Dan Rodricks

This day, August 15, the Feast of the Assumption in the Roman Catholic Church, was the day we took old women in black dresses — or sometimes nice blue-and-white polka dot dresses — to the beach.  This is the day when the BVM went sky. Translation: It’s the day the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother … Continue reading Feast of the Assumption: Sun, surf, girls in bathing suits, old ladies in black dresses

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the whacko Republican from Georgia famous for nothing but incendiary comments, claims Awful Andy Harris of Maryland is among four House members supporting her resolution calling for the impeachment of Attorney General Merrick Garland. Greene said this in tweets yesterday, thanking Harris and the others for joining her absurd effort. She … Continue reading Whacko House member says Andy Harris supports her resolution calling for AG’s impeachment

Today’s Sun column addresses Dan Cox’s “constitutionally stupid” ideas about Trump and the FBI — specifically, Cox’s pledge, if elected governor, to “stand against” federal agents who — um, what? — try to execute a search warrant against a Cox ally? It’s not clear. Obviously, this Republican candidate was so eager to get on the … Continue reading Why not ignore Maryland’s Trump candidates for governor and lieutenant governor?

I open a window in the wee hours and hear crickets. It always makes me melancholy. Another summer winding down. More than half the year gone. The little boy who grew up next door is headed to college in Georgia today, and with that news, the love song of the male crickets — their constant … Continue reading August: The Sunday night of the year

In Sunday’s New York Times, Maureen Dowd makes the argument that President Biden should do something that has not happened since Lyndon Johnson was in the White House: Announce that he will not seek a second term.Swamped by opposition to the Vietnam War, Johnson opted out of running for re-election in 1968. Why should Biden … Continue reading Should Biden be a one-and-done president?

As I reported in Friday’s Sun column, the right-wing extremist Michael Peroutka, now enjoying the support of the Maryland Republican Party as its candidate for Attorney General, has been a prolific essayist for a website called “News With Views,” sponsored by My Pillow. The website touts itself as a place “where reality shatters illusions,” and … Continue reading The ridiculous ravings of the right-wing extremist supported by the Republican Party in Maryland as our next Attorney General

Voters in Kansas resoundingly sent a state abortion ban to defeat on Tuesday, a major victory for the abortion rights movement in one of the country's reliably red states. It was by a decisive margin, too — 59 to 41 percent -- that Kansans opted to keep the right to abortion in the state constitution. … Continue reading Is Alito’s Roe decision backfiring on GOP, as predicted?

This is how a postal worker on Maryland’s Eastern Shore hopes to keep cool while driving around in a USPS mail truck — with a PVC elbow that catches the breeze from the open window and directs it inside the Grumman “long life vehicle” that the service has been using for decades. The LLVs have … Continue reading This serves as U.S. Postal Service air conditioning

It wasn’t until 1974, after his playing days with the Celtics were over, that I truly appreciated Bill Russell’s accomplishments. I knew what a great athlete he was, knew about the 11 championships. If you grew up in the Boston area in the 1960s, the greatest sports team in that sports town was the one … Continue reading Bill Russell played for the Celtics, not Boston

It's hard to believe from his recent voting record -- against the Frederick Douglas Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Act (which passed 401-20) and against the assault weapons ban passed by the House on Friday -- but Rep. Andy Harris once cared about crime and criminality. I know: It seems impossible that a Republican lawmaker … Continue reading Andy Harris once cared about criminality

Congratulations to Brian Goodman, general manager, and the Young Victorian Theater Company on its 50 years of staging the operettas of Gilbert & Sullivan in Baltimore. Any time someone keeps anything — particularly a theater company — rolling for a half-century, attention must be paid. And keeping G&S on the summer stage as the decades … Continue reading 50 years of cheers for Baltimore’s Young Vic

Ty Cobb, featured in my Sunday Sun column, served as a special counsel to the Trump White House during the Mueller investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. He left when his job was done, in 2018. He had this observation the other day when we spoke about his former client: "Trump does not … Continue reading Former White House counsel: Trump ‘a severely wounded narcissist’

On Monday night, City Councilman Kristerfer Burnett of the 8th District said if squeegee workers were white, the narrative around their plight would be different. “The response would be different,” he said. While that comment makes headlines today, I thought it important to share the longer prepared statement Burnett made earlier in the day. Burnett … Continue reading A City Councilman challenges the angry narrative about squeegee workers of Baltimore

I no longer assume we know what we are celebrating on the Fourth of July, or that we're celebrating at all. So I ask the question of myself and others. In 2022, the United States is still great for many of us — life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and all that — but its … Continue reading What are we celebrating this Fourth of July?

