Broken Glass

Havre de Grace. -- What a difference a landslide makes. Before the watershed election of 1994, when Dan Quayle took a pea-shooter to the entertainment industry, the industry and its media cousins responded with righteous wrath.For his critical one-liner about the single parenthood of Murphy -- Brown, the title character on a brain-dead television show he'd never watched, the former vice president was alternately derided as a nitwit and depicted as the front man for the forces of darkness.

A 9-year-old boy was shot in the left hand Tuesday night in West Baltimore when three men kicked in the front door of his house, shot the family dog and wounded the child, according to city police. The boy was taken to an area hospital and was expected to make a full recovery, police said. About 11 p.m., a man knocked on the door of a house in the 1600 block of N. Ellamont St., according to police. The man asked to speak to someone he believed stayed in the home, but a resident of the house said no one by that name lived there, police said.

A recipe: Find a wooden board, any size. (Check trash cans, dumps, alleys.) Smooth glue on it in any shape. Cover glue with broken glass, any color. Use large pieces for strong statements; finer shards for detail work. Sprinkle with glass dust. Add glitter to taste.Let set.This is art by Paul Darmafall. "You ever do kitchen work?" heasks. "You can get a lot of ideas from kitchen work. This is the only thing I can think of to do with broken glass."About 20 years ago, the Baltimorean came up with this unusual vehicle for communicating messages that he thinks are of utmost importance.

A 9-year-old boy was shot in the left hand Tuesday night in West Baltimore when three men kicked in the front door of his house, shot the family dog and wounded the child, according to city police. The boy was taken to an area hospital and was expected to make a full recovery, police said. About 11 p.m., a man knocked on the door of a house in the 1600 block of N. Ellamont St., according to police. The man asked to speak to someone he believed stayed in the home, but a resident of the house said no one by that name lived there, police said.

A man was killed last night when he was struck by a car while crossing U.S. 40 near Rossville Boulevard in White Marsh, Baltimore County police said.Police said the man, whose name was not released, and a female companion had crossed the eastbound lanes and were halfway across the westbound lanes when a Ford Mustang hit him about 9: 05 p.m. The driver was treated at Franklin Square Hospital for cuts from broken glass. The woman was not injured, police said.Pub Date: 8/28/97

Johns Hopkins University freshman Amanda Owens got an eye-opening education yesterday -- in the streets of North Baltimore.She was one of several college kids armed with brooms and trash bags, cleaning their way through various communities and playgrounds littered with weeds, broken glass and other signs of urban decay. It was the school's way of welcoming incoming freshmen to their new neighborhood.The cleanup extended into area streets, waterways and schools and involved about 900 first-year students, university officials said.

An Annapolis man was robbed as he attempted to pay a gas station cashier in the 2200 block of Bay Ridge Ave. about 12:30 a.m. Monday, city police said yesterday.Phillip Frederick Meyers, 53, said that he had just finished pumping gas and had walked up to the cashier's window, when another man approached and demanded the $10 in his hand. When he refused, the man placed a sharp object against Mr. Meyer's ribs, took the money and left.POLICE LOG* Annapolis: Burglars smashed the side window of the Carpet Queen store in the 1900 block of West Street about 1:30 a.m. yesterday and stole at least six Pakistani and Indian carpets, all valued at $2,700.

Seven people, including two adults from Ellicott City, were arrested Friday night, accused of throwing rocks from an overpass onto U.S. 29, Howard County police said. A 15-year-old boy riding in a van passing below was seriously injured.According to police, a group of youths stood on Route 108 about 8 p.m., hurling rocks onto passing vehicles. The teen-age victim -- who was injured by broken glass -- was taken to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center.Police refused to identify the victim, and said they had no information on the extent of his injuries.

An $18,000 renovation of three multipurpose playing fields in East Columbia is being jeopardized by unauthorized use and vandalism, Howard County Department of Parks and Recreation officials say.Fences and signs intended to prevent use of the fields have been torn down, and the fields themselves have been littered with trash, including broken glass, said Mark Raab, parks supervisor.But the worst damage is from premature athletic use of the fields, which are intended for football, soccer and lacrosse, he said.

Howard County recycling officials have found a way to prevent more than 900 tons of glass from being broken each year in the recycling process -- breakage that renders the glass worthless to recyclers and fit only to be buried in a trash dump.This month, all neighborhoods were required to put containers in see-through plastic shopping bags on the curb rather than loose in the plastic bins that were formerly used in the curbside recycling program.The tied-up bags -- each containing a mix of glass, plastic and metal containers -- keep the items from rattling around when they are loaded into collection trucks and from getting smashed when they are dumped onto the floor of the Browning-Ferris Industries recycling plant in Elkridge.

