An open house featuring a casual piano performance and a presentation on H.L.Mencken’s place in the Jazz Age social scene is planned for 6-8:30 p.m. Sept. 11 at the H.L. Mencken House Museum in West Baltimore. The event, on the eve of the famed journalist’s 146th birthday, is planned in cooperation with the Mencken Day … Continue reading If you’ve never been: The H.L. Mencken open house is Friday, Sept. 11
‘Humans can’t handle abundance’
It was the late Bill Burton, outdoors writer for the bygone Baltimore Evening Sun and other publications, who said it: "Humans can't handle abundance." It was a couple of decades ago, when the shad were making a comeback to Chesapeake waters. Bill Burton Once plentiful -- massive schools of migrating shad coming up the bay … Continue reading ‘Humans can’t handle abundance’
Casting off TV anchors, Scripps hits the anti-AI nerve
Are anchors necessary for a television news show? In Baltimore, WMAR-TV made history as the first station to go on the air, in 1947. This month it became the first station to launch an anchorless broadcast, streaming news reports without the traditional introductions by a well-dressed man or woman. I made reference to this in … Continue reading Casting off TV anchors, Scripps hits the anti-AI nerve
A heroic Baltimore woman published the Declaration of Independence
From the Archive: You're forgiven if you've never heard of her. Mary Katharine Goddard only gained some popular attention in recent years. And attention she deserves: She was Baltimore’s first postmaster and published the city’s only newspaper during the Revolutionary War. But it’s what she did on Jan. 18, 1777 that ensconced her in the … Continue reading A heroic Baltimore woman published the Declaration of Independence
Citizen Action: No Kings Day, March 28, along York Road, Baltimore and Towson; food donations sought
I received this notice about an upcoming No Kings Day event on the north side of Baltimore. Passing it along: On March 28, 12 noon to 1:30 pm, Marylanders will join together for York Road Free Speech Miles, a peaceful multi-mile sign-wave running along York Road from the county line through the 21212, 21204, and 21286 … Continue reading Citizen Action: No Kings Day, March 28, along York Road, Baltimore and Towson; food donations sought
A Golden Anniversary: When Baltimore, like no other city, embraced Crack The Sky
It happened on March 18, 1976. Here's the story, first published in my Baltimore Sun column: The origin story of Crack The Sky, the progressive rock band that became a sensation and legend in Baltimore, if nowhere else, could have been the inspiration for a couple of music-rich movies, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and … Continue reading A Golden Anniversary: When Baltimore, like no other city, embraced Crack The Sky
Writing letters to Congress: If you want to get their attention, go old school.
In the 1939 Frank Capra film, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” letters from citizens to Congress play a pivotal role in the story — they symbolize the voices of young people crying out for honest representation and government for the greater good. The letters arrive in stark contrast to a media campaign manufactured by a … Continue reading Writing letters to Congress: If you want to get their attention, go old school.
From the Archive: A war correspondent’s holiday letter to his children
Lee McCardell was the most famous war correspondent of the Baltimore Sun. The first Sunpapers writer to get into the action after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, he reported on the fighting in Italy and covered D-Day. He was believed to be the first American correspondent to reach liberated Paris and was among … Continue reading From the Archive: A war correspondent’s holiday letter to his children
Three memories of Christmas Eve
One Christmas Eve in the early 1990s, while driving along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Baltimore, I looked up at the old high-rise public housing projects that were to be torn down a few years later. I had done some reporting on the poverty and crime in those buildings, and had met a single … Continue reading Three memories of Christmas Eve
Dusting off memories
“Nostalgia is death” always sounded pretty harsh. Bob Dylan made that pronouncement during a newspaper interview in 1991. He meant that he did not wish to be defined by the music of his past, or to dwell on it, no matter how much his fans wanted to hear it. When you stop focusing on the … Continue reading Dusting off memories
Dan Rodricks 