Roughly Speaking

1:25: Librarian and book critic Paula Gallagher recommends, ----Tangerine,---- a debut novel by Christine Magnan.4:59: The Sun's lead baseball writer, Eduardo ----Eddie In The Yard---- Encina, talks about the 2018 Baltimore Orioles, particularly the team's pitching staff. The Orioles open the new season at home on March 29 at against the Minnesota Twins.Links:https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062686664/tangerinehttp://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/orioles/

Michael Pullen, a Democratic candidate for congress in Maryland's 1st District, has staked out progressive positions in a bid to win his party's nomination and challenge incumbent Republican Andy Harris. Pullen, who spent 24 years as the attorney for Talbot County, says he supports a federal ban on assault rifles as a way to stem mass shootings. He also supports universal health insurance, or ----Medicare for all.---- Pullen opposes oil drilling off the Maryland coast, but supports the establishment of a wind farm in those waters and full funding for the Chesapeake Bay cleanup. He is one of six Democrats seeking the nomination in Maryland's June 26 primary. Two other candidates, Allison Galbraith and Jesse Colvin, already have given interviews, and those recordings can be found in the Roughly Speaking archive.Links:http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/harford/aegis/ph-ag-harris-town-hall-0307-story.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-harris-offshore-drilling-20180209-story.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/environment/bs-md-offshore-wind-distance-20180312-story.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-trump-budget-maryland-20180212-story.html

Michael Pullen stakes out progressive positions in the First District Democratic primary

In what was likely his last recorded conversation, the legendary fly fisherman Lefty Kreh talks about learning to handle a fly rod, his experiences in the outdoors with his son, Larry, and his favorite spot on the Potomac River. Kreh, who died on Wednesday, was a Maryland native who became one of the best-known fly anglers in the world. He taught casting to hundreds of people, including Hollywood luminaries, and he wrote 32 books over a career that included 18 years as outdoors editor of The Sun. Dan visited him at his home in Cockeysville on Feb. 1, 25 days before Kreh's 93rd birthday.Links:http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/outdoors/bs-sp-obit-lefty-kreh-20171113-story.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/dan-rodricks-blog/bs-md-rodricks-0226-story.html

3:21: If you need help separating fact from fiction, solid news from what Donald J. Trump calls fake news, you can now take a course in discerning one from the other. It’s being offered at Anne Arundel Community College starting next week. David Tengwall, a long-time professor at AACC, will teach an eight-week course called, “Calling Out Bullshit.” It promises to be a fun course, Tengwall says, but the reason for it is serious: Americans have been inundated with BS, in politics and in commerce, and we need help in detecting deceptions. Above all, he says, a well-informed citizenry engaged in critical thinking is vital to democracy.18:03: How calling out BS is actually done:\u160\uVeteran journalist Arnold “Skip” Isaacs shares what he learned when he questioned the Trump administration claim that a lax U.S. immigration system had put Americans at risk by allowing hundreds of foreign-born terrorists into the country. Isaacs says the claim is bogus and he explains why. Isaacs, a former editor and correspondent for The Sun, lives in Maryland, and his story, ----Using Fake Facts to Make Us Afraid,---- is posted on TomDispatch.com.\u160\uhttps://www.aacc.edu/newscenter/news-releases/2018-news/calling-out-bullshit-march-8/http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176393/

A new college course and a veteran journalist offer up defenses against deception.

Baltimore restaurateur John Shields joins Dan for a conversation with the Rev. Heber Brown III, pastor at Pleasant Hope Baptist Church, about the Black Church Food Security Network. This is an effort to use churches to influence their members to not only eat healthier foods, but to eat what they grow or what African-American farmers grow. The network, with eight churches, is having its second annual launch event on Saturday, March 17 at New Creation Christian Church. The program hopes to double the number of church gardens in the network this season and to connect neighborhoods that need fresh produce with black farmers in Virginia and North Carolina.Links:http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/bs-hs-faith-communities-health-programs-20170508-story.htmlhttp://www.blackchurchfoodsecurity.net/home.htmlhttp://www.blackchurchfoodsecurity.net/events.html

Baltimore has many traditions, and among them are annual church suppers. Some of the best known: The German sour beef-and-dumpling and beef rouladen dinners at Zion Church of the City of Baltimore, the weekly Lenten fish fries at Catholic parishes, the annual Polish festivals of Holy Rosary Church that require the production of up to 40,000 pierogies, and the ravioli dinners at St. Leo's in Little Italy. John Shields, a Baltimore native and proprietor of Gertrude's restaurant, calls these ----faith-based pop-up restaurants,---- dinners offered only once, sometimes twice, each year.If you have never been, this is the year to give one (or all) a try. In today's show, Dan and restaurateur John Shields speak with organizers of these events. It takes hundreds of volunteers to make all those pierogies, dumplings and crab cakes.Links: http://www.zionbaltimore.org/hospitality/sour-beef-dinnerhttps://www.eventbrite.com/e/4th-annual-beef-rouladen-dinner-benefits-the-zion-church-organ-fund-tickets-42339080329https://www.archbalt.org/venue/our-lady-queen-of-peace-2/http://www.holyrosarypl.org/en/slideshow/Polish-Spring-Festival-May-1920-2018-_995

It takes hundreds to make all those pierogies and crab cakes and keep these traditions alive

The Maryland prison system has had a long run of corruption, with dozens of correctional officers and others accused of helping incarcerated gang members continue their criminal enterprises behind the walls. From the Baltimore City Detention Center in 2013 to the Eastern Correctional Institution in 2016 and the prison in Jessup last year, investigations of those facilities have resulted in dozens of indictments, convictions and prison sentences. The scandal involving the Black Guerilla Family at the BCDC was so bad that it led in part to the shuttering of the old jail in 2015. In the Jessup case, a state corrections sergeant is accused of doubling as an officer in the Crips gang.Federal authorities have led most of these investigations. On today's show, Robert Harding, an assistant U.S. Attorney who supervises the Baltimore office's criminal division, talks about how the feds first learned about the widespread corruption in state prisons. It was the activities of a violent, made-in-Maryland gang, Dead Man Inc., that led investigators to the problems at BCDC and at ECI.Links:https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/federal-indictments-charge-80-defendants-alleged-racketeering-conspiracy-maryland-shttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-sun-investigates-corrections-indictment-20170915-story.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-prison-gang-indictments-20171130-story.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-tavon-white-returns-20160309-story.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-hogan-city-jail-20150730-story.htmlhttps://www.justice.gov/usao-md/case-matter-divisionshttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-roark-dmi-sentencing-20130107-story.htmlhttps://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/federal-indictments-charge-80-defendants-alleged-racketeering-conspiracy-maryland-s