Roughly Speaking

Why not chowder up the Chesapeake blue crab?

Do Donald Trump's constant harangues against the news media, and CNN specifically, pose, in the present climate, a clear and present danger? Could the president's incessant descriptions of the press as ----the enemy of the people---- incite more violence against journalists or news organizations? On the show today: The Sun's media critic, David Zurawik, talks about Trump's belligerent rhetoric and its effect on the press and the country. ----Trump's war on the press is a war on democracy,---- Zurawik says.

It's the Roughly Halloween special, to get you in the mood with movies and music. Horror movie aficionado Terence Hannum returns to share some of his favorite creepy music scores, ahead of ----Dead Air,---- his annual two-hour show on WLOY at Loyola University. Film critics Christopher Llewellyn Reed and Linda DeLibero note the 200th anniversary of Frankenstein, the novel, with a look at Frankenstein in film through the years. Special thanks to WLOY and the Johns Hopkins-MICA Film Center for their help with the production of this episode.

Baltimore Sun reporter Kevin Rector spent some time this past summer taking a deep look at the proposal to build a multibillion-dollar, magnetic levitation train (or Maglev) system along the Northeast Corridor of the United States, starting with a track between Washington and Baltimore. Kevin’s reporting on Maglev took him to Japan, and he spent a lot of time speaking with those in the Baltimore-Washington region who want to replicate Japan’s 311-mph Maglev system here. Dan interviewed Kevin on a busy platform at Penn Station in Baltimore to hear what he learned about high-speed train travel that could get passengers from Baltimore to Washington in 15 minutes.

Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library won some national recognition this month, making Reader's Digest's list of the 10 ----nicest places---- in America. If Baltimoreans spent even more time in the Pratt branches -- and, even better, if people from the suburbs joined them there -- we might have a more civil, less polarized country. That's an argument sociologist Eric Klinenberg has been pushing -- invest in the country's ----social infrastructure,---- he says, to increase the opportunities for human interaction and the possibilities for a healthier, less isolated and angry society. Klinenberg, who visited Johns Hopkins University this week, is the author of ----Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life.---- He is professor of sociology at New York University.

The biblical phrase, ----through a glass, darkly,---- has been used widely in popular culture as the title of books, plays, poetry and at least one movie. It means having a blurred or limited view of reality. The phrase can be applied to the recent public discourse over Baltimore's squeegee dilemma -- what to do, if anything, about the boys and young men who offer to wash windshields at busy intersections. Some of the ----squeegee kids---- see their prospective customers as rude, even hostile. Some drivers complain that they've been abused and harassed by youths with spray bottles and long-handled squeegees. And still others have an aesthetic criticism -- they see squeegee kids and panhandlers as public nuisances, reflecting badly on Baltimore and making it seem like a ----third-world city.----On the show today: Wrapping up a week of squeegee news with Sun reporter Yvonne Wenger. Reflections on the poor in our midst with American culture commentator Sheri Parks.

What to do, if anything, about the boys and young men known as the "squeegee kids."

Will Schwarz, a Baltimore-based filmmaker and video producer, founded the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project to remember the 40 documented victims of lynchings in the state, the last being George Armwood, who was killed by a mob on the Eastern Shore 85 years ago this week. The Maryland project is part of a national movement, led by civil rights advocate Bryan Stevenson and his Equal Justice Initiative. On Saturday, at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum in Baltimore, the names of Maryland lynching victims were read aloud, and Schwarz screened his short documentary on the Armwood lynching. In this episode: Will Schwarz talks about his ongoing project to collect soil from the grounds where Maryland lynchings took place and to get Maryland counties to memorialize the atrocities and the victims. We hear comments from Stevenson and excerpts from Schwarz's film.For more information: See the Sun's multimedia presentation on Maryland's grim legacy of lynching and hear previous episodes of Roughly Speaking on a student project to account for the lynchings and an oral history of the aftermath of Armwood's death by the late Clarence Mitchell Jr.

A couple of years ago, the mayor of Baltimore announced plans to tear the market down and build, on the parking lot to its south, a big glassy structure to replace it. That plan provoked groans -- not only at the design, but at its estimated $60 million price tag. Earlier this month, officials working on Lexington Market’s renovation came up with a new plan, not as expensive and one, they say, that can be put in place faster. The city chose Seawall Development, the firm behind the R. House food hall and other projects in Remington, to construct a new market for the vendors on the south lot, as before, but not the big glass box. The new plan calls for opening the Lexington Street arcade, built in the 1980s, into a grand pedestrian mall between Paca and Eutaw Streets. The plan would retain the market’s east building, where most of the vendors are now, and offer the west building, across Paca Street, for a separate redevelopment project. In this episode, Dan goes to Lexington Market to speak with two key players: Robert Thomas, executive director of the city's public markets, and Kirby Fowler, president of the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore.Further reading: Klaus Philipsen's Community Architect Daily essay on Lexington Market and Dan Rodricks' August 21 column, ----Shop at Lexington Market, or the rat wins.----

Acquil Bey, a retired Master Sergeant and U.S. Army Green Beret, says healthy relationships with co-workers, and being aware of potential problems, form the first lines of defense against violence in the American workplace. Bey served 22 years in the military before becoming director of security and safety for Under Armour. He now runs the Tailored Defense Training Group in Baltimore, training men and women in self-defense and in the use of firearms. In this episode of Roughly Speaking, recorded after a deadly shooting at the Rite Aid distribution center in Harford County, Bey talks about workplace safety and what employers and employees can do to protect themselves and others from the kind of violence that has erupted across the country at work sites, in places of worship, in schools and in concert venues.