Dan Rodricks

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Everyone pretty much agrees that 2020 has been the worst year we've ever experienced. For people of a certain age, the only year that comes close would be 1968 -- nearly 17,000 U.S. military personnel killed and nearly 90,000 wounded in the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Rev. Martin Luther King … Continue reading Is 2020 the worst year ever?

In the most famous novella about fly fishing in Montana, Norman Maclean referred to his brother Paul’s special way of getting a rise out of a trout by repeatedly making a long false cast over a feeding lane or pocket: "He called it shadow casting. Keeping his line above water long enough and low enough … Continue reading Shadowing casting, East Coast style

My son, a certified guide now, goes about fly fishing like a scientist; he's very focused and precise in his choice of flies and his presentation of them as he prospects along the river for trout. I was sort of scientific in my approach once, and, recognizing that, I find it interesting and amusing to … Continue reading Transfixed by water, woods and light

Last December, during a political discussion on an MTA bus in downtown Baltimore, an older gentlemen remarked: "It's not Trump I'm worried about as much as the 63 million who voted for him." Now the count is 70 million. I am as happy as any Biden-Harris supporter today. I can’t wait until Inauguration Day and … Continue reading Barring prison or flight, Trump will still be with us and pose a threat

Chris Zogby drove from Virginia into Maryland to fish the Gunpowder River above Big Falls Road in Monkton, north of Baltimore. He caught a few brown trout — and the credit card you see pictured here. “Late morning, I decided to switch tactics and use nymph patterns instead of streamers,” he wrote me in an … Continue reading What the river turns up

Guest post by Tom "Bush Hog" James Now could be a time when lessons are learned, when corners are turned — maybe not, but maybe. And, whether or not the lessons are learned or the corners are turned, a word that stands out is "indefatigable."   My first full-time job was at a daily newspaper in … Continue reading The dance of the Indefatigable

                                                  Guest post By Steve Sachs Steve Sachs Politics, they say, is like a young love affair: It makes you passionate, naïve and sometimes blind to reality. The Reagan years were that way for his adoring adherents. So was the brief time we had with JFK. Judged by such romantic metrics, however, the 2020 presidential contest … Continue reading First love in politics: 1952 and ‘Madly for Adlai’

I have heard it several times stated, as a way of explaining why intelligent people still support Trump, that they don’t like his vulgarity but they appreciate the things he’s accomplished — tax cuts for corporations and millionaires, deregulation of industry, more conservative judges in federal courts and the relocation of the U.S. embassy to … Continue reading Thinking about voting for Trump? Think about this.

As a fan of the Great British Baking Show, now in Season 8 on Netflix, I’ve got to say this: Challenges make great television, but too great among amateurs and the result is something I’d rather not see. Specifically, I’m speaking of the Bread Week episode and its final assignment for each of the contestants:  … Continue reading British Baking Show: A bread too far