Dan Rodricks

According to polls, a majority of registered Republicans support President Biden's widely popular $1.9 trillion relief package to get us through pandemic and into recovery. How do we reconcile that with the fact that so many Republicans also remain Trump supporters, skeptical of science and public health experts? How do you explain parents in Idaho … Continue reading On American tribalism and the burning of masks by children

This photograph gives a fair representation of what the first Sunday in March 2021 looked and felt like along a creek in a rural area north of Baltimore -- dormant and low and colorless but for the midday sky. It's Tween Time, between winter and spring. I doubt I've ever heard anyone call it their … Continue reading Tween Time: March and the slow rise to spring

Here's a photograph from the Hungarian embassy in Washington showing Maryland's extreme-right, gun-packing Republican congressman, Andy Harris (on the left for this photo only!) receiving a medal of merit from the ambassador, Szabolcs Takács. Wondering why Harris receieved the Officer’s Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit on January 29? It has something to do … Continue reading Andy Harris gets a medal

One year ago today, on March 5, 2020, Maryland’s Public Health Laboratory in Baltimore reported the first three positive cases of the novel coronavirus in the state. The infected people were from Montgomery County and had contracted the virus while traveling overseas. "We have been actively preparing for this situation over the last several weeks … Continue reading Where were you, what were you planning to do when the coronavirus arrived?

"We're not a nonprofit, but we're not a profit maximizer, either." I heard a businessman on a mission say that the other day, and while I found it refreshing, it also reminded me of something: People who have a lot of money want more of it. To be sure, there are different levels of desire … Continue reading Wanting to help the poor, but only at double-digit returns

Richardson If you receive the print edition of The Baltimore Sunday Sun, you'll find an outdated number in my column: Lyneir Richardson and Chicago TREND have raised $274,500 from 108 investors. I filed my column on Friday when TREND had raised $239,500 from 101 local investors. Because of The Sun's deadlines for print, I could … Continue reading Lyneir Richardson’s Big Idea: “Inclusive ownership” of a Baltimore shopping center

"In Europe, they've been doing this for years." How many times have you heard that when it comes to, oh, about a thousand things? The nations of Europe have run ahead of the United States on public transportation and train travel, health insurance, care for the aged, firearms regulation, infrastructure, energy conservation, recycling and all … Continue reading ‘In Europe, they’ve been doing this for years’

Anyone remember when Larry Hogan, as the Republican candidate for governor in 2014, bashed the O'Malley administration and his Democratic opponent, Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, over the messed-up rollout of Obamacare in Maryland? Hogan included the criticism in one of his campaign ads, saying Brown was a weak leader and "just not ready" to be … Continue reading Maryland should’ve had one-stop vax registration from the start

Those ugly nests of dormant and live cables and wires that hang over alleys in rowhouse neighborhoods are a blight on Baltimore, and it's time to do something about them. Dozens of Baltimoreans have complained to me about them and shared photographs of the overhead tangles. Communications companies leave zombie wires hanging every time someone … Continue reading Baltimore: Time to take action against Wire Hell

Patience is a virtue, they say, and I have been therefore virtuous when it comes to adjusting to changes in lifestyle during the pandemic and in my personal wait (ongoing at this writing) for vaccination. I think I have been patient with the dog we adopted a year ago, a sweet animal who, to my … Continue reading No more suffering the insufferable Trump cultist