Downfall

*TC In firing the Rev. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. Saturday as executive director of the NAACP, the venerable civil rights organization's board of directors bowed to the inevitable and did what was necessary. Mercifully, the board acted swiftly and decisively to limit the damage.Dr. Chavis clearly had become a serious liability to the group he headed. Having embroiled himself in controversy over his financial management of the organization and charges of sexual harassment and discrimination, he made his own credibility an issue that overrode all other concerns, including the new course he had set for the NAACP's future.

It's amazing that the men who ran the CIA and the war in Afghanistan had so much time on their hands ("Pieces of a puzzle," Nov. 14). The indiscretions of former CIA Director David Petraeus and Gen. John Allen are an embarrassment. I hate to think what the "boots on the ground" are saying about their leaders today. However, in the case of Mr. Petraeus it was more than a fall from grace, more than a personal failing and poor judgment. It was blatant disregard for national security.

It's amazing that the men who ran the CIA and the war in Afghanistan had so much time on their hands ("Pieces of a puzzle," Nov. 14). The indiscretions of former CIA Director David Petraeus and Gen. John Allen are an embarrassment. I hate to think what the "boots on the ground" are saying about their leaders today. However, in the case of Mr. Petraeus it was more than a fall from grace, more than a personal failing and poor judgment. It was blatant disregard for national security.

Her towering frontline had been cut down to size by a stronger, scrappier Notre Dame team Tuesday night, but that wasn't the real problem facing Brenda Frese. Standout sophomores Alyssa Thomas and Laurin Mincy had combined for only 19 points, but that, too, wasn't what wrecked Maryland in yet another NCAA tournament flame-out. The latest and ultimately greatest obstacle inside PNC Arena for the Terps in their 80-49 loss was very much an old one. As it authored another chapter in Maryland's decidedly undistinguished defensive history, Notre Dame turned a regional final showdown into a glorified layup line, with unimpeded trips to the rim coming almost as easy as its path to a second straight Final Four.

The indictment and suspension of President Carlos Andres Perez for corruption probably protects rather than endangers Venezuela's 35-year old democracy. But it imperils economic reform and growth in the second-largest foreign supplier of oil to the United States. How much better if Mr. Perez had been able to serve out his term until the election in December, and complete his reforms.President from 1974 to 1979, Mr. Perez is the grand old democratic politician of the Americas. He was the populist who nationalized Venezuela's oil and steel industries.

The resurgence of documentaries and the rise of reality television may render obsolete even docudramas as serious and accomplished as Downfall, a dogged, detailed chronicle of Hitler's final days. The domestic action in Hitler's bunker is like a Big Brother arc in which Big Brother is not the audience but Adolf, the most evil Big Brother of all time. There's no smoking until he's gone! The arguments in the command posts in and out of the bunker resemble a nightmare version of The Apprentice: The boss is going crazy and no one can agree on whether to please, ignore or poison him. Bruno Ganz energizes the film with his extraordinary edge-of-darkness performance as der Fuhrer in his death throes; even when he's acting avuncular to his secretary, Traudl Junge, there's a bitter skeletal rattle in his voice box, a graveyard stench to his hunched body and crippled left hand.

The home loan program was dubbed South Street. It turned the idea of credit risk on its head. Consumers just exiting bankruptcy could get a mortgage with few questions. They could have some of the lowest possible credit scores. And they didn't have to submit any pay stubs or tax returns. Subprime mortgage lender Fieldstone Investment Corp. of Columbia created the loan program during the real-estate gold rush in 2004 as competitors flooded the market. Such risk-taking would be Fieldstone's undoing.

Baltimore-born Alger Hiss (1904-1996) was the central figure in one of the Cold War's most sensational espionage cases. Raised in Bolton Hill and educated at City College, Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Law School, Hiss was a New Dealer who served in the departments of Agriculture, Justice and State. After World War II, he helped draft the United Nations charter and was president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In 1948, Whittaker Chambers, a self-professed one-time communist spy, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee that Hiss had been a member of his espionage ring and had given him classified State Department documents.

THE VENEZUELAN military's about-face on ousting President Hugo Chavez has given the flamboyant leader a chance to reassess his revolutionary style of politics and its impact on Latin America's oil-rich democracy. But the coup-that-wasn't also has exposed the Bush administration's parochial and misguided policy on Venezuela, and in the region at large. Instead of roundly denouncing last week's coup attempt by Venezuela's premier business group and a cadre of military officials, Bush officials lashed out at Mr. Chavez, blaming him for his downfall.

Anyone who enjoys thought-provoking drama will find it in Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde. And those who appreciate formidable acting talent also will find it the Dignity Players' production of this play, which opened last weekend at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Annapolis. Director Mickey Handwerger illuminates Moises Kaufman's intellectually stimulating work on the unlikely improvised minimalist theater, the eight-member all-male supporting cast does not disappoint, and lead actor Jim Gallagher gives the best performance I've ever seen on a local stage.