Dublin - The two men drink standing near the back of the long bar at Davy Byrnes, one of the many watering holes in this city that, in the words of writer Samuel Beckett, who once lived upstairs, have been known to house "broken glass and indiscretion." In the back, because that's well away from the "whippets" and "blow-ins" who tend to wander in, armed with neither intellect nor wit, if one distinguishes between the two, settle on the first available stool and ask for a "Boodweiser" from the barman.

BINT JBAIL, Lebanon -- Smeared with dirt and covered in flies, the woman sat dazed and stranded in the rubble for days. When she looked up yesterday to see people from the outside world approaching through the morning heat, the words tumbled from between her broken teeth. "God brought you," said Libi Ibrahim, blinking into the sun. "I didn't want to die alone. Don't leave me." A drive into the bomb-wrecked city of Bint Jbail is a voyage into the epicenter of the war between Israel and Hezbollah.

The impressive stretch from Preakness winner Smarty Jones is clearly what stood out at the 129th running of the race at Pimlico Race Course. But what took place first, from the eyes of Lion Heart trainer Patrick Biancone, was equally impressive. Just how great is Smarty Jones, against whom Lion Heart has battled and faltered twice down the stretch? Comparable to "The Greatest," according to the French-born trainer. Starting on the rail, Lion Heart led through three-quarters of a mile before Smarty Jones "swallowed us in two jumps," said Biancone.

Man, 59, thrown from pickup truck after hitting tree A 59-year-old Glen Burnie motorist was thrown from his pickup when the truck struck a tree late Thursday night, Anne Arundel County police said. Police said the 1993 Ford truck was westbound on Myers Drive when it left the road and traveled 79 feet up the curb and sidewalk. It struck two cable boxes before hitting the tree head-on near Snowden Lane. The driver, F. Edmund Sutton of the 1700 block of Hyde Park Drive, suffered head injuries.

Thoroughbred racing returns to steamy Pimlico Race Course today for a 13-day meeting that ventures into uncharted territory. With officials still groping to find a solution for the glass breakage in the Laurel Park grandstand, the Maryland Jockey Club will run this abbreviated stand at a site that is traditionally confined to simulcasting only during the summer. The change of venue is almost certain to affect revenues, particularly with only two stakes races scheduled during the stand, the foremost being the $125,000 Straight Deal Breeders Cup on Aug. 18. "Pimlico does very well in that spring slot [the Preakness meeting]

The execution-style slaying of a Baltimore police officer happened close enough to the storefront windowfor a stray bullet to shatter it. For a month, Craig Van Cutsem has kept the shell casing below the cracked glass, awaiting an insurance agent's appraisal. To Van Cutsem, owner of Weaco Inc., an ornamental ironwork factory that has been in business at Harford Road and Darley Avenue in Northeast Baltimore since 1952, the shooting was a too-familiar reminder that the neighborhood is half a century and a world apart from the one where it began.

Birds chirp in the background at Arthur Miller's rural Connecticut home, and the sound conjures images of pastoral bliss -- the perfect setting for a light, breezy musical.Instead, this is a place where serious work gets done. It is here that the man who has been called America's foremost living playwright writes scripts that have charted and influenced the country's moral course for 50 years.In Miller's 1987 autobiography, "Timebends," he wrote: "I could not imagine a theater worth my time that did not want to change the world."

When officials from Education Alternatives Inc. looked over the physical condition of Harlem Park Elementary and Middle schools in the summer, they saw a formidable task ahead.The two-school complex in West Baltimore, which occupies several blocks just off Harlem Avenue, was in need of major cleanup, particularly the middle school.Plumbing and toilets throughout that building were virtually "inoperable," according to Bob Parham, project manager for Johnson Controls World Services, the EAI corporate partner in charge of maintaining the schools.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Gazing at the men and women who convicted him of murder, Jonathan Trull testified yesterday that he didn't stab Maryland visitors Matthew Wichita, Kevans Hall II or Seth Qubeck in April 1998. "I ain't the one who done this," the 30-year-old man said. The jury will recommend whether he deserves a death sentence. Trull disputed much of the testimony offered during the nine-week-long trial, even challenging the account of Qubeck, who survived the attack. Trull, the oldest of the three brothers accused in the slayings, was the only one convicted of murder in the deaths of Hall, 23, and Wichita, 21, and for the attempted murder of Qubeck, 21, all of Columbia.

Older residents recall baseball games, neighborhood celebrations and Easter egg hunts in the park on the east side of the north Anne Arundel County community of Harundale, which had athletic fields, a basketball court and a playground. Now weeds grow through the cracked asphalt of the old basketball court. Shrubs and small trees grow in the infield. Only a charred skeleton remains of the playground equipment, and the only reminders of spring-mounted rocking horses are rusting bits of metal sticking out of the ground.