Compassion

WHEN THE Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition opens its annual conference this week, Texas Gov. George W. Bush won't be there. The front-runner for the Republican Party's presidential nomination wasn't invited.That's a serious mistake.Mr. Jackson says he wants to use the Chicago gathering to help shape the debate for the presidential campaign. Apparently the only candidates he seeks to influence are Vice President Al Gore and former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, both Democrats.Such a strategy may prove to be a futile effort if the lead Mr. Bush now has in the polls holds.

What John Unitas represents to football and America deserves more than this -- a lame right hand that is almost useless, the direct result of an injury sustained in a game the Baltimore Colts played more than 30 years ago.Ironically, the legendary "Golden Arm" of Unitas, who passed for more than 40,000 yards in a glittering Hall of Fame career, was so severely damaged as a result of being hurt against the Dallas Cowboys in an exhibition on Sept. 7, 1968, that he can hardly comb his hair, pick up a newspaper or lift a coffee cup -- no exaggeration.

UNWITTINGLY, a 19-year-old teen has become a flash point for what's troubling Americans.David Cash, a sophomore at the University of California at Berkeley, witnessed a crime allegedly committed by his buddy.The friend is charged with murder, kidnapping and sexual assault of a 7-year-old girl in the ladies room of a casino near Las Vegas.Most disgusting was Mr. Cash's cavalier attitude. He didn't stop his friend, notify police or try to help the child. He's quoted as saying: "I'm not going to get upset over someone else's life.

"Love! Valour! Compassion!" is the latest film to promote the therapeutic value of pastoral settings.Like "On Golden Pond" and "The Big Chill," it plops an ensemble cast into a remote but civilized locale that compels its characters to sort through intricate, shifting relationships. "Love! Valour! Compassion!" is a far more complex film than the others and an even better one. It also features more male nudity. Much, much more.All eight characters are middle-class gay men between 20 and 40, friends who gather at a majestic Victorian house in upstate New York during three summer holiday weekends.

LAW ENFORCEMENT and social service agencies have become better attuned to the needs of domestic violence victims over the years. Police now take assaults in the home more seriously than a decade ago, and battered women have a wider variety of places to turn for help. But other steps can be taken. In Howard County, two separate efforts should bring victims added compassion while holding offenders more accountable.The state's attorney's office plans to begin a program in December to aid domestic violence victims.

The Rev. Bill Hayman was puzzled last month when a man called his office claiming to represent the Coalition for Compassion, requesting donations for a needy woman. That's because Hayman is a supervisor for the Coalition for Compassion, a group that distributes money to Howard County residents who can't pay utility, rent or prescription-drug bills."He told me he was calling for the Coalition for Compassion, which I thought was awfully strange," said Hayman, pastor of Lutheran Church of the Living Word in Columbia.

John Glover is tired of being a villain, but that isn't why he'll be on view at the Senator Theatre tonight as a genial benefactor.The Tony Award-winning actor won't be playing a part this time. He is a genial benefactor, and he'll be playing host to a screening of his film "Love! Valour! Compassion!" to help his alma mater, Towson State University, raise money for a scholarship fund in his name.Glover was one of the first students in Towson's theater arts program. He graduated in 1966, boarded a bus for New York and has been in theater, film and television ever since.

Princess Diana exemplified compassionAs a family glued to the television and Internet the last few days regarding the death of Princess Diana, it dawned on me just what this means in the big picture.The loss of such a humane, compassionate, genuine human being has touched every heart in every nation. Why? Because underneath the big scheme of it all, we yearn for compassion and kindness as a nation.The sadness experienced by everyone of every culture, race, religion and creed proves that we want such icons in our world.

"Sunset Boulevard," a $13 million musical extravaganza, and "Love! Valour! Compassion!" a $750,000 bargain play produced under a cost-cutting plan, took top honors at the 49th annual Tony Awards last night."Sunset Boulevard's" win was as predictable as the sunrise since it was the only full-fledged new musical to open on Broadway this season. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical adaptation of Billy Wilder's classic 1950 movie won more Tonys than any other show -- seven, including one for leading lady Glenn Close's portrayal of silent movie diva Norma Desmond.

WASHINGTON -- Balkan savagery is forcing Americans to think through a moral dilemma that brings to mind one of the great comic figures of English fiction -- Mrs. Jellyby in Charles Dickens' ''Bleak House.''She makes a brief but telling appearance in a brilliant essay soon to be published in The National Interest quarterly.The essay is ''Compassion and the Globalization of the Spectacle of Suffering,'' by Clifford Orwin of the University of Toronto.Mrs. Jellyby was the ditzy do-gooder who practiced ''telescopic philanthropy.

