Big Brother

The relationship between Michael Oher and Sean Tuohy Jr. has - like Tuohy himself - grown dramatically in the 10 years since Oher was brought by Tuohy's family into their home in the leafy suburbs of Memphis. If those early years became the genesis of a best-selling book and a hit movie that documented Oher's transformation into a college football star at Mississippi and the No. 1 pick of the Ravens in 2009, this year takes the brothers' relationship to another place. In Baltimore, call it The Other Side.

In the Salisbury-Stevenson rivalry that has bordered on something akin to the dislike waged by the Hatfields and McCoys, there usually isn't room for ambiguity. You're usually rooting for one team or the other. That's what makes Wednesday night's showdown between the former Capital Athletic Conference rivals difficult for Chris and Brady Dashiell. Chris Dashiell is a junior midfielder-converted-to-attackman who starts for the No. 3 Mustangs (9-1). Brady Dashiell is a freshman attackman-converted-to-midfielder who plays significant minutes for the No. 6 Sea Gulls (10-2)

If Dunbar's Carlos Austin slips a tackle, his next stop likely will be the end zone. The senior slot receiver and kick returner is just plain fast. That's no surprise, however, considering his last name and high school. Carlos is the half-brother of former Poets superstar Tavon Austin , who set a handful of state rushing records at Dunbar and is now blazing trails as a college senior at West Virginia. After seeing Carlos' speed, it's easy to draw comparisons to Tavon, Dunbar coach Lawrence Smith said.

Coach Don Zimmerman estimates that between 20 and 30 pairs of brothers have played lacrosse for UMBC. But remarkably, the latest set hadn't played on the same team until they suited up for the Retrievers. Not at St. Mary's in Annapolis, where Arnold natives Neill and Nate Lewnes spent their high school years. Not in a variety of youth and rec leagues. Not even in games with their neighborhood friends. "I had never played with him," said Nate Lewnes, who has earned a starting role on attack as a freshman.

I had this trouble with "Glee" over the break, where I couldn't seem to contain within my brain that Quinn got T-boned and Rachel almost got married at the same time, and thus kept forgetting one or the other. So I was extra confused when Quinn showed up all blonde and perky and wheelchair-bound. And it was only partly because that's NOT how spinal injuries work. Which … have you ever had that troubling thing happen where your real life interferes with guilty pleasure TV life? I have that a lot with medical dramas where I'm all, “For love of all that is holy, why is your long, flowing hair LOOSE while you are doing SURGERY?

Re your editorial, "Smart meters, Redux" (July 18): Yes, the concept is smart--for the utility company, which will charge consumers even more than they already do (and get undeserved and unnecessary stimulus funds to boot). Hasn't The Baltimore Sun heard about the dismal reports in California, where the new meters didn't work properly and consumers were overcharged? BGE has been consistently raising rates already, and I don't care to pay more for a Big Brother system I don't even want.

THE U.S. IMMIGRATION and Naturalization Service, historically a laggard in tracking the nearly 1 million foreigners with American student visas, now has the opportunity to do so efficiently - if it can resist playing Big Brother. Yesterday, the INS formally introduced a $37 million tracking system that requires thousands of colleges, universities and trade schools to submit data on foreign students, what they're studying, how long they've been in the United States and when their visas expire.

Is Big Brother running amok via the computer? The saga of Proctor & Gamble versus the Wall Street Journal has us wondering. In June, the Journal ran two stories on the forced resignation of P&G's food products chief. Four days after the second story, P&G called in the cops.It didn't hurt that one P&G part-timer was a police detective; he headed the probe. Prosecutors issued subpoenas for files on 803,849 phones in Ohio and Kentucky to trace 40 million long-distance calls. Probers were looking for calls to the Journal's Pittsburgh bureau, its fax machine and the home of a reporter to find her sources.

EMERGING FROM the horror of Oklahoma City is the realization that Big Brother, indeed, is watching. Despite the assistance that surveillance cameras have afforded law enforcement people in the bombing case, there needs to be a concern as to how far this technology will take us.Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm warned more than 40 years ago of a society dominated by technology. He used the phrase "negative utopia" in describing the government-dominated societies fantasized in writing by men such as Orwell and Aldous Huxley.

Q. My grandson is 2 1/2 years old and extremely bright, but he cannot get to sleep by himself. He sleeps in a futon bed and needs his mother's presence in his bed to fall asleep at night. He seems to have fixated on this security instead of the usual stuffed animal or blanket. At nap time, his mother has been driving him around until he falls asleep.My daughter needs to know how to turn this around. Would getting him a youth bed -- big enough only for him -- work? The problem is compounded now because of the arrival of a little brother.

