Author: Dan Rodricks

I hear and receive by email a lot of complaints about the Baltimore city government under the administration of Mayor Brandon Scott — that it has experienced too much executive turnover, that it seems too slow to react to problems, that it hasn’t done enough to stem gun violence and support downtown businesses. I agree … Continue reading Complaints about Baltimore’s squeegee guys drop significantly; angry letters to this columnist have tapered off, too.

Among the accomplished writers who came from Maryland was James. M. Cain, famously the author of "The Postman Always Rings Twice," "Double Indemnity" and other novels. (That's him in the photo above with actress Lana Turner in 1946 in a Hollywood restaurant.) Now comes news from the Associated Press that a never-published Cain short story, … Continue reading Discovered: An unpublished short story by James M. Cain

So that Memorial Day does not become “just another day off,” I decided to ponder its origin and meaning.  I heard a TV host say Americans will “celebrate” Memorial Day. I found that jarring. The person who wrote that into the MSNBC script picked the wrong verb. “Observe” would suffice because there’s nothing to “celebrate” … Continue reading The nation could use a Public Service Day, too.

In the process of reporting for my Wednesday column in The Baltimore Sun, I learned about (and made a donation to) the Maryland Market Money program, designed to reward food stamp recipients for choosing to buy healthy, locally grown food at farmers markets.My column is about Andy Harris, the state’s generally awful Republican in Congress, … Continue reading Incentivizing food stamp recipients to make healthy choices

I wrote about crimes against postal carriers in my Sunday column, under the headline, "Attention, bad guys, leave our postal carriers alone," because, as Rep. Kweisi Mfume says, for most of the baby boomer lifetime, robbing the mailman has not been a thing. There are certain people you just don't mess with, and the crime … Continue reading A special bond with our postal carrier

I remember certain things from 1973 -- my first car (a red Ford Galaxy); the Knicks upsetting the Celtics in the NBA playoffs; my first job on a newspaper (a summer internship with The Patriot Ledger in Quincy, Mass.), the Senate Watergate hearings, and Secretariat winning the Triple Crown in horse racing. I watched the … Continue reading Unforgettable: Secretariat and the reason why

The Baltimore Sun, whose pages have chronicled Maryland life and its institution for generations, whose reporters covered every government and conflict and glory of the city since before the Civil War, celebrates its 186th anniversary today. Much of what follows is a previously published history of the newspaper. Ever since Vol. 1, No. 1 rolled … Continue reading “Light For All,” 186 years later

This is how my Sunday column begins: If you gathered a million American mothers and asked them what the country needed, I bet this would be the consensus: More doctors, nurses and caregivers; better pay for teachers and social workers; affordable health care for everyone, including a holistic system for treating people with mental illness; … Continue reading America needs Big Mother Love

Trump, the candidate, should never be allowed on live television again. As his behavior last night on CNN made clear — if it wasn’t clear already — he can barely utter a complete sentence without telling a lie, exaggerating or uttering an insult. The interviewer might try to stop him, correct him and expose him, … Continue reading Trump should never be given access to live TV

I don’t know if this occurs to anyone else — I have not conducted a poll on the issue — but the incessant use of guns by Americans to kill Americans must be having an effect on all Americans. You’ve either become numb to the whole thing or you’ve quietly descended into a state of … Continue reading This gravely wounded, bleeding giant