Roughly Speaking

At 39, Wheelie Wayne is the godfather of Baltimore’s 12 o'clock guys, the dirt bikers who have been a source of irritation and fascination for years. DeWayne Davis has gained international notoriety — and a friendship with rapper Fetty Wap — for his skills on city streets. Videos of Davis balancing his bike on its rear tire have won millions of views on YouTube. He has 208,000 followers on Instagram. Fetty Wap has come to Baltimore to hang out, ride with Davis and pick up some pointers. In today’s episode, Wheelie Wayne talks about dirt bike culture, the current crackdown by Baltimore police and the prospects of creating a dirt bike park to get riders off city streets. Also joining us is M. Holden Warren, Baltimore-based filmmaker, photographer and community activist who sees business potential in a dirt bike venue along Baltimore’s infamous “highway to nowhere."Links:http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/dan-rodricks/bs-md-rodricks-0814-20160812-column.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/music/midnight-sun-blog/bs-ae-preakness-music-live-20160521-story.htmlhttp://www.mholdenwarren.com/index.php?/serious-professional-bio/

2:26: David Zurawik, The Baltimore Sun's media critic, shares his thoughts about Monday night's televised presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, an event that could draw as many viewers as a Super Bowl telecast.16:08: Kevin Shird, a one-time drug dealer turned youth advocate, talks about the latest shootings of African-American men by police — in Oklahoma and North Carolina — and how police body cameras could make a difference in reducing the use of deadly force in the future. Shird is the author of two books, "Lessons of Redemption," about his tough early life and his 12 years in prison, and "Uprising in the City," about the death of Freddie Gray and the civil unrest that hit Baltimore in April 2015.45:46: Zurawik talks about two television programs — a Frontline look at presidential candidates Clinton and Trump, and the fourth season of "Drunk History" on Comedy Central.Links: https://www.amazon.com/Uprising-city-KEVIN-SHIRD/dp/1684195047/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8----qid=1474642314----sr=8-2----keywords=Kevin Shirdhttps://www.amazon.com/Lessons-Redemption-Kevin-Shird/dp/1908518235/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8----qid=1474642314----sr=8-1----keywords=Kevin Shirdhttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-choice-2016/http://www.cc.com/shows/drunk-history

In a new book, sportswriter Alejandro Danois tells the story of the Dunbar High School basketball team of 1981-1982, with four future NBA players on its roster — Muggsy Bogues, Dave Wingate, Reggie Lewis and Reggie Williams — one of the greatest prep teams ever. Danois, editor-in-chief of The Shadow League sports-and-culture website, chronicles life in East Baltimore in the early 1980s and profiles the players and their coach, Bob Wade, during an undefeated season that paved the way for a national title the following year. Danois’ book is “The Boys of Dunbar: A Story of Love, Hope and Basketball,” published by Simon and Schuster.Links:https://www.theshadowleague.com/authors/102http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Boys-of-Dunbar/Alejandro-Danois/9781451666977

2:22: Culture commentator Sheri Parks talks about San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest and the evolving definition of patriotism among the millennial generation of Americans.18:08: Melissa Deckman, chair of the the political science department at Washington Goucher, and Mileah Kromer, director of the Goucher Poll, talk about the race for the White House between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and the importance of the approaching televised debates.43:36: Sun media critic David Zurawik says the television networks and cable channels have been derelict in fully vetting Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, leaving the heavy lift of investigative reporting to newspapers and news web sites.

A talk about the presidential campaign: Hillary Clinton’s health issues and her struggles with transparency, the nature of Trump’s appeal to people in Dundalk, and some thoughts about the approaching debate between the two candidates. Dan’s guests are Kimberly Moffitt, associate professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and co-editor of “The Obama Effect," and Michael Reisch, the Daniel Thursz Distinguished Professor of Social Justice at the University of Maryland School of Social Work.