A Texas judge has ruled that a student's religious freedom is not violated by her high school's requirement that all students wear ID cards with embedded chips. Her claim - that the ID card bore "the mark of the beast" referenced in the Book of Revelations in the Bible - was bizarre. But it appears to be a rare bit of pushback by students or parents against an Orwellian tracking system that gives me goose bumps. In Texas, funding for schools is tied to daily attendance, and badges with chips or bar codes give a more accurate head count (especially in high schools where students have more freedom of movement)

Over the past few weeks, the dinner conversation sometimes got a little overheated at Jack and Will D'Angelo's Reisterstown home. With Jack playing for Calvert Hall's football team and younger brother Will playing for Loyola's, there wasn't much to agree upon when talk turned to the Turkey Bowl coming up at M&T Bank Stadium on Thursday morning. For the 93rd time, Calvert Hall and Loyola will meet on Thanksgiving Day, but this will be the first time that Jack, a senior starting lineman, and Will, a sophomore reserve receiver, square off. Athletes since they were little, both brothers have strong competitive streaks and, of course, that comes out in everything from pick-up basketball games in the driveway to video games in the basement to conversations about the Turkey Bowl at the dinner table.

If Dunbar's Carlos Austin slips a tackle, his next stop likely will be the end zone. The senior slot receiver and kick returner is just plain fast. That's no surprise, however, considering his last name and high school. Carlos is the half-brother of former Poets superstar Tavon Austin , who set a handful of state rushing records at Dunbar and is now blazing trails as a college senior at West Virginia. After seeing Carlos' speed, it's easy to draw comparisons to Tavon, Dunbar coach Lawrence Smith said.

You think sports fans are superstitious? That baseball players have the corner on game-day rituals? I say they've got nothing on parents whose baby just slept through the night for the first time in weeks. After a couple of months of being solidly spoiled by several hours in a row of glorious sleep thanks to a sleeping baby, my husband and I were completely thrashed when he suddenly stopped sleeping more than a handful of hours at a stretch. And this continued for days and days, probably months if we calculated it (which trust me, we don't want to do)

When backup center Gino Gradkowski walks into M&T Bank Stadium for his first regular-season game as a member of the Ravens, he will have about 20 family members in the stadium. His big brother will be there, too, but he will be standing across the field on the Cincinnati Bengals' sideline. Bruce Gradkowski is the lone backup quarterback for the Bengals and a six-year NFL veteran. “We talk all the time,” said Gino Gradkowski, a fourth-round pick in April's draft. “He's a big shoulder for me to lean on. It helps me out a lot to have him. He's always helping me out and telling me what to expect and how to handle myself on and off the field.

Your recent article about surveillance cameras in Baltimore was alarming ("City surveillance camera system to expand, July 21). In Baltimore, the number of cameras has grown from fewer than 200 in 2005 to more than 800 today, if one includes the 250 private cameras the city can access. Yet the city wants even more cameras. The Board of Estimates recently agreed to create a database that will give the Police Department access to more private security cameras to create a bigger surveillance system.

Big Brother 8 featured its classiest moment on Sunday night, when the contestants were required to strip naked for a luxury challenge. Most of the women weren't amused, but once they found out the prize -- a two-minute shopping spree for new clothes -- they all got over it, and their team won. Who needs principles when designer duds are at stake?

Scott can go through his volunteer big brother Howard Cardin's refrigerator, recite the older man's phone number by heart, recognize the voices of his dinner guests, and call him "How."Three years ago, the two were linked through the Baltimore chapter of the Jewish Big Brother/Big Sister League, which is part of the Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America. Scott, 11, said he got fed up with another big brother he had had for six months. "I told the head I didn't like him, so she gave me Howard."

We're back home after a longer-than-usual vacation, and it was simply fantastic. All the time together came with a realization: My boys, especially the preschooler, are growing up. I feel like, with Aaron, who's 7 months old, I've been making an effort to revel in the little moments and savor his babyhood. Thanks to his big brother, I know exactly how fleeting this time can be. And since we've decided we're a two-and-through family, I know I won't be doing this again. One of my favorite times of day is during daycare drop-off, when I'm walking Aaron in his car seat from the side of the building where Isaac's class is to the other side.

The relationship between Michael Oher and Sean Tuohy Jr. has - like Tuohy himself - grown dramatically in the 10 years since Oher was brought by Tuohy's family into their home in the leafy suburbs of Memphis. If those early years became the genesis of a best-selling book and a hit movie that documented Oher's transformation into a college football star at Mississippi and the No. 1 pick of the Ravens in 2009, this year takes the brothers' relationship to another place. In Baltimore, call it The Other Side.