Rodricks: Coming out of pandemic, U.S. needs to champion public service and the common good

Two things that seem unrelated — the senseless and brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine and the problems that hit the medical examiner’s office in Baltimore — prompt me to revisit a subject I have raised before: The need to call Americans to public service. We don’t do it nearly enough. What’s more, the pandemic showed that too many Americans neither appreciate nor work for the common good in a way that, however exaggerated, once seemed innate to the national character. We need to talk about it more.