Dan Rodricks

I’m sure I fried some brain cells reading through the lawsuits (original and amended) filed as a taxpayer action against the Baltimore City public schools by a West Baltimore couple, Jovani and Shawnda Patterson. I reference the Patterson suit in my column about the political actions of members of the wealthy family that owns the … Continue reading Lawsuit against Baltimore schools a ‘political publicity stunt’

My columns run 900 to 910 words each, so I don’t always have space to get into every detail and angle of a story. Today’s column is an example of that: I have far more information about the death of Jeremy Davidson than I was able to fit into the space allowed, and a question … Continue reading Postmortem: Lingering questions about EMT response to Jeremy Davidson’s medical emergency

The thing about fly fishing in general, and fly fishing for trout specifically, is that you are forced -- if you really want to understand the world in which you wade, and if you really want to catch fish -- to pay attention to what they eat. Trout eat a lot of bugs and, at … Continue reading Metamorphosis: Creatures crawling on rocks

At the end of a recent Saturday outing — for a memorial service for a friend in rural Maryland, then across two counties to visit Basignani Winery — I asked my friend Tom, who did all the driving, if he wanted some money for gas. I was kidding, of course. Chevy Bolt The ride we … Continue reading We drove 140 miles and burned not a drop of gas

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?

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?