Dan Rodricks

There is a trail along home waters, the Big Gunpowder Falls in northern Baltimore County, that reaches out and grabs you. There are varieties of thorny bushes and clinging trees that love, even in the dormant winter months, to pull on your sleeve or grab your fly line as you walk by. If I was … Continue reading To the honest stranger of Grabby Trail: Thank you for my net and the reminder

Years ago, I asked Wally Vait, a fly fishing instructor and guide, if it really mattered whether you caught trout, considering how great it is just to be there -- to be in the water, the environment of the trout, and usually cool and clean water, and often shaded by big trees or crowned in … Continue reading Sometimes, fish don’t matter

What Republican Senators Hawley, Cruz and the rest of the rat pack have decided is this: They will aid and abet Trump’s proliferation of the Big Lie about the 2020 election in order to advance their standing among the #MAGA they hope to inherit for the elections of 2022 and 2024. They have announced the … Continue reading Aiding and abetting the Trump lie

(With earnest apologies to Bob Dylan) May God bless you and keep you. May your wishes all come true. May you find your way through darkness. And lead others through it, too. May we see a gold horizon, See our country start to mend. May we stay forever faithful  Faithful to the end. Farewell 2020, … Continue reading Forever Faithful

For me, it’s between the separation of migrant children from their parents at our border with Mexico and now the pardon of Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Nicholas Slatten and Paul Slough, the four Blackwater mercenaries (above) convicted for the 2007 massacre in Baghdad that left 14 Iraqi civilians dead and 17 wounded. Picking the worst … Continue reading Trump: The absolute worst

I suggested this for the Maryland General Assembly in my most recent column in The Baltimore Sun, but there's no reason it can't be done in state legislatures throughout the country: Filing resolutions to censure the 126 Republicans in the House of Representatives who signed their names to a legal brief supporting a ridiculous Texas lawsuit seeking … Continue reading A national campaign to have state legislatures condemn House Republicans who support Trump’s election fraud claims

On Friday, the Senate passed the Henrietta Lacks Enhancing Cancer Research Act requiring the Government Accountability Office to investigate federally funded cancer trials and outline options to make them more racially inclusive. The act addresses the problem of racial and ethnic diversity in cancer research. It was the subject of my recent column. The late … Continue reading Followup: Senate passes Henrietta Lacks bill filed by the late Elijah Cummings

Please pardon another post about the Maryland Republican congressman Andy Harris, but, in a radio interview posted to his Facebook page, he just went off on restaurants being linked to the spread of coronavirus. He says they are not “significant contributors” to community spread. He’s basically quoting what you can hear on FOX “News" any … Continue reading Andy Harris again criticizes government action to control spread of the virus

I need to thank Thomas Lecaque, a historian and assistant professor at Grand View University in Iowa, for the explanation I have been seeking: Why would 80 to 90 percent of evangelicals support the Pandemic President in the recent election? Now, keep in mind, I knew a lot of that support was there. I understood … Continue reading Evangelicals really don’t believe what the Bible says

Maryland is among four states that gave Joe Biden at least one million more votes than it gave Trump. The final numbers -- still listed as unofficial by the Maryland State Board of Elections -- were: Biden: 1,985,023 Trump: 976,414 And, of course, Maryland's Republican governor, Larry Hogan, who apparently couldn't bring himself to vote … Continue reading Four states gave Biden at least a million more votes over Trump. Maryland is one.