Buenos Aires

WHEN PRESIDENT Bush identified the "axis of evil" a year ago, it was an infelicitous bit of rhetoric that is sure to provoke plenty of headaches in years to come - but it wasn't something he made up out of whole cloth. Iraq most likely does have chemical and biological weapons. North Korea does have a frightening nuclear weapons program. And Iran, as the Bush administration is now trumpeting, does have a reactor program that could produce enough enriched uranium for several nuclear bombs in the next few years.

'Music + Travel,' Museyon Guides, $17.95: Graphics that pop, plenty of maps and a breezy tone make the new "Music + Travel" guidebook a handy reference and a rockin' good time. Twelve writers profile 12 countries, offering the inside scoop on the best music venues in, among other sites, Dublin, Ireland; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Paris; Berlin; and Chicago. Jessica Hundley's chapter on Southern California touches on such figures as Merle Haggard and Gram Parsons. She writes: "Calicountry, the dust-blown cowboy strut that began with the Okie folk songs of the Dust Bowl emigres, continues to hang over Los Angeles like campfire smoke."

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA There's something about this place. Maybe it's the tango. Those of you who have witnessed the real thing know tango -- when done right -- is not a dance for sissies. It is aggressive, moody, seductive, sometimes beautiful and maybe a little dangerous. Like Buenos Aires. So ... is it a cliche to compare Buenos Aires to the tango? Maybe, but it was either that or Evita. Which brings me to the subject of steakhouses -- but first, the obligatory travel story transition paragraphs: Cool place to visit, Buenos Aires.

The Towson Tigers need a quarterback and Blair Peterson is knocking on the door. A one-time Mormon missionary, he's certainly up to the task. A 23-year-old sophomore, Peterson was understudy last year to Sean Schaefer, Towson's record-setting passer who graduated in May. But Peterson's track to the top has been different from most. After high school, he spurned offers from big-time colleges to serve a mission for his church. The one-time star quarterback from San Antonio fell off the football map and spent two years in Buenos Aires, Argentina, working in slums, building homes for the poor and spreading The Word for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Hernan, our taxi driver in Buenos Aires, one night after a dinner flowing with wine, offered a resonant assessment of his town. "There are two things I love," he said, looking at us in his rearview mirror. "First, the weather. Second, it doesn't matter where you come from." I can't agree with the former. We expected summer warmth during a February trip to the Southern Hemisphere, but it rained most of the seven days my fiancee and I spent in Argentina. But the truth of the latter point - Buenos Aires welcomed us, as it seems to welcome all newcomers - wiped out any chill and left only pleasant memories of my new favorite city.

Most people go to the opera to see the show. In Buenos Aires, many go just to see the opera house. Recently refurbished, the Teatro Colon offers guided tours through what is one of the world's truly great houses of music. These tours are a hot attraction, especially for the tourists flooding the Argentine capital these days, where the dollar still has muscle. The tours are in Spanish, English, Portuguese and other languages. I saw my first opera in the Colon in 1965: Aida, by Giuseppe Verdi, the same opera that opened the place in 1908.

PEREZ CELIS, 69 Renowned Argentine artist Perez Celis, a prestigious Argentine muralist, painter and sculptor, has died. He was 69. Mr. Celis, who suffered from leukemia, died Saturday at the Otamendi sanitarium in the capital, Buenos Aires, the Argentine news agency Noticias Argentinas and the television station Todo Noticias reported. Considered one of the great figures of contemporary Argentine art, Mr. Celis lived and worked in Lima, Peru; Caracas, Venezuela; Montevideo, Uruguay; Paris and New York.

MARTA SILVIA MARKS age 48 passed away on Tuesday, October 30, 2007 of Montgomery Village, MD, formerly of Baltimore, and native of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Beloved wife of David F. Marks; daughter of Celia Grosman-Grosmark and the late Jankil Grosmark; sister of Alberto M. Grosmark; sister-in-law of Ester Rozenblum-Grosmark; aunt of Andres D. Grosmark. She was also loved and will be missed by many other family members and friends. Marta was a music therapist in Buenos Aires, and the Baltimore-Washington area after coming to the United States in 1995.

Dr. Steven E. Kopits, an orthopedic surgeon who was nationally recognized for his work with dwarfism, died yesterday of a brain tumor at Union Memorial Hospital. He was 65 and lived in Homeland. As founder and director of the International Center for Skeletal Dysplasia at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, he was credited with surgeries that permitted his patients to walk and live on their own. Dr. Kopits was born in Budapest, Hungary, where his father and grandfather had been orthopedic surgeons.

'Music + Travel,' Museyon Guides, $17.95: Graphics that pop, plenty of maps and a breezy tone make the new "Music + Travel" guidebook a handy reference and a rockin' good time. Twelve writers profile 12 countries, offering the inside scoop on the best music venues in, among other sites, Dublin, Ireland; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Paris; Berlin; and Chicago. Jessica Hundley's chapter on Southern California touches on such figures as Merle Haggard and Gram Parsons. She writes: "Calicountry, the dust-blown cowboy strut that began with the Okie folk songs of the Dust Bowl emigres, continues to hang over Los Angeles like campfire smoke."