A few years ago, I suggested that electric ferries across the Chesapeake Bay could relieve some of the traffic congestion on our bay bridges, avoiding the multibillion-dollar proposal of Gov. Larry “Road Warrior” Hogan to build a third span. Of course, while many readers thought my suggestion was worth exploring – even exciting – Maryland’s … Continue reading Europe moves ahead on electric ferries while we burn expensive gas to get across the Bay

Photo above: A statue of Roger B. Taney, the U.S. Supreme Court Justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision, was removed from the Maryland State House on Aug. 18, 2017. Another Taney statue was removed from a Baltimore public park about the same time. Until Friday, when the Supremes’ decision to overturn Roe v. Wade … Continue reading Among the worst decisions in Supreme Court history.

In the NYT photo above, Wandrea "Shaye" Moss, a former Georgia election worker, is comforted by her mother Ruby Freeman during the fourth hearing held by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. "Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you?" Moss … Continue reading ‘Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you?’

My Sun column for this Friday should have a tagline: “To be continued.” That would have committed me in print to something I already have in mind — to follow the Resurrection Sandtown Project in the coming months and years to see if the people behind it, starting with Rev. Rodney Hudson, can get the … Continue reading Resurrection Sandtown: To Be Continued

I reached back to my New England roots and read some Robert Frost to Wally Vait in his final days. I read “Birches,” probably my favorite Frost poem, and one I thought the naturalist in Wally — and that was really all of him — would appreciate.It starts:When I see birches bend to left and … Continue reading The guide: Wally Vait and the all of it

Allow me to respond to an email I received about my Sunday Sun column on Trump and his supporters. Though the column was pointedly not about President Biden, readers who support Trump naturally tried to make it about the current president. From Michael Ernest, who calls himself “a Trump supporting democrat,” came this: “Joe Biden … Continue reading Responding to a letter from a ‘Trump supporting democrat’

I might have completely lost my mind when I wrote this Sunday’s column on talking to Trump supporters about why they need, finally, to dump him. It probably strikes most of my readers as a futile exercise and an experience they wish to avoid. I write from the blue state of Maryland, where Joe Biden … Continue reading Trump supporters won’t hear it from Fox, so they need to hear it from the rest of us

It has been more than 20 years since the state, at the behest of landowners, stopped stocking Father’s Day Creek with hatchery trout. As I reported in my book, the creek’s wild trout have thrived ever since.The brook trout are likely natives and the brown trout are stream-bred. The brown trout have become bigger, healthier … Continue reading Return to Father’s Day Creek

My column in The Sun today is about a widely respected federal judge, Andre Davis, now retired, and his involvement in getting active judges to reduce the life sentences of men Davis sent to prison during the nation's long war on drugs. But the column also deals with an aspect of federal sentencing law I … Continue reading Bet you never heard of this legal term

“My wife and I have tears in our eyes over the latest mass shooting in America. Every parent in America should be crying for the lost babies and crying out for change. When is enough, enough? How high is the ceiling of depravity and callousness and apathy in our country? How much longer are decent … Continue reading America is hardly recognizable

For the 152d commencement, graduate ceremony, McDaniel College, May 21, 2022 President Jasken, members of the Board of Trustees, faculty and staff, honored guests and graduates, parents and significant others, friends, Professor Smith and any dogs that might be in the audience. . . . I thank McDaniel College for this honor, and I congratulate … Continue reading Commencement address 2022: Make a duty of decency

A poem by Gale Rasin on the anniversary of the lynching of James Taylor, a 23-year-old Black man who was hanged from a maple tree by a white mob in Chestertown, Maryland on May 17, 1892. -o- “Whatever may be said about the provocation, the stigma will rest upon our county for many years.” -- … Continue reading TREES OF THE EASTERN SHORE

