Choice

VALLEJO, Calif. -- My mother is getting older now and is often sick. This is hard to take, as she has always been so strong and emotionally present in my life. Now that she is not as frequently in full bloom, a part of me is afraid and a part of me is sad. Her hand is slowly letting go of mine, and I am not sure what I will do when she lets go altogether. I am not a mama's boy. Far from it. My mother has never coddled me or tried to keep me sheltered from the world. If anything, the opposite is true.

Total draft picks: SixBreakdown: First round, 10th overall; second round, 11th pick, 42nd choice overall; fourth round, 10th pick, 105th choice overall; fourth round, compensatory pick, 129th choice overall; fifth round, 12th pick, 145th choice overall; seventh round, 10th pick, 216th choice overall.1998 record: 6-10, fourth place in the AFC CentralMajor needs: Wide receiver, quarterback, running back, cornerback, defensive tackle, offensive line, safety.First-round scenarios: The Ravens have cooled on the idea of trading up. That would cost them additional picks, and they have too many needs to address throughout the draft.

Howard County Police Chief Wayne Livesay moved last night to answer the questions -- and quell the concerns -- of Harper's Choice residents at an anti-crime community meeting in the wake of two near-fatal shootings in that village last month.Joined at the Swansfield Neighborhood Center by Capt. Mike Kessler, the Southern District commander, Livesay told more than 30 residents and community leaders that the two shootings, which took place near the village center 24 hours and a block and a half apart, appear to have involved drugs in some way, and may have been related.

SOME neighborhoods have a reputation for crime that is worse than they deserve. That has been the predicament of Harper's Choice village in Columbia for too long.Efforts are being made not only to reduce criminal activity but also to improve the area's appearance and vitality. Still, the community must fight the perception -- even among many of its residents -- that it is an unsafe place to live.That issue was discussed last week during a two-day public forum on the remaining crime problems in Harper's Choice.

PARIS -- President Clinton was elected in 1992 promising to give the United States a needed national-health insurance system. The battle that followed pitted advocates of a single-payer state system, on the Canadian or European models, against the private insurance industry, ending in a qualified victory for the latter.Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, wrote in the New York Times a few days ago that the original Clinton proposals "would have limited our choice in doctors, cost millions of jobs and created new bureaucracies and tax increases."

WHAT A conundrum. The concentration of "affordable housing" in Columbia's village of Harper's Choice may be a factor in the amount of crime that occurs there.But crime in Harper's Choice helps increase fears that block efforts to build more lower-priced houses and apartments in other parts of Howard County.It should be stressed at the outset that Harper's Choice is not a dangerous place. Walk its streets and you will see children playing and adults jogging carefree along tree-lined sidewalks.

By conventional wisdom, Harper's Choice Middle School should be one of Howard County's lower-performing schools.It's the county middle school with the highest percentage of students with limited English skills, the second-highest percentage of special education pupils and the third-highest percentage of students eligible for free lunches.So why was Harper's Choice the only middle school in Howard to meet five of the six standards on the most recent round of the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP)

A last-minute flurry of wheeling and dealing has given the Spirit the No. 1 pick in today's National Professional Soccer League draft.After securing the Edmonton Drillers' No. 4 selection for cash on Monday, the Spirit yesterday dealt the pick and an undisclosed amount of cash to the expansion Toronto Shooting Stars for their No. 1 choice in the first and fourth rounds.The Spirit will go into the draft, conducted via conference call, with a territorial choice, Nos. 1, 6 and 12 in the first round of the regular draft, No. 12 in the second and third rounds and Nos. 1 and 12 in the fourth.

PRESIDENT CLINTON, in another move to co-opt a Republican issue, has vowed to block United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali from another five-year term. His White House spokesman, Mike McCurry, describes the U.N. headquarters in New York as a building "stuffed with too many bureaucrats and stuffed with too much waste and inefficiency." Bob Dole, a constant critic of the 73-year-old Egyptian statesman, will have a tough time topping such undiplomatic language.Politics aside, the president is fully justified in taking this action.

As metro editor of the Washington Post, Bob Woodward used to exhort his young charges to produce stories so astonishing that readers would cry "Holy Sh**!"Woodward has passed the "Holy Sh**!" test numerous times himself. The reporter who almost singlehandedly brought down the Nixon presidency is now an enormously successful author. His behind-the-scenes Washington blockbusters typically yield a slew of astonishing revelations.His latest, "The Choice" (Simon & Schuster. 426 pages, $26.), is about the 1996 presidential race.

