Babylon

The Kingdom of Babylon Shall Not Come Against You, by George Garrett Harcourt Brace & Co. 334 pages. $24In this irreverent, amusing tale, George Garret, author of 14 novels and more than a dozen other works, pokes fun at America while offering a wonderfully intelligent investigation of the nature of "reality," "perception," "truth."The time is the present and the past, specifically the events surrounding April 4, 1968. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered that Thursday in Memphis. In Paradise Springs, a small central Florida town, a traveling evangelist and a local girl were murdered, and a minister was found dead from a suicide.

Westminster police say Halloween trick or treating for children under age 12 should be restricted to the hours between dusk and 9 p.m. Oct. 31 in the city.Residents who wish to participate should put on their outside lights and children should only go to these houses.It is recommended that children go trick or treating in their own neighborhoods and wear light clothing, so they are visible after dark.PoliceWestminster: An employee of The Wall store at Cranberry Mall reported that someone stole items valued at $18 from the store Wednesday.

POLICE* New Windsor: A resident of the 1200 block of Western Chapel Road told state police someone broke a rear sliding glass door and damaged the front door of her home in an apparent attempt to gain entry Thursday. The damage is estimated at $350.* Taneytown: A resident of the 5200 block of Babylon Road reported to state police someone cut a lock on his gasoline pump and stole about 62 gallons of gas.NTC

A 19-year-old Westminster man, who allegedly attacked two city officers with a knife after slashing his wrist, was arrested Friday and later released by a District Court commissioner on $5,000 unsecured bond on assault and related charges.Douglas Ernest Cross of Babylon Court was admitted to Carroll County General Hospital on Feb. 9 for treatment of a self-inflicted wound. He was arrested Friday after police obtained a warrant.Police said when they were summoned to a house on Babylon Court about 9:30 p.m. Feb. 9, they found Mr. Cross in the house bleeding from the wrist wound and holding a double-edged knife with a 9-inch blade.

The front parlor of the Westminster mansion where the Billingslea children used to play and where George W. Albaugh lay in state amid banks of flowers after his death in 1933 is covered with construction dust.So is the back parlor, where the baby grand piano stood.That's because construction workers are drilling and hammering the historic building, which became Westminster's City Hall in 1939.The work includes an elevator and wider doors that will make City Hall accessible to the disabled, a more formal entrance for the heavily used back door and restoration of a 19th-century parlor atmosphere to the two rooms that will be used for City Council meetings.

Cyclist, 13, critical after collision with carA 13-year-old Taneytown boy remained in critical condition yesterday at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore with injuries suffered Wednesday when his dirt bike collided with an automobile near his home.The youth, Christopher Ryan Dutterer, of the 5100 block of Babylon Road, was riding a 1984 Honda off-road dirt bike north on Babylon Road when he crashed into the side of a car at the intersection of Blacks Schoolhouse Road, state police said.

Let's face it -- covering a Jimmy Buffett concert is kind of like trying to review a big, drunken party. It isn't just that both types of event boast plenty of boisterous, inebriated people doing silly things at loud volume; no, it's mainly because reviews tend to harp on the quality of a performance, while Buffett fans and party-goers (if that's not redundant) are far more concerned with how much fun is being had.Thus, it seems a fair guess that few in the crowd at the Merriweather Post Pavilion last night much cared whether Buffett was on-pitch for every note in "Come Monday," or how clever Amy Lee's soprano saxophone solo in "That's What Living Is to Me" might have been.

The family of the late Rev. Bert Benz was the recipient of more than$5,000 from the Lutheran Brotherhood Carroll County Branch 8521 at arecent church service.At the Nov. 3 annual meeting of the countybranch, President Claudius Elmore announced that more than $3,600 had been raised locally for the Benz family. The Lutheran Brotherhood added another $1,500.In the past year, the brotherhood has dispersed almost $17,000 tovarious local projects such as Disaster Relief, Friends in Deed, Care and Share, and the Branch Challenge Fund.

Thousands of years ago the people who lived in the land tha is now Iraq invented the wheel, developed writing, built the world's earliest cities and laid most of the groundwork for our lives today.It was also in Mesopotamia - the green countryside near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers - that people discovered that monumental art could serve as a powerful expression of life.A few examples remain. Ruins of the Tower of Babel, the greatest architectural wonder of the ancient world, are in the partially excavated city of Babylon.