Illustrated by Zach Schoettler Story by Dan Rodricks Once upon a time, long ago, the North Branch of the Potomac River was full of life. It was a beautiful river. It flowed through mountain forests, over and past big boulders, and under cliffs. Trout and bass lived in it. And turtles and frogs. Deer drank … Continue reading A story for kids: How Dr. Bob saved a river

Originally published April, 2021. Updated today as we approach the 185th anniversary of The Baltimore Sun. Photo above is poster from 1987 anniversary celebration. The ultimate problem for American newspapers -- besides the level of profits demanded by corporate ownership -- is that not enough people feel a need to read a newspaper. Even digital … Continue reading We still need you to read the newspaper

We saw two eagles fighting in flight,Fighting in flight over a fish.There were thousands of fish in the river below,Thousands of shad and herring up from the sea.But these two eagles fought over one — a shad, we think.A fight over a shad when there was plenty of shad.So we stood and watched eagles in … Continue reading Eagles fighting over fish

Longtime Baltimore Sun readers will recall Peter A. Jay's op-ed columns that ran for some 24 years, from the 1970s into the 1990s, because they were a delight -- even if you didn't agree with his conservative take on things. Jay's was certainly some of the most elegant and clever prose to run in the … Continue reading Peter Jay’s elegant writing and insights now in a book

Jocelyn Saiki, age 2 I wrote a column for The Sunday Sun about Jocelyn Saiki’s quest to find the man who saved her life in 1972, when she was just a toddler. A man she never knew. A man who would be 70 years old now, if still alive. Saiki wants to thank him for … Continue reading Reaching out and back, across time

St. Michael's Ukrainian Catholic Church, Baltimore My column in The Sun today results from a dive into some old documents, including stories in the newspaper archives, about people who came from what we once called "The Ukraine" when it was part of imperial Russia and, later, the Soviet Union. The more I speak with Ukrainian-Americans … Continue reading The Ukrainians of Baltimore

Can you list six facts you learned — or came to appreciate in a more profound way — in the last month? Give it a try. It’s a pretty good exercise for the mind and probably a good way to retain things you've picked up from reading or watching the news. I list six such … Continue reading Brain Gain: Can you list six things you learned in the last month?

“Please don’t wish,” I heard a woman say. That was her retort to some wishful thinking about life, her answer to hearing someone express hope that things could be different. I look at Putin today and his barbaric attacks on Ukraine, and I wish we could just wish him away. When you feel powerless to … Continue reading Competent leadership can stop Putin. That’s not something you wish for. It’s something you vote for.

In Act 4 of Shakespeare’s “Henry V,” the young king cries out, “I was not angry since I came to France until this instant.” The instant is his discovery, immediately following the battle at Agincourt, of the French army’s massacre behind the lines of the English camp boys. “Kill the poys and the luggage!” says … Continue reading Putin’s war crime is the war itself.

The Raoul Middleman Studio Museum will open for its inaugural exhibition, Raoul Middleman: Life in the Studio, on Sunday, April 3 from 11 am until 4 pm. It will be a memorial tribute on what would have been the prolific artist’s 87th birthday. Middleman died last fall at his home in Baltimore.After a decade establishing … Continue reading The Raoul Middleman studio becomes a museum

Here, for all to read, is a link to The Baltimore Sun's deeply researched editorial on the newspaper's history of racism, going back to its founding nearly two centuries ago. (Here is a link to a note from our publisher and editor-in-chief, Trif Alatzas.) I hope you take time to read it all, either online … Continue reading Apology and Response: The Sun’s editorial on its racist legacy, and a thoughtful reaction to it

In my Wednesday column in The Baltimore Sun, I follow up with more detail about the case of Mrs. Bratcher, the 87-year-old woman who was the victim of a check theft that has cost her $175,000, almost all the money she had for her quarters and expenses at an assisted living center in Carroll County, … Continue reading A special place in Hell

My neighbor Bernie keeps leaving cookbooks on my front step. He’s either been hitting the thrift stores again or he’s dumping his collection on me. I think we’re up to six Bernie books in the last month. He knows I like to cook, and I appreciate that he wants to provide me with ideas for … Continue reading Better a perfect meatball than bad pad thai