Column

Let's say you're under the illusion that you have a great singing voice, OK? So one day you get up in front of an audience and belt out a tune, and the reaction is pure death. Some people are wincing. Others are smirking and looking down at their shoes. Still others are getting up and leaving the room, rolling their eyes and shaking their heads. Wouldn't you get the hint here? Wouldn't it dawn on you that you, um, stink as a singer? Apparently not. I say this because after a column last week about American Idol, in which I said all these horrible singers on the hit Fox show know they're horrible, a number of readers e-mailed to say I was wrong.

FYI The column by the movie critics will return next week.

Tax advice column Readers can submit questions about preparing their 2006 tax returns at baltimoresun.com/taxtalk. Members of the Hunt Valley accounting firm SC&H Group will answer questions.

Liz Smith is on vacation. Her column returns Aug. 15.

FYI Theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck is on assignment. Her column does not appear today.

This happened the other night, about 5:50 p.m. I'm waiting on the light at Northern Parkway and North Charles Street, all windows of the DadVan open. Next to me, there's a guy in a uniform shirt of some kind - like maybe Jiffy Lube - with the windows of his sedan open, and he's groovin' on some old-school R&B. I like this. It hits me just right, and I start groovin' on the music, too. The guy in the car catches me groovin' on his tunes, and he says, "You like that?" And I say, "Yeah, I like that.

It's a weekday afternoon in San Antonio, and the best-known name in American housekeeping isn't doing any.There's no time right now. Heloise, America's first name in household hints, instead is hunkered down at a computer, answering questions from inquiring minds on the Internet.This is a day set aside for her monthly online chat. As she nibbles on a piece of pizza, there's a question about carving-knife maintenance.Heloise is quick with the answer -- hand-wash it, sharpen it on a whetstone, and if it's stored in a counter-top knife holder, store it upside down so the blade won't be dulled by rubbing against the holder's surface.

TELL ME something: Is it me or are some people just a lit-tle too sensitive these days?From the uproar caused by a certain column that ran here two weeks ago, you'd think I just passed nuclear secrets to the Chinese.To recap, the column was about a recurring problem faced by anyone who has ever joined a health club: fat guys in Speedos haunting the pool.The gist of it was that these fat guys weren't doing themselves a favor wearing these horribly unflattering swim trunks. And I asked them (politely, I thought)

Lewinsky not hurting in the pocketbookMonica Lewinsky's still looking for that perfect job, but in the meantime she's hoping to make money selling her own line of handbags over the Internet. "What really excites me is that this has nothing to do with the president," she tells Marie Claire magazine. The former White House intern is selling eight designs, ranging from $70 to $130. She took up knitting and sewing "as the only way to stay sane" when she was holed up in her Washington apartment, forbidden by prosecutors to talk to anyone by phone or e-mail, she says.

SHE SPOTTED me just outside the Greyhound station in downtown Baltimore: a black woman, about 5 feet 4, dressed in black pants and a bright red shirt to match the fire in her eyes. She had the dark complexion of your basic Nubian goddess."You're that guy who writes for the paper," she huffed. "I've got a bone to pick with you."She walked a few feet away, to the curb of West Fayette Street just outside the bus station."Step into my office," she demanded.Ah, well, anything for a fan, I thought.

The student editor of Towson University's independent newspaper The Towerlight has stepped down after a standoff with President Robert L. Caret over the publication of an explicit sex column. Editor Carrie Wood, a junior from Reisterstown, resigned Friday after exchanging e-mails with Caret over a column called "The Bed Post." The newspaper's editors have since discontinued the column because it was published under a pseudonym and the author wished to remain anonymous. But they have said they might continue to publish it online.

Dan Rodricks debuts his weekly, online-only column. (His print column still appears twice a week.) Today, read about how Republican Robert Ehrlich stands out from recent Democratic governors in criminal justice matters.

Laura Vozzella's column has moved to the Commentary Page and will appear on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Today, it is on Page 13 in this section. Dan Rodricks' column that has appeared on Tuesdays has moved to Wednesdays and also will appear on the Commentary Page.

The No. 1 question I get from readers these days is "How's the whole Facebook thing working out for you?" This stems from a column I wrote last month about joining the popular social-networking site, in which I wondered if it were just another Internet time-suck that was too hip for a middle-aged guy. Anyway, to answer the question, um, I guess it's going OK. When I wrote that first column, I had only 28 Facebook friends, which is considered pathetic....

The 11th-grade English honors students of Deborah Lambert's class at Eastern Technical High School in Baltimore County tackled a question posed in this column recently: Are we there yet? By "there," I meant the colorblind nation of our dreams - or, at least, a nation less prejudiced, more accepting and ready to make an African-American man its next president. Lambert used the Sept. 16 column as a "teachable moment," which, next to making someone's refrigerator door, is about the highest flattery this column has ever enjoyed.

Wrong to use child as a political prop Several letters last Thursday took Susan Reimer to task for her column about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin ("Readers speak out on Susan Reimer's take on Sarah Palin," Sept. 4). The writers seemed to think Ms. Reimer had insulted or demeaned Mrs. Palin's boy with Down syndrome. I'm not sure what column they read, but I didn't see the column "A woman - but why this woman?" (Sept. 1) that way at all. And as the parent of a special-needs child, I count myself somewhat sensitive, perhaps even prickly, about slights to disabled children.

On Monday, I wrote a column criticizing the McCain campaign for what I saw as a cynical attempt to gather in unhappy women voters by naming Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin his vice presidential candidate and for exploiting the poignant story of her youngest child to appease the Republican Party's pro-life base. And then the storm began. More than 8,200 comments were posted to the column on The Baltimore Sun's Web site. I received more than 700 personal e-mails and about 50 phone calls. The column was mentioned by Rush Limbaugh and Brit Hume.

Little generosity in Bush's budget The column "Treatment, not talk" (Opinion Commentary, Feb. 3) expresses the logical view that President Bush's "personal struggles against alcohol addiction" would lead him to advocate "generous and caring policies." Unfortunately, as the column points out, that hasn't been Mr. Bush's record. To understand this point, you need only turn to page three of the same paper to learn of Mr. Bush's proposed 2009 budget, which squeezes funding for education, health, housing and anti-poverty programs while maintaining tax cuts for big business and the wealthy ("President's budget comes under fire," Feb. 3)

Rashod D. Ollison's pop music column does not appear this week.

The fix is in. It's been a year since Watchdog debuted with a column that prompted the city to remove jagged light pole stumps along a path used by schoolchildren in Northeast Baltimore. Since then, this space has addressed 52 problems, of which 34 have been resolved. Eleven have not been fixed, and repairs are pending for seven others. The street "Charlers" is now correctly spelled on a subway sign; a broken hydrant in Towson now has water; parking spaces have been reclaimed by customers at a post office in Brooklyn Park; corn sprouting from a storm drain in Highlandtown has been cut; a directional arrow telling drivers to turn the wrong way on one-way Pratt Street has been removed.