Roughly Speaking

Six Democratic candidates are seeking their party's nomination this month to challenge Republican incumbent Andy Harris in Maryland's 1st Congressional District in November. Two of the candidates -- longtime Talbott County attorney Michael Pullen and Army veteran Jesse Colvin -- are on today's show, talking about their respective challenges to Harris and about an array of issues facing the district, which runs from the Eastern Shore to the metro Baltimore counties.Both Colvin and Pullen have been guests on earlier episodes of Roughly Speaking, and another candidate, Alison Galbraith was on the show in November and April.Other candidates did not respond to invitations to the podcast.Links:http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/dan-rodricks-blog/bs-roughly-speaking-jesse-colvin-20180223-htmlstory.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/dan-rodricks-blog/bs-roughly-speaking-michael-pullen-20180320-htmlstory.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/dan-rodricks-blog/bs-roughly-speaking-crime-fight-20171116-htmlstory.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/dan-rodricks-blog/bs-roughly-speaking-morella-galbraith-20180413-htmlstory.html

Kurtis Williams, who has spent half of his 35 years in Maryland prisons for second-degree murder, has earned parole. He's back in Baltimore and facing the formidable challenge of finding a job. “As callous as this sounds,” Williams says, “this is Baltimore City, and I’m not the first, and I’m not going to be the last, person that might have a murder charge sitting in front of you. That’s unfortunate. But that’s just the reality of the city that we’re living in.” Hear about his early life, his crime, his time in prison and his experiences being home and looking for work after 17 years behind the walls.

A conversation with Kurtis Williams, who has spent half of his 35 years in prison for murder.

During the last week, there have been more than 1.5 million views of an online video featuring Maryland gubernatorial candidate Krish Vignarajah responding to sexist and racist tweets. Vignarajah says she has received hate mail and mean tweets ridiculing her gender, her ethnicity and even the appearance of her 11-month-old daughter, Alana, in a campaign ad. We hear what the trolls said, and how Vignarajah responded, in the candidate's second visit to the Roughly Speaking studio. Dan's first conversation with the candidate, former policy director for First Lady Michelle Obama, was in December, Episode 334, and covered an array of issues and candidate positions.Links:https://www.facebook.com/NowThisHer/videos/1286847331446139/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzVRsi7MF8shttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/dan-rodricks-blog/bs-roughly-speaking-krish-vignarajah-20171214-htmlstory.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-krish-vignarajah-profile-20180521-story.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/dan-rodricks/bal-roughly-speaking-2018-gubernatorial-candidates-storygallery.htmlhttps://elections2018.news.baltimoresun.com/

A look at what's growing in Baltimore: A spring survey of the city's biodiversity leads to the discovery of a rare wild plant in the Jones Falls Valley while, elsewhere, workers tend to more than 1,000 fruit and nut trees in 100 orchards across the city. Who knew the city had orchards?Book recommendation: Our critic, Paula Gallagher, likes a new memoir, ----Beauty In The Broken Places,---- by Allison Pataki.Wolf Pecher, an associate professor at the University of Baltimore, leads Dan to the rare native plant, the purple-stemmed cliff brake, discovered growing in a railroad bridge abutment during a recent biodiversity survey in the Jones Falls Valley. Eric Sargent, planting coordinator for Civic Works' Baltimore Orchard Project, talks about the fruit and nuts trees planted in more than 100 locations across the city and describes BOP's latest undertaking, Moveable Orchards, during a visit to the pilot site at the Baltimore Food Hub in East Baltimore.Links:https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/554652/beauty-in-the-broken-places-by-allison-pataki/9780399591655/https://www.marylandbiodiversity.com/viewSpecies.php?species=425https://ubpost.org/2015/06/05/ub-students-and-faculty-study-and-clean-up-the-jones-falls/http://baltimoreorchardproject.civicworks.com/about-us-2/http://civicworks.com/moveable-orchards/

