Dan Rodricks

Sad news this week with the passing of another excellent journalist and former colleague, the editorial cartoonist Mike Lane. He created daily cartoons for the Baltimore Evening Sun from the early 1970s, giving him a chance to include Richard Nixon among his subjects, into the 1990s, after the afternoon paper merged with the morning edition. … Continue reading On the passing of cartoonist Mike Lane

I am not a trog. I like technology, and use it every day. But I don’t automatically concede that all technology is good. Shopping online might be fun and convenient, and there are people who absolutely love getting packages delivered at home; they adore Amazon. But online shopping is killing local retailers, and here in … Continue reading Technology is great, but humans still have the power to discern what’s good, what’s bad for us — and for others

“'The Shawshank Redemption' is such a popular movie. Do Americans really believe in forgiveness and redemption?” “Yes, for me, but not for thee.” By 2005, I had been a reporter and columnist for 32 years, and I had written numerous stories about crime and covered criminal trials. I had written some stories about prisons and … Continue reading Real-life Shawshank: Aging inmates, punishment and redemption

I need to make a clarification about the story I told the other day in my Baltimore Sun column about the Korner Boyz startup - the new venture of mentored squeegee boys into the bottled water business and eventually off the streets. I used the word “wholesale” to describe the nature of this new business, … Continue reading Follow-up to my Korner Boyz column

I will be speaking about my book, reading passages and talking about fly fishing (and life) at two events within a few days in November: BRILLIANT BALTIMORE: On Saturday, Nov. 2, at 3 pm, I will be on the Inspire Stage at the Top of the World, the World Trade Center in Baltimore, right on … Continue reading Two engagements coming up for ‘Father’s Day Creek’

We gathered at Pierpoint restaurant in Fells Point to try Chef Nancy Longo’s take on the Baltimore Crab Corn Coddie. She took my work-in-progress to a new level, bringing her years of experience to the mixing bowl, refining the recipe and offering the new concoction as the Wednesday night special with French fries and coleslaw. … Continue reading The Crab Corn Coddie is a hit, on the menu this weekend at Pierpoint

Trump will never admit a mistake, never own up to doing wrong. Even in reversing the decision to host next year’s G-7 summit at his Doral country club -- a blatant example of the self-dealing that Rep. Elijah Cummings, among others, warned us about after Trump’s election -- this corrupt president can’t concede bad judgement. … Continue reading Trump reverses plans to host G-7 at Doral, but his bad instincts — and their consequences — remain in plain sight

That hot Saturday in July started with Trump’s ugly tweet-storm about Baltimore and rats. It ended with a standing ovation for Elijah Cummings. The story by now is familiar: Trump saw a typically distorted and simplistic FOX report that included video of trash and rats in Baltimore, so he decided that the nation needed to … Continue reading An ovation for Elijah Cummings on the Day of the Rat

Dear Trump supporter: You must realize by now that, whatever you were thinking in November 2016, your vote for Donald Trump that month turned out to be a vote for a disaster of a president. You see that, right? I know it’s a hard thing to admit, and even if you had a moment of … Continue reading Trump supporter: Are you ready for recovery?

There is a lot to like about Elizabeth Warren as a presidential candidate. She's well-versed in facts and policy and understanding problems. She’s right about income inequality, financial corruption and the need to expand health insurance to every American. Her rise in polling of likely Democratic voters suggests she could be the one who surpasses … Continue reading Next time she’s tempted to zing, Elizabeth Warren might want to ask: What would the Obamas say?

Hard to say when we've reached bottom, isn't it? There are so many things about the Trump administration that offend human sensibilities, our sense of American decency and our understanding of Democratic principles that it's hard to single out one of Trump’s actions or one of his tweets as the worst. Separating migrant children from … Continue reading Betrayal of Kurds by Trump will beget more refugees that we won’t take in

I don't know if this is the year to be suggesting it -- with the moderate drought conditions in the mid-Atlantic, it's hard to imagine what the foliage will be like this fall, if at all -- but I did not want to let October pass without telling you about this again. It's the big … Continue reading Seasonal reminder: Best view from a deck in Maryland, open to the public

A senior citizen shared this mailing with me, a solicitation of donations for something called the Liberty Guard in Merrifield, Va. It claims that Trump has been the subject of an attempted coup d’etat and asks for donations to bring “Team Obama” to justice. The organization is run by Bob Barr, a former Republican congressman … Continue reading The crazy right’s strategy: Trump’s conduct is indefensible. So let’s accuse Obama and Clinton of something

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the publication of one of the most important nonfiction books by an American author of the last century: The End of Nature, by Bill McKibben. It was a seminal work in which McKibben argued that we had so profoundly altered our world that nature was no longer a … Continue reading What the children and birds are telling us

I had a moment of what you might call Trump Time Madness during an otherwise pleasant conversation with an otherwise congenial and interesting stranger, and it speaks to what I consider one of the nation’s biggest problems -- not enough people following the news of the day in a daily newspaper. I know that sounds … Continue reading Suffering from Trump Time Madness: A conversation with the low-info voter

Have you ever happened upon the dawn of time? Have you ever felt like the world began overnight? Have you ever tried to squint away the rest of humanity and imagine yourself the first person to stand at the edge of the ocean, with all life foaming at your feet? I’ve had moments like that. … Continue reading Bluefish blitz and the birth of the world

Having pushed away from fast-food and chain restaurants a couple of years ago, it took me a few months to get around to sampling an Impossible Whopper at Burger King, and I only did so at the urging of a raving vegetarian friend. I went to a BK in Towson, Maryland. (There are other local … Continue reading Impossible Dream: A Whopper that takes vegetarians back to the cave, assuming they want to go there

