Common Thread

Repulsed by the government's violent response to protests in his homeland of China 20 years ago, Yifei Gan knew he had to remain in the United States to pursue artistic freedom. Inspired by her widowed mother's entrepreneurial spirit, Lily Bengfort visualized succeeding in business when she came to the United States from Guyana. And, touched by a desire to help fellow Korean immigrants, Young Song rode a rusty bike to school to earn two college degrees on the path toward his goal. These three immigrants couldn't be more different, nor could they be more alike.

Repulsed by the government's violent response to protests in his homeland of China 20 years ago, Yifei Gan knew he had to remain in the United States to pursue artistic freedom. Inspired by her widowed mother's entrepreneurial spirit, Lily Bengfort visualized succeeding in business when she came to the United States from Guyana. And, touched by a desire to help fellow Korean immigrants, Young Song rode a rusty bike to school to earn two college degrees on the path toward his goal. These three immigrants couldn't be more different, nor could they be more alike.

COMMON THREAD: THE SONGS OF THE EAGLESVarious Artists (Giant 24531)It's no secret that contemporary country acts owe something to the sound of the Eagles; what may come as a surprise is how great that debt is. Maybe that's why almost every new star in Nashville turned out for "Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles." The idea behind this tribute album is simple enough -- DTC choose an Eagles oldie and give it your best -- and many of the performers here take the task at face value, turning in cover-band-perfect renditions of "Lyin' Eyes" (Diamond Rio)

Nestled in the shadows of towering apartment and office buildings along a busy stretch of Joppa Road, the salon would be easy to miss if it didn't look like a house that has sprouted from nowhere with its creamy beige vinyl siding and covered porch. Most of the customers who find their way to Usha's Salon and Day Spa in Towson are like 16-year-old Jasmine Osima and her mother, Joan, of Owings Mills. Mother and daughter began making biweekly visits about a year ago after a family friend raved about owner Usha Gupta's increasingly popular use of threading, an ancient facial hair-removal process.

Print PortfoliosWhen: Tuesdays through Saturdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., through March 29.Where: The G. H. Dalsheimer Gallery, 336 N. Charles St.Call: 727-0866. For its last show, before it closes at the end of March, Dalsheimer is showing portfolios of prints by three nationally known artists, Louise Bourgeois, James Turrell and Terry Winters. Although the general title of the show is "Portfolios: A Common Thread," it's at first difficult to see a common thread beyond such obvious facts as that they're all prints, all black and white, etc., ect.But then certain connections begin to make themselves seen.

Those who expected Gov. William Donald Schaefer to deliver a tepid and meek final State of the State address yesterday were off-base. Mr. Schaefer is a battler. He set out yet another ambitious agenda for lawmakers, challenging them to mock the notion that all of them are lame ducks.In many ways it was a typical Schaefer pep talk. "We help people. That's our job," he said at the outset. His long shopping list targeted a variety of people-helping subjects -- public safety, public health, welfare reform, public school aid. Legislators would make a mistake by ignoring these proposals.

Guitarist Pat Metheny, 36, travels so much he should probably have more than the two homes in Boston, Mass., and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to call his own."I divide my time between here and Boston," he said in a telephone call from Rio, "but I'm on the road most of the time."One of the top names of contemporary jazz, the award-winning performer and composer for film, television, and theater will be at Maryland Hall for the Performing Arts for two shows Sunday.This concert will be Metheny's first visit to Annapolis, part of a short tour to help publicize his latest album, "Question and Answer," recorded on the Geffen label.

Much has been filmed and written about next week's 50th anniversary of the Normandy invasion, concentrating on the history-making beachhead and the land war that followed.Annapolis naval historian and writer Paul Stillwell is right in there with a new book on D-Day, his sixth.But Mr. Stillwell's approach in "Assault on Normandy: First-Person Accounts from the Sea Services," is less conventional and, given his background and employer, not surprising. His book is a collection of interviews done over two years with many who experienced various aspects of the comparatively less-publicized naval side of Normandy.

American athletes and American teams are stinking it up on the world stage. That's obvious. What isn't obvious is why. Less obvious is whether this means more, or less, than what it is. Less obvious than that? Whether it really matters as much as many Americans are making it matter. Lots of people seem to have answers, but in reality, there are so many segments to this topic that no single one tells the entire story. This much we know: What appeared at the time to be an isolated incident - the men's basketball team coming home from the 2004 Olympics with only a bronze medal - evolved into a trend (in later disappointments at the Turin Games and in the World Baseball Classic)

Debbie Doxson never read about her Jewish heritage in school. She never read stories about the Nazis or the Holocaust. The Union Bridge resident thinks she should have.So Doxson, a member of Carroll's curriculum council, says she doesn't understand why the school board has concerns about "Alan and Naomi," a story about a New York boy asked to befriend a withdrawn French girl who witnessed her father's murder by the Gestapo.The board is expected to take action on that work and four otherstoday, two months after pulling them for further review from a lengthy list of curriculum materials.