Moments before Mildred Bogier walked into the East Baltimore rowhouse, she stretched her arms toward the sky in thanks. At 71, Bogier is a homeowner for the first time, through a program called Compassion Commission run by the Rock City Church in Towson. Yesterday afternoon, amid boarded-up rowhouses and the tall grass of nearby vacant lots, community residents celebrated at a block party and then streamed into what will be Bogier's renovated home in about a month when workers complete the final touches.

When The Arc of Howard County decided to create an annual award for compassionate leadership, its longtime benefactor Jim Greenfield, founder of Columbia Builders, was the obvious choice. "It's really his compassion for people that defines the person that he is," said Kari Ebeling, director of resource development at the Arc. "His leadership and compassion for wanting the best for people is very broad-based in our community. This will be given in subsequent years to people who embody the same characteristics, qualities and contributions that Jim represents."

As a rule, the Republicans campaigning for president sound more like they are running for sheriff of Yuma County, Ariz. In this race, the acceptable lines on illegal immigration are hard, harder and hardest. It's rare to hear someone call for policies that include "love and compassion," as Sen. John McCain did in Sunday's Univision debate. Compassion for illegal immigrants? Is he kidding? In reality, Mr. McCain is truer to GOP tradition than Mike Huckabee, who says, "I will take our country back for those who belong here," or Rudolph W. Giuliani, who says foreigners should have to carry cards with biometric identifiers, or Mitt Romney, who insists Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Giuliani are not nearly tough enough.

On July 28, 2007, RUTHIE MAE JONES. On Thursday, friends may call at Compassion Funeral Services, 119-121 S. Stricker Street, where the family will receive friends from 3 to 6 p.m. On Friday, services will be held at Compassion Funeral Chapel, 119-121 S. Stricker Street, where the family will receive friends from 10:30-11 a.m. with services to follow. Inquiries to 410-566-5500.

A word of advice to Mayor Sheila Dixon: Next time "motherly compassion" strikes, reach for a bottle of "mayoral common sense." Try measuring the interests of one person against the interests of thousands of other inhabitants of Baltimore -- the vast majority of your constituents -- and maybe you won't have to apologize for a mistake such as the one you and your chief of staff made in the matter of Charles Murel. You tried to get this 20-year-old convicted carjacker, awaiting trial on a handgun charge, out of jail to attend his 3-year-old son's funeral.

On June 4, 2007, TYRONE WILLIE BONNER, Jr. On Monday, friends may call at Compassion Funeral Services, 3000 E. Baltimore Street where the family will receive friends from 2-6 P.M. On Tuesday, services will be held at Compassion Funeral Chapel, 3000 from 10:30-11 A.M., with services to follow. Inquiries to (410) 675-5200.

While listening to the flood of coverage about the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, I caught a comment from an English professor, Lucinda Roy, who taught the student gunman. Ms. Roy spotted that Cho Seung-Hui was extremely disturbed. She had read his violent fantasies in English class, and although many others detected an isolated, withdrawn loner, she realized how serious the situation was. She feared that Mr. Cho was suicidal, and took steps to help him. In that regard, Ms. Roy was singular in her compassion.

On April 11, 2007, WANDA FAYE BARRACATO. On Monday, friends may call at Compassion Funeral Services, 119-121 S. Stricker Street where the family will receive friends from 3:00-8:00 P.M. and 7:00-9:00 P.M. Inquiries to (410)566-5600

On February 17, 2007 JERRY WAYNE PAINTER, SR., beloved husband of Lorraine Painter. On Wednesday, friends may call at Compassion Funeral Services, 119-121 S. Stricker St., where the family will receive friends from 5 to 9 P.M. On Friday, services will be held at Compassion Funeral Services, 119-121 S. Stricker St., where the family will receive friends from 9:30 to 10 A.M. with services to follow. Inquiries to 410-566-5500

Bridge to Terabithia is much less than it's being advertised as, which makes it much more of a good thing. Pitched to the public as some latter-day Chronicles of Narnia, complete with scads of CGI-driven special effects, Terabithia is a much gentler, wiser film. It's certainly no knockoff. And while the beguiling, bucolic world it brings to the screen may seem overly contrived at times, its core values - friendship, imagination, compassion - are always worth celebrating, especially when depicted with the care and reverence so obvious here.