disagreement about how much the nation should spend on defense or whether undocumented immigrants should be given a path to citizenship. What … Continue reading America is facing something much bigger than a difference of opinion

From Sunday's column in The Baltimore Sun: Nobody asked me, but few things seem more anachronistic — that is, belonging to a time gone by — than a fishing tournament where someone wins thousands of dollars for killing a massive and beautiful blue marlin. This year’s victim at Ocean City weighed 1,135 pounds, and the Florida … Continue reading American grotesque: Blue marlin killing for money

From The Baltimore Sun, published Sept. 12, 2001 We organize the tools in our garage and line up the shoes in our closets. We trim the hedge and water the lawn. We shop in malls. We jog. We walk the dog. We sip dark-roast coffee. We drive reliable cars with full tanks of gas. We … Continue reading Shaken faith: What I wrote on 9/11

Somebody keeps a baseball field looking perfect. There are no bases and no baselines, nor is the pitcher’s rubber evident. It’s September, after all, and unless someone has a fall season in mind, I imagine this place, north of Towson and Baltimore, will just stay that way, empty but inviting. Somebody keeps it looking perfect, … Continue reading Somebody keeps a baseball field

Allow me to elaborate on something I report in my Sun column today: The significance of a project underway in Maryland to move hundreds of thousands of eels upstream of the Conowingo hyrdoelectric dam on the Susquehanna River. If Democrats and Republicans could work as well together as Anguilla rostrata and Elliptio complanata do, we'd … Continue reading A beautiful symbiosis: Eels and mussels

Submitted for your approval: a recipe for a modest but delicious worker's lunch, made with fresh ingredients from the late-summer garden: The Peppers and Eggs Sandwich is the official sandwich of Labor Day USA. Get four or five sweet green peppers from the farmers' market — cubanelles, if they're available, but bell peppers will do. … Continue reading How to make the official sandwich of Labor Day

Reporters seldom become friends with the people we cover or profile. We might respect them, especially when we seek them out for expertise. We might find their enterprise important or exciting. We might become acquaintances, but I would say friendships between journalists and the people we write about are rare.  It’s more likely that we … Continue reading Matthew, we hardly knew ye

A reminder that, while Labor Day was never identified with a particular food item -- in the way Thanksgiving demands roasted turkey, St. Patrick's Day requires corned beef and cabbage, or the Fourth of July comes ringed in hot dogs -- the peppers-and-eggs sandwich has been the official sandwich of the first Monday in September … Continue reading The peppers-and-eggs sandwich is the official meal of Labor Day

Wally Vait treated me to a corked bottle of magic yesterday — dark amber honey from his hives near a cornfield. I have sampled it now four times — experienced it, I should say — in the hopes of describing it, but fear human adjectives might demean the flavor. The honey tasters from the Maryland … Continue reading A taste of honey the bees came up with

If you haven't been to the Ikea in White Marsh, outside Baltimore, for a while -- or at all during the pandemic -- you'll be surprised to see solar canopies covering the parking lot there. I devoted a recent Baltimore Sun column to the topic of large companies with large parking lots turning them into … Continue reading Imagine all of those parking lots covered with solar panels, generating renewable energy

Before we go on, attention must be paid: David Zurawik, award-winning media critic of The Baltimore Sun and my colleague and friend, has retired from his position after 32 years at the newspaper. With pithy zest and a unique voice, the Z on TV columnist spent decades smartly chronicling and critiquing the television industry in … Continue reading Retirement for the unretiring Z Man

Fishing the Savage River in western Maryland is not easy — and not just because the brown trout are finicky. The place is a feast for the eyes and senses, so you can easily become distracted by the natural wonders. PHOTO ESSAY: SAVAGE RIVER On this day in late summer, I was struck by all … Continue reading Moss grows and the river flows

Wow, that decade just rolled by! James Hamlin and his Avenue Bakery, on historic Pennsylvania Avenue in West Baltimore, celebrate 10 years this weekend, with a concert on Sunday afternoon. I wrote about the bakery when it opened, and James, who already had become something of a local legend for his pull-apart, cloverleaf dinner rolls … Continue reading The Avenue Bakery: 10 years on a roll

I came across his old red-handled clippers, the one he pruned his fruit trees with, and immediately saw him again, on the grassy, sloping orchard of memories. He was in his 70s then and wore a brown corduroy coat and plaid hunter’s cap. It was autumn — or maybe it was spring, whenever you are … Continue reading In the orchard of memories

An Irish writer named John Waters defines authority as “the capacity to endure unpopularity in the interests of the good.” He adds that a defining quality of fatherhood through the ages has been “a preparedness to be resented.” The two are very much related in the context of American political leadership: Some of the adults … Continue reading Biden and Pelosi lead while Republicans make playground noise

“Disgraceful” is a kinder word than the one that more aptly applies to many things that have occurred in America during the last five years. “Disgusting” is more apt. Example: Michael Fanone, one of the police officers attacked by the Trump mob on Jan. 6, testified last week that the disrespect shown to him and … Continue reading Trump’s emotional toll on America

I said my piece about the Bishops, Joe Biden and the Eucharist a few weeks ago. That they would withhold communion from the most religious President since Jimmy Carter because he respects the law and a woman’s right to an abortion — and is, therefore, unworthy of the Eucharist, in the eyes of some bishops … Continue reading ‘Jesus fed everybody who showed up.’

I thought the photograph of the Baltimore Bloody Mary, by artist Mark Adams, might get your attention. As I report in my Sunday Sun column, available at baltimoresun.com, Mark got a little carried away with cocktails during the pandemic. The Baltimore Blood Mary, while fun, is hardly representative of just how far Adams went with … Continue reading The Baltimore Bloody Mary

You can call her a right-wing QAnon nut. You can call her election last year to the House of Representatives a tragedy. And even some Republicans might distance themselves from her. But yesterday, with their infantile mask protest in the Capitol, Republicans pretty much fell in line behind the awful Marjorie Taylor Green. They embraced … Continue reading Republicans fall in line behind Marjorie Taylor Greene

I usually don't bother to respond to Trumpies who continue to espouse the Big Lie or deny that what happened on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol amounted to an attempted coup. I haven't much stomach for false equivalencies, what-aboutism and both-sides-bad because I don't believe both sides are bad. I believe Republicans in Congress … Continue reading Response to a tragically Trumped-up Terrence

My latest Sun column is about Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md-1) and his claim that the University System of Maryland should not mandate vaccinations against COVID-19 because of the risk of a side effect that, according to the CDC, occurs about 12 times in every 1 million doses. The column is available at this link. Risk … Continue reading Yes, Andy Harris, even anesthesia , your specialty, comes with risks

One of the brave police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 testified before Congress Tuesday that some of the men who attacked him seemed — by their demeanor, attire or tactics — to have military or law enforcement experience. This, of course, has been established already. At least 45 of the approximately … Continue reading The Loser’s Army: ‘Trump sent us’

In 2016, the Baltimore Police Department did a data dive on people involved in shootings in the city — victims as well as the suspected shooters — and the BPD found this:  Among suspects, 76%  had prior criminal records, 62% percent had prior drug arrests, 52% had been arrested for violent crimes, and 41% percent … Continue reading Getting to inmates before they get back on the street and continue their criminality

Friday's column in The Sun — available at baltimoresun.com — is about the very strange and dangerous trend of right-wing politics and extreme ideology affecting a basic health decision: Whether to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. We have had the vaccine since December, but only half of the country is fully vaccinated, and public health … Continue reading Vaccine resistance is about many things, but mostly the warped, fevered politics of the right