Erica Green, education reporter for The Sun, talks about Renaissance Academy, the last-resort high school for at-risk youth in West Baltimore where a student was stabbed to death in a classroom last year. In addition, two other Renaissance students were killed within weeks of each other during the winter months. Now the U.S. Department of Education has granted the school $350,000 to enhance its highly-praised mentorship program and to help faculty establish and maintain a safe learning environment. Green talks about the school, the violence, last spring’s graduation and Renaissance’s determined principal, Nikkia Rowe.Links:http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/blog/bs-md-ci-renaissance-grant-20160906-story.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/education/bs-md-ci-renaissance-graduation-20160604-story.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-renaissance-wolves-20160305-story.htmlhttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bal-renaissance-academy-graduates-discuss-tragedy-and-triumph-20160603-premiumvideo.html

Two Baltimore sommeliers talk about their profession, helping diners order wine in restaurants without feeling bad about it.Ahead of the 33rd annual Maryland Wine Festival, a conversation with two Baltimore sommeliers about their profession and how they interact with restaurant customers. Greg Schwab is sommelier at La Cuchara in the Woodberry section of Baltimore. Jack Wells, who studied under the late Nelson Carey at Grand Cru, is the new sommelier at nearby Woodberry Kitchen. Both those restaurants recently made Wine Enthusiast magazine's list of top 100 wine restaurants in America.Links:https://www.facebook.com/events/1828192877467889/http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/dining/bs-fo-wine-study-group-20160823-story.htmlhttp://www.lacucharabaltimore.com/the-restaurant/http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2014-07-23/news/bs-md-ob-nelson-carey-20140723_1_wine-bar-grand-cru-food-and-wine/2http://www.woodberrykitchen.com/http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/dining/bal-four-baltimore-restaurants-wine-program-awards-20160621-story.html

1:24: Baltimore City has been asked to finance more than half-a-billion dollars in infrastructure improvements for Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank’s Port Covington project, and that proposal has generated a lot of news this week. Luke Broadwater of the Baltimore Sun staff joins us for this update.15:39: Brendan Dorr, president of the Baltimore bartenders guild and bartender at the B----O American Brasserie, shares thoughts about new rye whiskies that are being distilled, including Baltimore’s Sagamore Rye. Brendan offers a cocktail recipe, too — for The Diamondback.33:11: John Shields of Gertrude’s restaurant in the Baltimore Museum of Art shares some recipes for finger food, the appetizers you can make and serve if you’re having a happy hour at home. John draws his ideas from the late James Beard and from a 2007 article about appetizers by Mark Bittman in The New York Times.48:42: Film critic Christopher Llewellyn Reed reviews “Sully," the new Clint Eastwood film starring Tom Hanks as Sully Sullenberger, the pilot who successfully executed an emergency water landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River off Manhattan in 2009.Links:http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/politics/bs-md-ci-port-covington-deal-20160908-story.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/dining/19mini.html?_r=0https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549

It has been 40 years since the Supreme Court ruled outright on the constitutionality of the death penalty. The court took up issues related to the death penalty — what kind of drugs can be used to kill a man, for instance — but, as to whether lethal injection by the state amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the 8th amendment, the court has not visited constitutionality since 1976. That could change in the near future because of what might turn out to be a landmark dissent by Justice Stephen Breyer. In June 2015, dissenting from the majority’s opinion in an Oklahoma case known as Glossip v. Gross, Breyer suggested that the death penalty had become so problematic in its application — arbitrary, unfair, unreliable — that it might be unconstitutional. He said the court should consider the question again and invited a new challenge to it. Legal scholars believe Breyer’s dissent sets the stage for a fresh look at the death penalty by the Supreme Court.The Brookings Institution in Washington asked University of Baltimore law professor John Bessler to analyze and annotate Justice Breyer’s dissent in the Glossip case so that more Americans could read it and understand it. The result is a small, but fascinating book titled "Against The Death Penalty," with John Bessler, one of the nation’s leading authorities on the death penalty, as editor.Links: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-supreme-court-lethal-injections-death-penalty-20150629-story.htmlhttp://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-oklahoma-execution-20150930-story.htmlhttp://law.ubalt.edu/faculty/profiles/bessler.cfmhttps://www.brookings.edu/book/against-the-death-penalty/https://www.amazon.com/John-D.-Bessler/e/B001JS7352

Before your grandmother could listen to a radio, someone had to figure out what it should look like. Same with television a couple of decades later. Today, we head back several decades to learn about a prolific artist named John Vassos, who designed some really cool radios and televisions, and a lot of other things (view a gallery of some of them below) — portable record players, juke boxes, restaurants, a fountain pen, even the turnstile still in use at Oriole Park and other major league ballparks. He was also involved in the design of an early fax machine intended to deliver newspapers via radio waves to homes in the 1930s. Danielle Shapiro, who lives in Baltimore, is our guest. A historian of modern design, she’s written a biography, “John Vassos: Industrial Design for Modern Life.” Links:http://www.johnvassos.com/about-the-author.htmlhttp://www.johnvassos.com/john-vassos-industrial-design-for-modern-life.html