A team of Howard County students scored first place in one category of the 2009 International Botball Tournament, an educational robotics competition. Three teenagers who attend Cedar Brook Academy, a private school in Clarksburg in Montgomery County, worked for about four months to develop a mobile, autonomous robot, winning the judge's choice award at the regional level and topping the Alliance Match category at the international level in July. "My favorite part for the past couple years has been winning," said Ethan Myers, 16, the team captain, who's been competing annually since sixth grade.

Before Gov. Martin O'Malley made his choice of a specific plan for the Red Line, Baltimore's elected officials had little reason to take a stand. Many alternatives were officially on the table, though anyone who was paying attention knew that only one - the option O'Malley chose - was politically and economically viable. Now there's no middle ground. There's only one Red Line. The question is whether you're for it or against it. Some politicians recognized that, and made their choice.

BOSTON - As if the Republicans weren't having enough trouble with defectors, they've gone on a purge. There was Dick Cheney on Face the Nation. Asked to pick between a GOP like Rush Limbaugh or Colin Powell, the former Veep not only chose Rush but snarkily crossed the general off the party list, saying, "I didn't know he was still a Republican." This was less than two weeks after Arlen Specter assessed the odds of winning a Republican primary in Pennsylvania at exactly zip. The not-so-fond farewells that pursued Mr. Specter were nothing compared to the GOP un-eulogies for David Souter.

To understand how angry and disappointed many Democrats are that Barack Obama has invited evangelical preacher Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inaugural, imagine if a President-elect John McCain had offered this unique honor to the Rev. Al Sharpton - or the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. I know, it's hard to picture: John McCain would never do that. Republicans respect their base even when, as in Mr. McCain's case, it doesn't really return the favor. Only Democrats, it seems, reward their most loyal supporters - feminists, gays, liberals, opponents of the war - by elbowing them aside to embrace their opponents instead.

Palin will not please Clinton's supporters I am a supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton. She would have been a great president. But since that will not happen this year, the other presidential candidates are wooing people like me. But if Sen. John McCain chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate simply because she is a woman, and thinks that this choice will make people like me swing his way, I find that insulting ("Surprise choice," Aug. 30)....

WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama has all but settled on his vice presidential running mate and set an elaborate rollout plan for his choice, beginning with an early-morning alert to supporters, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, and then a trip to swing states by the new Democratic ticket, aides said. Obama's deliberations remain remarkably closely held. Aides said perhaps a half-dozen advisers were involved in the final discussions in an effort to enforce a command that Obama issued to staff: that his decision not leak out until supporters are notified.

Forty years ago this summer, Richard Nixon wrestled with the same question that Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama will answer in Minneapolis and Denver next month: Who is the best choice to be the running mate? Mr. Nixon's selection of Spiro Agnew, then a little-known governor of Maryland, carries a perilous lesson about choosing the political over the practical. When Mr. Agnew rose to accept the Republican Party's vice presidential nomination in August 1968, he cited "the improbability of this moment."

Marjorie Mae Reese Services will be private. Donations can be made to the charity of your choice.

As part of my continued therapy for fantasy baseball malaise, I'm letting my mind drift to other subjects - from top football picks to the fantasy fortunes of next month's NBA draft choices. I promise I'll return to meaty analysis of actual baseball players next week. Lack of interest in the NBA seems rather prevalent among the sports fans I know. I guess the prospect of another San Antonio-Detroit series doesn't exactly evoke memories of Lakers-Celtics from 1984. But it's hard not to grow a little excited thinking about the feats ahead for Greg Oden and Kevin Durant.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Republican presidential candidate Rudolph W. Giuliani picked the Friday before Mother's Day to tell students at Houston Baptist University that although he "hates" abortion and finds it "morally wrong," one must leave the ultimate decision to a pregnant woman. Mr. Giuliani is betting his post-9/11 image and economic conservatism will be enough to win him the nomination in a party that has not nominated a pro-choice Republican since Gerald R. Ford in 1976. It doesn't help that Mr. Giuliani also embraces the gay rights political agenda and stronger gun control.