Nonviolence, a potent force in the 1960s fight for civil rights, has become an "embarrassment, an instrument of the weak," lamented Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Taylor Branch. Seated in a wing chair Sunday afternoon in the chancel of First and Franklin Presbyterian Church in Mount Vernon, the author described how the strategy has fallen from favor. The Atlanta-born Branch, the son of a dry cleaner, wrote three books on the life of civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He was later invited by President Bill Clinton for a series of lengthy interviews at the White House for a work on Clinton's presidency.

Bob Bradley did not get a good night's rest. The coach of the U.S. national team and his players did not get back to their rural base until the wee hours of Sunday morning, but it wasn't the roosters or the dogs or even the cows that kept Bradley awake. Instead, unable to drop off, he played and replayed the 2-1 loss to Ghana that knocked the U.S. out of the World Cup. "I never sleep well after games," he said. "Wins, losses, it's never easy after a game. I usually watch the game over and over a few times."

So this is how Constellation Energy Group's crafty new ownership is going to play it. Appearing before the state Senate Finance Committee this week, a top executive with MidAmerican Energy Holdings was asked whether the company was open to reregulation of electricity in Maryland. His answer? He's willing to discuss it. Perhaps it should come as no shock that an Iowa-based power company known for its low-key approach and progressive management is not letting the sparks fly in Annapolis.

The Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad operated for 80 years, beginning in 1884. The little railroad ran from Baltimore to York twice daily. Stops in Harford County included Forest Hill, Highland, Bel Air and Fallston. With the lack of good roads, the Ma and Pa, as it was called, allowed local businesses and farms to prosper through the barter and sale of their products. The Ma and Pa marked the beginning of a period of prosperity for Harford County. As roads and automobiles improved, the railroad industry suffered.

About this time last season, the Blast was 14-9, had seven games remaining and probably was two wins away from clinching a position in the Major Indoor Soccer League playoffs. The team won its next game, but a nose-dive soon followed. Six consecutive defeats, including a morale-crushing one at home to the Philadelphia KiXX in the penultimate match, left the Blast out of the playoffs by one game. This season, the Blast is 14-9 with seven games remaining and perhaps only one win from the playoffs, which will include six teams this season because of the addition of three expansion teams.

GLENDALE, Ariz.-- --All season long, they were the bullies. The New England Patriots were perfect even when they weren't. They beat teams when it seemed they couldn't. More often, they beat teams viciously, without mercy or concern for anyone or anything except their own legacy, their own feeling of vengeance and superiority. The Patriots come out of the Super Bowl with a legacy, all right. They blew it like no other team had before. They're not the first NFL team to finish 18-1. No other team picked a worse time to get that one loss, however.

The battlefield U.S.-led troops marched into Baghdad and liberated Iraqi citizens from the two-decades-old regime of Saddam Hussein. U.S. officials said his government was no longer in control of Baghdad. Jubilant crowds swarmed into Baghdad streets, cheering U.S. troops before toppling a 40-foot statue of Hussein in Firdos Square. U.S. officials said they didn't know whether Hussein or his sons had survived a bombing attack that targeted them early this week. Scattered resistance from Iraqi troops continued at Baghdad University and in the northeastern section of the capital.

Gerard David Schine,68, an aide to U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the senator's hunt for Communists in the 1950s, was killed Wednesday with his wife and son when their small plane crashed on a highway after takeoff from Burbank, Calif.Mr. Schine was 26, Harvard-educated and heir to a hotel fortune when he began working for Mr. McCarthy in 1953. He and the senator's aide, Roy Cohn, went hunting for subversives in the U.S. Information Agency in Europe.Mr. Schine was drafted into the Army that winter.

The home loan program was dubbed South Street. It turned the idea of credit risk on its head. Consumers just exiting bankruptcy could get a mortgage with few questions. They could have some of the lowest possible credit scores. And they didn't have to submit any pay stubs or tax returns. Subprime mortgage lender Fieldstone Investment Corp. of Columbia created the loan program during the real-estate gold rush in 2004 as competitors flooded the market. Such risk-taking would be Fieldstone's undoing.

MIAMI -- The blueprint for the Ravens yesterday should have been to follow what another bad team, the New York Jets, did to the Miami Dolphins here two weeks ago. The Ravens should have kept attacking the Dolphins in the first half as they did on their opening drive, when Kyle Boller hit Yamon Figurs on a 36-yard pass for the rookie's first career reception. They didn't. The Ravens should have kept the pressure on Miami's inexperienced quarterback, Cleo Lemon, as they did for most of the first half, which ended with the Ravens holding a 10-point lead.