Dan Rodricks

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

On my drives from downtown Baltimore to points north, I often take Eutaw Place, between Dolphin Street and North Avenue, and it’s one of the best trips in the city — nine blocks of great rowhouses and a wide, shady median that pretty much constitutes a public park. On Friday, I did it again, driving … Continue reading Across the Eutaw Place divide: Summer music to unite Baltimore neighborhoods

My Sunday Sun column (available at baltimoresun.com) is about artist Tony Shore’s Tiny Tony project, something that might seem completely whimsical — and I’m a sucker for Baltimore-style whimsy — but it’s really an extension of the narratives Shore first developed in black velvet.  For more than half his life, Shore has been painting on … Continue reading Tony Shore’s Baltimore narrative continues at 1/6 scale

I state in today’s Sun column — available at baltimoresun.com — that we all have stories of rescue. We have all heard a story about some quick-thinking someone saving another someone, often a stranger, from drowning or fire. Or we know someone who did. Some stories are family heirlooms, passed down from generation to generation. … Continue reading Everyone has a rescue story, and maybe even one in the family. Here’s mine.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Baltimore along with the Maryland Division of Parole and Probation, the Baltimore State’s Attorney and the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement are sponsoring a one-stop reentry resource fair on THURSDAY, JULY 15, 2021 FROM 10:00 A.M. TO 2:00 P.M. at the War Memorial, 101 N. Gay Street.    Several organizations will be on-site … Continue reading Home from prison? Looking for help? There’s a job fair for you Thursday in Baltimore

Trey Mancini, leader of the struggling, losing, rebuilding Baltimore Orioles, was already the best story in professional sports, and then he put on a show in the home run derby on the eve of the Major League All-Star game. Amazing. Last year at this time, he was just a couple of months from finishing his … Continue reading Trey Mancini: Courage, strength and the gift of medical science

My Sunday column — available at baltimoresun.com — is the second one I've written since meeting Matthew King, founding president of the Harlem Park Community Development Corp. and one of Baltimore's most determined citizens. He and his collaborators have taken on a big challenge — redeveloping and repopulating a once-thriving neighborhood that tells the long, … Continue reading Reckoning with the past: The potential of a Harlem Park Renaissance in Baltimore

Of all the absurdities we have suffered in this country since Trump came down the escalator and announced he was running for president, none beats this: The refusal of millions of Republicans — not just a few stupid thousand, but millions — to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Nearly half of Republicans told the Washington Post-ABC … Continue reading The absurd anti-vaxxers have been drenched in a 40-year flood of toxic rhetoric and lies

Chicken thighs marinated in peri-peri and grilled with rosemary sprigs To make the peri-peri: Six cloves garlic One red bell pepper cut into slices, seeds removed. (You can also use a hot red pepper or two for this; it’s up to you.) One half red onion cut into chunks Put these ingredients in a food … Continue reading Dan’s Portuguese Grilled Chicken

I learned long ago in the news business that anecdotes never tell the whole story, that most people regard the world through their own experiences or that of their peers, and that many successful people fail to understand why so many others come up short in American society. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan right now is … Continue reading Larry Hogan takes a stand on Mount Reagan

I have had this feeling for some time — that our sport fishing season in the Mid-Atlantic is getting shorter with climate change, that the only time to practice catch-and-release fishing is in the colder weather, October through maybe Memorial Day. Those who maintain a tradition of sport fishing in summer — whether on the … Continue reading It’s summer. Time top stop fishing, not start

The stubborn, contented or willfully ignorant American is a particular problem right now.

How did this happen? How much will the defendant pay? And who is that anyway? Who is to blame? What will the damages be? Lives crushed, the shock of unbelievable, tremors felt in blood lines, immeasurable pain turned goddamn angry, families condemned to heirloom nightmares. Are we not exceptional? How did this happen? Are we … Continue reading Collapse

You might call this wishful thinking — it’s certainly the wish of many small business owners like the ones I met in Baltimore’s Pigtown neighborhood the other day — but, as stated in today's Sun column, I think the death of brick-and-mortar retail has been exaggerated. I suspect that, coming out of the pandemic, people … Continue reading Retail won’t be what it was but it ain’t dead

The Greatest Generation persevered through the Depression, defeated fascism in World War II -- and got vaccinated without a lot of BS. I write about this aspect of our parents' and grandparents' generation in today's Sun column. Here's the link if you want to check it out. One thing I failed to mention: There was … Continue reading Vaccinated without a lot of BS

From The New York Times: The Roman Catholic bishops of the United States, flouting a warning from the Vatican, have overwhelmingly voted to draft guidance on the sacrament of the Eucharist, advancing a push by conservative bishops to deny President Biden communion because of his support of abortion rights. I remember one unfortunate thing about … Continue reading Hypocrites in shepherd’s clothing

I quote Tom Manger in my Friday column in the Sun. A native of Baltimore, he was police chief of Montgomery County for 15 years and is now a public safety consultant. He also served as a summer cop in Ocean City in 1976, after graduating from the University of Maryland. Here's more of what … Continue reading What a top cop says about the Ocean City mess

Just as I finished writing today's column about Rep. Andy Harris' efforts to move even further to the way-out Republican right, he adds another item to the resume, signing his name to a letter calling on President Biden to undergo a cognitive fitness test. Harris had been one of 21 Republicans in the House who … Continue reading A Maryland congressman’s race to the bottom

My colleagues from The Sun newsroom — Tim Prudente, Jessica Anderson and McKenna Oxenden — have a story today about the police in Ocean City and the videos of their violent confrontations with young men on the Boardwalk. The story quotes a retired police captain and use-of-force expert named Ashley Heiberger, and Heiberger focuses on … Continue reading ‘Difficult to articulate a level of threat or resistance to justify those knee strikes’

The place looks so pristine and inviting, so constant and enduring, I sometimes feel unworthy of it, as if an intruder, a riparian peeping Tom who should just catch a quick glimpse and leave. There is nothing here but the real world of trees, clear water, rocks as old as time, flickering birds, dancing insects … Continue reading Nothing here but the real world

I would like you to know the following: Since my first day of work in a newspaper’s city room — June 1973, The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, Massachusetts — I’ve been intrigued, entertained, impressed, inspired, mentored, awed and enlightened by the people who worked there. I can’t think of one reporter, critic or editor who, in … Continue reading Great and good journalists I have known

A narrative memoir about fly fishing, fatherhood and finding your last best place on Earth. Published by Apprentice House Books at Loyola University Maryland. Available now in softcover and hardcover. Publication date: May 2019. Foreword by Lefty Kreh. . . . . . "Where would you want to be if you knew the world would … Continue reading Father’s Day Creek: A book for outdoors lovers, anglers, and anyone who had a father.

Reaction to last month's column on the progress on electric vehicles confirmed what we already knew: Some people look right past the positive to the negative. The column was essentially an update on the technological and commercial aspects of electric cars and trucks and it was mostly an upbeat report because there's a lot to … Continue reading BGE’s ramp-up on EV fast charging continues

You, who voted for Trump — some of you will insist he’s behaving badly now because of the drugs they gave him at Walter Reed for his coronavirus infection. You will say he’s under a lot of pressure and that the Democrats and liberals in the media never gave him a chance to succeed. You’ll … Continue reading Dearest Trump supporters: You moved to the fence. It’s time to jump and end the crazy