PEREZ CELIS, 69 Renowned Argentine artist Perez Celis, a prestigious Argentine muralist, painter and sculptor, has died. He was 69. Mr. Celis, who suffered from leukemia, died Saturday at the Otamendi sanitarium in the capital, Buenos Aires, the Argentine news agency Noticias Argentinas and the television station Todo Noticias reported. Considered one of the great figures of contemporary Argentine art, Mr. Celis lived and worked in Lima, Peru; Caracas, Venezuela; Montevideo, Uruguay; Paris and New York.

MARTA SILVIA MARKS age 48 passed away on Tuesday, October 30, 2007 of Montgomery Village, MD, formerly of Baltimore, and native of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Beloved wife of David F. Marks; daughter of Celia Grosman-Grosmark and the late Jankil Grosmark; sister of Alberto M. Grosmark; sister-in-law of Ester Rozenblum-Grosmark; aunt of Andres D. Grosmark. She was also loved and will be missed by many other family members and friends. Marta was a music therapist in Buenos Aires, and the Baltimore-Washington area after coming to the United States in 1995.

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA There's something about this place. Maybe it's the tango. Those of you who have witnessed the real thing know tango -- when done right -- is not a dance for sissies. It is aggressive, moody, seductive, sometimes beautiful and maybe a little dangerous. Like Buenos Aires. So ... is it a cliche to compare Buenos Aires to the tango? Maybe, but it was either that or Evita. Which brings me to the subject of steakhouses -- but first, the obligatory travel story transition paragraphs: Cool place to visit, Buenos Aires.

BUENOS AIRES -- A kidnapping or a political stunt? The question is reverberating here in the mysterious case of Luis Gerez, a witness in a human rights trial who was reported missing last month and reappeared two days later, shirtless and apparently in shock, saying he had been kidnapped, tied up, beaten and burned with cigarettes. The case has raised troubling questions in a nation still torn by memories of a brutal military dictatorship that ended almost a quarter-century ago, leaving as many as 30,000 people dead or "disappeared."

Hernan, our taxi driver in Buenos Aires, one night after a dinner flowing with wine, offered a resonant assessment of his town. "There are two things I love," he said, looking at us in his rearview mirror. "First, the weather. Second, it doesn't matter where you come from." I can't agree with the former. We expected summer warmth during a February trip to the Southern Hemisphere, but it rained most of the seven days my fiancee and I spent in Argentina. But the truth of the latter point - Buenos Aires welcomed us, as it seems to welcome all newcomers - wiped out any chill and left only pleasant memories of my new favorite city.

Most people go to the opera to see the show. In Buenos Aires, many go just to see the opera house. Recently refurbished, the Teatro Colon offers guided tours through what is one of the world's truly great houses of music. These tours are a hot attraction, especially for the tourists flooding the Argentine capital these days, where the dollar still has muscle. The tours are in Spanish, English, Portuguese and other languages. I saw my first opera in the Colon in 1965: Aida, by Giuseppe Verdi, the same opera that opened the place in 1908.

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA- This Christmas, Argentine newspapers carried melancholy letters from children asking why their parents told them not to write a wish list. "Somebody stole my Christmas and somebody robbed me of my illusions of an extra dose of happiness," 14-year-old Ariel Minglanesio wrote to the newspaper La Prensa. "I want to know why my mother decided not to put up a Christmas tree this year. Tell me the names of those responsible so someone can punish them." In this moody city where the sounds of tango float into the street from waterfront bars, many Buenos Aires residents believe the thieves who stole Christmas were politicians in elegant Italian suits.

The art gallery at Columbia's Slayton House will be transformed April 9 into a smoky Argentine cafe and bar complete with live tango music and professional dancers. The reception and performance officially kick off an exhibition of collages by Columbia artist Estela Rotondaro that celebrates the popular Argentine dance. The Embassy of Argentina is sponsoring the show. Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Rotondaro began making her colorful collages as a way of celebrating her hometown -- and as a way of indulging her passion for the tango.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - He doesn't have the charisma of Venezuela's populist president, Hugo Chavez, or the compelling life story of leftist struggle and sacrifice that Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva can claim. But President Nestor Kirchner of Argentina is outdoing both of them when it comes to willingness to play hardball with international bankers and corporate executives. A longtime Patagonian governor who became president in 2003 after months of political uncertainty in the wake of Argentina's economic collapse, Kirchner has made the defense of the country's sovereignty in the face of foreign interests a central theme of his presidency.

A Memorable Place A hard ride into a fascinating town By Robert L. Lamborn SPECIAL TO THE SUN We rode our bicycles up Oak Creek Canyon into Sedona. In the high desert country of Arizona, 4,500 feet above sea level, the little town is nestled between red-rock walls, spires and buttes, bluffs and chimneys in a magnificent box canyon. The setting is so dramatic it has been the site of many classic Western films. It's also home to a vibrant arts colony. Our schedule for the day -- we were on a 3,500-mile bicycle tour from Los Angeles to Boston -- called for us to ride more than 50 miles from Cottonwood to Flagstaff, climbing more than 3,000 feet.