It's tempting to imagine Peter Rabbit peering out from beneath a hedge in Linda Lear's bewitching English-style garden. Lear recently published a biography of Beatrix Potter, the British author who created such beloved characters as Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, Jemima Puddleduck and Squirrel Nutkin in her illustrated children's books. It's true that a river glimpsed from Lear's home in Bethesda is the Potomac, and not a tributary meandering through the Scottish border country, which provided inspiration for many of Potter's classic stories.

American athletes and American teams are stinking it up on the world stage. That's obvious. What isn't obvious is why. Less obvious is whether this means more, or less, than what it is. Less obvious than that? Whether it really matters as much as many Americans are making it matter. Lots of people seem to have answers, but in reality, there are so many segments to this topic that no single one tells the entire story. This much we know: What appeared at the time to be an isolated incident - the men's basketball team coming home from the 2004 Olympics with only a bronze medal - evolved into a trend (in later disappointments at the Turin Games and in the World Baseball Classic)

Evan Guilfoyle and Jonathan Schultz's Winterlude is an episodic, subversively elegiac look at relationships. John Kinhart's Non-Player Character is a documentary about three men whose lives are perhaps uncomfortably defined by the make-believe roles they play. Nikc Miller's A Special Message from CCAQZ is a happily absurdist short about gay zombies and their antisocial behavior. Three films, aimed at disparate audiences, but with one common thread -- all are the work of Maryland filmmakers, as are all the films being shown Sunday as the seventh Hopkins Film Fest winds to a close.

Eli Manning comes from the first family of football. Ben Roethlisberger comes from the disregarded Mid-American Conference. Philip Rivers grew up a coach's son, watching practice as a tyke when he could barely throw the ball. J.P. Losman grew up five minutes from the UCLA campus, but played across the country in New Orleans at Tulane University. Disparate backgrounds, common skills. It's the ability to move an offense down the field in dire circumstances, to make plays that are there -- and some that aren't -- that will bring these four college quarterbacks together on Saturday in the first round of the NFL draft.

CLARIFICATION An article in yesterday's Sports section on Orioles uniforms failed to acknowledge as a source for the article Bruce Genther, a memorabilia collector who has compiled an authoritative history of Orioles uniforms. The Sun regrets the omission. The sports fan itching for a fight can always stroll into Pickles Pub across from Oriole Park at Camden Yards some game night and loudly declare support for keeping that darn city name - "Baltimore" - off the Orioles' road jerseys.

They've paid their dues and now it's their time to shine. From playing in the street to playing in empty bars, these local bands have seen it all. Now, their songs are being spun on the radio, and they're booking high-profile gigs. Below are the tales of three local bands: one well-established in the Baltimore area since the mid-'90s, another growing its fan base since 1997 and a third making its mark in less than two years. Despite being at different stages in their musical careers, these bands have an important common thread - they're all on the rise.

Evan Guilfoyle and Jonathan Schultz's Winterlude is an episodic, subversively elegiac look at relationships. John Kinhart's Non-Player Character is a documentary about three men whose lives are perhaps uncomfortably defined by the make-believe roles they play. Nikc Miller's A Special Message from CCAQZ is a happily absurdist short about gay zombies and their antisocial behavior. Three films, aimed at disparate audiences, but with one common thread -- all are the work of Maryland filmmakers, as are all the films being shown Sunday as the seventh Hopkins Film Fest winds to a close.

The ribbing was chalked in on the portable blackboard that sits outside the office of C. Milton Wright football coach Steve Harward.On the left side was a circle about three inches in diameter depicting a smiling face with the inscription: "Jay's head before the season."On the other side was a circle of another smiling face 10 times larger with the words: "Jay's head now" written above it.But, if the truth be known, success hasn't spoiled the area's leading high school runner, Jason Tharpe.

On Saturday mornings in Fells Point, when few have walked their dogs, parking is still plentiful, and proprietors sweep the sidewalks in front of their shops, Lorraine Gaudet readies two dozen folding chairs and puts on pots of coffee and tea. On balmy days, women begin arriving before 10 a.m. for the "stitch and bitch" session at her Aliceanna Street shop, A Good Yarn. They grab a chair and arrange themselves in groups beneath a tree on the sidewalk in front, their coffee on tables and yarns flowing from big brown bags at their feet.

There's little as sensitive for elected officials as publicly discussing their salaries, but Howard County's executive and County Council did exactly that last night. Meeting with the seven-member Compensation Review Commission, County Executive James N. Robey and four of the five council members said they love their jobs so much that the pay doesn't matter, but there were a few little catches. Robey said he works 80-hour weeks and has spent more than $10,000 out of his own pocket for his wife's tickets to charitable events.