In the latest in a series of conversations with candidates for governor of Maryland, attorney Jim Shea says the man he hopes to challenge in November, incumbent Republican Larry Hogan, has been just ----treading water,---- doing little to advance education, transportation and Baltimore's crime fight. Shea says that, in lowering highway tolls, widening roads and ----doing no harm,---- Hogan has lowered expectations for the governor's office, and Shea promises to reverse Hogan's minimalist approach.Joining the conversation is Shea's running mate, lieutenant governor candidate and Baltimore City Councilman Brandon Scott.Links:http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-jim-shea-profile-20180515-story.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/dan-rodricks-blog/bs-roughly-speaking-jim-shea-20170802-htmlstory.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/dan-rodricks/bal-roughly-speaking-2018-gubernatorial-candidates-storygallery.htmlhttps://elections2018.news.baltimoresun.com/

Dr. Gilbert Burnham, founder of the Center for Humanitarian Health at Johns Hopkins University, believes the death toll from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico could be even higher than the estimate of 4,600 made by researchers affiliated with Harvard's school of public health last week. The Harvard estimate far surpassed the government's count of the dead, and it underscored the problem of delayed medical care in the aftermath of the devastating storm. Burnham is an expert in conducting household surveys to estimate deaths from wars and natural disasters. He led teams that investigated civilian deaths after the U.S. invasion of Iraq and, more recently, deaths that occurred during the military liberation of Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, from ISIS control.Links:https://www.jhsph.edu/faculty/directory/profile/110/gilbert-burnhamhttps://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1803972http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-hurricane-maria-deaths-20180529-story.htmlhttp://articles.baltimoresun.com/2006-10-11/news/0610110345_1_iraq-johns-hopkins-death-counthttp://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002567

A Baltimore movie, a Baltimore homecoming, and a good book.Book critic Paula Gallagher recommends a new psychological thriller: ----The Perfect Mother,---- by Aimee Molloy.Mike Finazzo, a Baltimore filmmaker, talks about his new made-in-Baltimore romance, ----Bored In The USA,---- and its upcoming premier at the Senator Theater.In the next few months, Marylanders will be hearing more about the Baltimore Homecoming, an effort to give the city a much-needed boost by reconnecting accomplished natives -- people who've gained fame and fortune -- to their hometown. The idea is to gather some of the Baltimore disapora, show them around the city and expose them to people, places and projects looking for backers and investors.Dan speaks with the co-founders of the October event, J.M. Shapiro and Nate Loewenthiel.Plus, we hear about an effort to identify people in the city doing great things. The organizers of the Baltimore Homecoming are looking for nominations for Homecoming Hero Awards. Details in the show and at this web site.Links:https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062696793/the-perfect-mother/https://www.mt.cm/bored-usahttp://baltimorehomecoming.com/http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-baltimore-homecoming-launch-20171110-story.html

A Baltimore movie, a Baltimore homecoming, and a good book.

In another in a series of conversations leading up to the June 26 primary election, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Richard Madaleno says Maryland under Larry Hogan ----walked away from [Baltimore] during the darkest times.---- Madaleno criticizes the incumbent Republican for failing to support the city by killing the Red Line transit system and the redevelopment of the state government center on the city's west side. Madaleno, a state senator from Montgomery County, also claims that policies Hogan adopted -- on education funding and transportation, for instance -- were made possible by progressive Democrats in Annapolis who held Hogan’s budget-cutting ambitions in check.In this episode, we also hear from Madaleno's running mate, Luwanda Jenkins. A Baltimore native, Jenkins has extensive background in business and state government. Among other positions, she directed the Office of Minority Affairs for Maryland’s last three Democratic governors.Links:http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-madaleno-profile-20180508-story.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/dan-rodricks-blog/bs-madaleno-20171212-htmlstory.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/dan-rodricks/bal-roughly-speaking-2018-gubernatorial-candidates-storygallery.html