Maryland Trout Unlimited: Wednesday, September 18. 7:30 p.m. Join us to hear Baltimore Sun columnist Dan Rodricks, author of "Father's Day Creek: Fly Fishing, Fatherhood and The Last Best Place on Earth." Dan will discuss his book and talk about his journey from angler to conservationist, and the emotional and psychological connections to rivers and special places … Continue reading Next speaking engagement is with Trout Unlimited in Towson on Sept. 18

Here's what I wrote for The Baltimore Sun on the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks. My own children were 11 and 8 at the time of 9/11, so I was thinking about them, their schoolmates, teammates and friends, a whole generation stuck with the memory of what happened on that day in 2001. I … Continue reading A letter to the children of 9/11

It’s the thing I have never understood about the men and boys who go out to pretty places to fish. Some of them leave their trash along the river banks and trails — piles of beer bottles and fast-food packaging, empty bait containers and discarded fishing line. It happens on trout streams, but you also … Continue reading The one thing about fishing I’ll never understand

I received a great deal of response to my recent column on suburban America’s obsession with big lawns and the need to plant more trees as an answer to the climate crisis. Aside from a few readers who complained that having more trees means more leaves to rake in the fall, the responses ranged from … Continue reading Followup: Yes, some people are giving up lawns to combat climate change

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 in the U.S.

To some people, a ferry crossing sounds like a quaint throwback to an earlier time, before Maryland built the first bridge across the Chesapeake Bay in the 1950s. A second span went up in the 1970s, and now the Governor of Maryland, a road-warrior Republican, has the state's transportation department studying when and where to … Continue reading Electric ferries need to be considered for the Chesapeake Bay

If trout had a 'spirit-home,' it might be the spot behind this rock in the Youghiogheny River in western Maryland. I am quite familiar with it. Among fly anglers who fish this section of the river, it's practically a tourist attraction. No matter the level of the river, nor the season, there always seem to … Continue reading A little story about a fairly big rock

It took me most of an hour to buy two bunches of flowers at the Baltimore Farmers’ Market on Sunday, and not because the line was long but because I kept bumping into people I know and like. Before you think otherwise, I’m not complaining. This is how life in Baltimore is supposed to be. … Continue reading Why they call it Smalltimore

Today marks a year since the gun insanity in Baltimore reached the McKemy family. Scott and Angie McKemy received the shocking news about the death of their 27-year-old son, Bryan, in the early afternoon of Aug. 7, 2018. Bryan was employed by a home-improvement contractor, and he was working on the rear of a house … Continue reading A year since Bryan McKemy’s senseless death; his parents among many in the long wake of Baltimore’s gun violence

Presidents have lied to us before -- Democrats and Republicans about the war in Vietnam, a Republican about the war in Iraq, a Democrat about sex with a White House intern -- but none ever looked so shallow, so hollow, so unmasked as a fraud as Donald Trump on Monday, Aug. 5, 2019 in his … Continue reading Trump and the Nightingale’s song

In my recent Baltimore Sun column about Wolf Den Run State Park in western Maryland, I held back personal feelings about the state’s nascent plan for the place. The column represented the Sun’s first story of any kind about the new park, and it required a lot of reporting; facts took up most of my … Continue reading When you can no longer compartmentalize climate change

I almost always find the shucks of numerous stoneflies on the boulders along Father’s Day Creek, my secret trout stream and “spirit-home” in Pennsylvania. I am impressed by three things -- the size of the shucks, the abundance of them, and the fact that the transition from such a large nymph to fly takes place … Continue reading Overnight: The evidence of life in Father’s Day Creek

We know that people around the world are appalled that Donald Trump is president of the United States, but I am hearing directly from them this week. The response so far to my column on Trump and, even more so, the Sun’s “rat” editorial about him has been off the charts. We are hearing from … Continue reading An outpouring of concern I have not seen since the 9/11 attacks

Since the founding of the Republic, people have always been at odds, based on their personal interests, their religious beliefs, their life experiences, their political loyalties and prejudices. I witnessed American debate at its most intense -- over the U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. But where we are … Continue reading Vietnam War protests were bitter, but they were about policy. In the Trump era, it’s all personal

Maryland is the richest state per capita, with a median household income of $80,766 and one in 12 households the home of millionaires. Kiplinger last year estimated close to 180,000 millionaire households in the state. So why is the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra struggling to stay alive? It should not be -- not with the kind … Continue reading Maryland is the wealthiest state. Millionaires need to step up and save the BSO

Over the last two years, heavy and record-setting rainfalls have washed away numerous fishing days, both on our home waters near Baltimore and in the trout streams of western Maryland. I am a regular reader of the U.S. Geological Survey’s online river data; gage readings from the National Water Information System are just as important … Continue reading Heaven-on-Earth Moments

Citizens of Baltimore are used to (or sick of) it by now -- getting summoned to jury duty at the historic downtown courthouse, sitting around all day, and never getting called to serve on a trial jury.  . . . Obviously, there are trials. Obviously, people serve -- I have, on two criminal cases -- … Continue reading In Baltimore and other cities, many are called for jury duty but few chosen, and why is that?

For those who do not always read my Sun column, here, from the archives, are suggestions I have made (and good programs or ideas I've highlighted) in the past: Promote the city as a tech hub, attract more capital, retain the young geniuses Reverse Baltimore's population slide: Find investors for 'an incredibly high-potential city' Reverse … Continue reading How to fix Baltimore: A few suggestions