Dan Rodricks

I took this photograph of Calvin Ash (on the right) and his new friend Kurt Wenzing a little more than a year ago. It's one of my favorite photographs. The two men were seated on the front porch of Calvin's late mother's home in Wilson Park, and Kurt had been helping Calvin fix the place … Continue reading ‘Better than never,’ says former Maryland prisoner of state legislature’s action

And so I think about all those words Joe wrote, and wrote on deadline, clouded in cigarette smoke on the day Kennedy died, or in the fading sunlight of a Bonn afternoon, or in a hotel somewhere, or for the last 25 years of his career in an office on North Calvert Street in Baltimore. … Continue reading On the passing of Joe Sterne, journalist

Fully vaccinated, I went -- with a friend who is fully vaccinated -- to the Orioles' home opener on Thursday. Here's my mildly amusing Sunday Sun column on that experience. I assume others there were fully vaccinated, but, of course, I didn't know that. About 1.3 million people, or about 22% of the state’s 6 … Continue reading Are we there yet? Nope. Continue maskulation.

My Friday column in The Baltimore Sun tells how the abandoned and contaminated PEMCO property in southeast Baltimore, across from Hopkins Bayview, became a new shopping center called Yard 56 and how a determined developer named David Bramble made it happen. Founded in 1911 as the Porcelain Enamel Manufacturing Corporation, the company once had 600 … Continue reading Transformation: 20 acres of Baltimore back from the dead

In my Sun column last week I called upon billionaire Michael Bloomberg to do as he has pledged and give away a bunch of his money — and I specifically suggested that he make a donation of $1 billion to Baltimore Community Lending, an independent, nonprofit, federally-authorized lender that has been financing small businesses and … Continue reading Getting billionaires and banks to give it up for Baltimore

Yuri Fatkulin When we broke the set of the Rodricks For Breakfast show in late 1999, after five years of weekend morning television and some of the hardest work and greatest fun we ever had, crew members suggested I take home the mural painted by the Russian artist Yuri Fatkulin. This talented muralist had painted … Continue reading From the attic: The art of Yuri Fatkulin

Following up on recent columns about the continuing violence in Baltimore: Among other findings in Thiru Vignarajah's dive into data about homicide cases: Judges are not going easy on killers. A defendant who stood trial and who was found guilty of first-degree murder for a homicide in Baltimore Circuit Court in the years 2017, 2018 … Continue reading The problem in Baltimore is not a lenient judiciary

The photographs with this post are, for me, like its subject — out of focus. As I write this, I am far from full clarity on what became of Kurtis Darius Williams, the subject of my column on June 15, 2018 and again today in the Sunday Sun. I am puzzled, curious, sad. Sometimes you … Continue reading Out of focus: Kurtis Williams

The Sun has a strong editorial on this subject today. You can read it at this link. Statement From the Democratic Governors Association: Maryland GOP Rep. Andy Harris, potential candidate for governor and the standard bearer for the base of the Maryland GOP, chose to side with violent insurrectionists over Capitol police officers yesterday. Harris … Continue reading Slamming Andy Harris for his lousy vote against honoring Cap cops

Is this predictable or what? Someone who lives in a pricey house in an upscale, mostly White suburb owns a valuable corner property, zoned commercial, in a mostly Black neighborhood of West Baltimore. The property happens to be within walking distance of a college campus, a high school and an elementary school. The owner of … Continue reading Friday’s column: A battle for something better