Chart

The mysterious art of predicting how many Howard County children will show up for school in years to come got slightly less confusing for three County Council members yesterday, as county school officials tried to tell them what to expect by 2010. Associate School Superintendent Sydney L. Cousin and David Drown, who is supervising the effort to reconcile a consultant's predictions with earlier ones made by the school system, gave the council a new enrollment chart for 2001, 2004 and 2010, but it was incomplete, they said.

Earlier this morning, we featured a chart from baseball statistician Bill Arnold that listed Orioles' executive vice president Dan Duquette's lifetime record at an impressive 930-786. That winning percentage places him fifth among the men who held the general manager position (or similar duties) for the 30 MLB teams in 2012. Pretty impressive. Frankly, it was better than I realized. But if you dig a little deeper, the numbers could be even more eye-popping. Duquette left Montreal and joined the Boston Red Sox in February 1994.

GEORGE BUSH, meet Henry Mencken. He thought Arkansas was the pits, too. Bill Clinton would have hated him.H. L. Mencken, The Sunpapers' best known writer, had several run-ins with Arkansas. After a 1917 HLM article denouncing Southern literature, a group he referred to as "the Arkansas literati" tried to have him expelled from the country.Perhaps his best-known appraisal of Arkansas came in 1931. He and Charles Angoff undertook to rate all the American states for The American Mercury magazine.

Hoping for a last-minute negotiated settlement, the Howard County Council is expected today to postpone until September a vote on taking a home and 3 acres needed for the planned Maple Lawn Farm development. Chances for compromise seemed dim, however, as the council mulled that issue and several others in a work session yesterday in Ellicott City. "I'm not closing any doors at this point," homeowner James A. Oliver told the council, adding that "it's not going to be an easy thing" to reach an agreement.

So this is what you do in January during the NFL playoffs when the home team finishes 5-11 and everybody else is stewing over Mike Holmgren returning to Green Bay, the chances of Terrell Owens playing and whether Jessica Simpson will be at the Dallas Cowboys game. Instead, you look for a new coach, ponder free agents and start thinking about the draft three months before the thing happens. If you don't know by now, the Ravens will draft eighth in the first round. So what will that mean?

In its infancy the Caribbean pop sound known as reggae was the soundtrack of revolution. Inspired by God and the violent political realities of Jamaica circa 1975, reggae pioneers like Bob Marley, Burning Spear and Peter Tosh set prophetic, apocalyptic lyrics against a tropical beat.Twenty-odd years later reggae is still causing a revolution, but this time it's at the cash register. Reggae's international popularity is booming, as evidenced by Billboard magazine's introduction today of a chart to monitor sales of the music.

NEW YORK -- If success really were as intoxicating as people claim, Mariah Carey would be reeling right now.Her new single, "Fantasy," just made history, upstaging Michael Jackson's recent chart-topping debut by entering at No. 1 on both the pop and R&B charts. That has made the music industry even more excited about her new album, "Daydream" (Columbia 66700, arriving in stores Tuesday). With total sales for her previous albums exceeding 60 million world-wide, expectations are that Carey will be seeing quite a lot of the top of the charts over the next few months.

While the music industry continues to pitch a fit over piracy of songs, computer software piracy appears to be at an all-time low in the United States, according to a recent study by the Business Software Alliance, a Washington-based organization that represents the country's largest software companies. BSA officials say the rates of theft have dropped below those recorded in 1994, when the organization began studying computer program piracy. About 23 percent of the programs distributed by BSA member companies have been pirated, down from 33 percent in 1994.

For the past five years, Tony Gwynn has carried a curious-looking box with him on the road. It's a portable video machine. And for the modern baseball player, it has become almost as standard as a Rolex watch and Gucci loafers.The tape player enables Gwynn, a seven-time All-Star outfielder for the San Diego Padres, to understand why he might be streaking or slumping, thriving or merely surviving. Late at night, in the quiet of his hotel room, he can turn on a tape and watch himself in the batter's box the way thousands of fans do."

Baltimore Sun reporters Jeff Barker and Don Markus and editor Matt Bracken weigh in on the three biggest topics of the past week in Maryland sports. With Mark Turgeon's team starting summer workouts, which Terps have the most to gain and the most to lose? Don Markus: This is a critical summer for Turgeon's program. Though many, including Turgeon, see progress in going from 17-15 in his first season in College Park to finishing his second year with a 25-13 record after a trip to the NIT semifinals, most Terp fans (and Turgeon)