Category: Dan Rodricks

Trump is well beyond the point of just being a crude loudmouth or vulgar bigot. There’s something much more profound going on.

One more follow-up to my Friday column on invasive fish species: Marylanders and Virginians can do their part to support the blue crab population in the Chesapeake Bay by eating blue catfish. There are too many of them in Chesapeake waters and they eat a lot of blue crabs. Here is some information I gathered … Continue reading Like steamed crabs? Like crab cakes? Better eat a blue catfish now and then.

My Baltimore Sun ancestor, H.L. Mencken, called the Chesapeake Bay the “immense protein factory,” but I’ll bet he did not know how many types of fish are found in the massive estuary. I had no idea, either, until the other day when I came across these numbers from the fisheries division of the National Oceanic … Continue reading An ‘immense protein factory,’ but 340 kinds of fish? I had no idea.

While Trump continues to lie about how bad things are -- he often describes the country as a fetid hellhole of mass unemployment, hyperinflation and out-of-control crime -- Joe Biden continues to put up winning numbers in the real world. In case you missed Friday's news: WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s economy accelerated last quarter … Continue reading Biden won

Father and son Maniscalco The comedian Sebastian Maniscalco grew up in Arlington Heights, about 25 miles from downtown Chicago. He tells a lot of funny stories about his Italian-American family. When Maniscalco reported the exciting news that he was going to have a big Chicago show at the United Center, his dad’s immediate response was, … Continue reading Age-old question: Where they gonna park?

J.D. Vance’s creepy complaint about “childless cat ladies” being a problem for the country places him on the racist continuum in direct line with Patrick Buchanan, who made white Republicans fear becoming a racial minority. I see the line clearly: Buchanan, who ran in Republican primaries for president in the mid-1990s, warned against the coming … Continue reading J.D. Vance’s racist cat whistle

My column of July 25 is about Bob Cassilly (right), the Republican executive in Harford County, Maryland, and his successful effort to stop Godzilla-size warehouses in his suburban Baltimore county along Interstate 95. The real environmentalists in the county -- the men and women who have been trying to protect and preserve Perryman Peninsula and … Continue reading Nostalgia: Republicans who were environmentalists

I don't suppose J.D. Vance or any of the other MAGA Republicans who accused President Biden of inciting violence against Trump will apologize. So far, according to published reports, federal investigators have found no evidence that the 20-year-old man/boy who tried to kill Trump was driven by political ideology. So far, the only thing that … Continue reading The Trump assassination attempt: No evidence the shooter was on a political mission

My Sun column today is about the rare thing called political selflessness. I have been thinking a lot about President Biden, especially since his decision on Sunday to drop out of the presidential race. It’s been hailed as an extraordinary act of selflessness at the end of a long career in public service. Clearly – … Continue reading Biden set high the bar for public service

In addition to Ken Pavol's comments about the heat effects on wild trout in Western Maryland (see my earlier post), here's what another guide, PJ Daley of Savage River Angler, wrote last week in an appeal for a fishing closure to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Note that he also uses the opportunity to … Continue reading Code Red: A second fishing guide calls for shutting down the river where he takes clients