Empathy

DID THE front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination use cocaine many years ago? Should journalists insist on finding out?Fiercely debated inside the national media's echo chamber, such questions tell us that candidates and the media are trying, in their own ways, to dance past engagement with real issues.Obsessions with drug use and adultery dominate the media landscape. Today's political news is more entertaining -- and more accessible -- than policy.Last September, several members of Congress teamed up with researchers and activists for a dramatic forum about "economic human rights" in this country.

PINEHURST, N.C. -- Talk about a grand slam.Reigning Masters champion Jose Maria Olazabal of Spain wasn't talking about it much yesterday here at the 99th U.S. Open. Nor will anyone else this year when it comes to the possibility of completing golf's seemingly impossible feat.After completing an opening-round 75 Thursday, Olazabal apparently took out his frustrationon a wall in the locker room. As Orioles manager Ray Miller found out recently, the wall usually wins.According to a statement released by the USGA, Olazabal said: "I have a broken bone in the fifth metacarpal on my right hand.

LANDOVER -- In another time, under different circumstances, this would have been a victory for coach Norv Turner to savor.The Washington Redskins, losers of three of their past four games, parlayed five turnovers and a 183-yard rushing effort by Stephen Davis into a 23-13 victory over the New York Giants yesterday.It put Washington in sole possession of first place in the NFC East at 6-4 with six games left and should have been a reason to celebrate. After all, the Redskins' defense, ranked worst in the league, held the Giants to one touchdown.

DURING this century, the so-called eastern establishment has produced some of America's greatest national leaders. Most notable are the two Roosevelts who served as U.S. presidents -- Theodore and Franklin -- a Republican and a Democrat, respectively.Both men were raised in a world of private schools and summer homes. Both had certain habits and manners that were peculiar to their class. But they also had the ability to raise their eyes above their class and discern mankind at large.This is what helped to make them great national leaders.

Paying its fourth visit to the Mechanic Theatre in seven years, "Les Miserables" continues to attract near sellout crowds, allowing it to command the Mechanic's top ticket price ever. And, thanks to the theatrical ingenuity with which it transforms Victor Hugo's epic 19th-century novel into a musical with nonstop singing and action, the show continues to give theatergoers value for the dollar.Repeat audiences will find a couple of differences in this production, which was touched up this year, when the musical celebrated its 10th year on Broadway.

It was with much effort that I dragged myself back into work yesterday after a Christmas Day spent stuffing myself with assorted goodies. But readers are expecting a column today, and, darn it, a somewhat heavier Greg Kane is going to give it to them.There is still more news from the mail front. Some of my letters you just have to read to believe. Take, for example, this one from my bosom buddy Leo Williams of Baltimore:"Dear Mr. Kane:You don't have the racial self-esteem of an illiterate Eskimo.

There aren't enough movies like the first half of "Metro" and there are too many like the second half. That's why the film is a disjointed experience, and the goodwill it builds is so squashed and pulped by movie's end you may wonder why you bothered.Clever new wrinkle on a very old piece of material: It's the new partner thing, cop-style, that useful armature for a hundred efficient B-grade thrillers. But here the odd couple consists of a negotiator -- that is, a nurturer, a compromiser, a connoisseur of eye contact and empathy -- suddenly and arbitrarily yoked to a SWAT Team sniper -- that is, a predator, a shooter, a hunter.

HOW WOULD YOU feel if someone did that to you?"I have asked that question so many times, I am the one with no feelings -- in my lips or tongue."How do you think she would feel if she could hear what you are saying about her? How would you like it if someone said that about your hair/pimples/father?" (Fill in the blank.)I am a car-pooling mother of two, trapped in a matrix of rides to pools, fields and baseball diamonds, and, unless I turn the radio up very loud, most of what I hear is kids ripping other kids.

THE EMPATHETIC powers of President Clinton were in full view Thursday during his short visit to Israel after the Mideast terrorism summit. But empathy like symbolism is no mean quality, and seeing the president of the United States tenderly placing a pebble from the south lawn of the White House on the grave of Israel's assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin sent a strong message about the United States' stake in keeping alive the peace process between...

WITH THE presidential debates now part of the history of the 1996 campaign, attention is bound to focus in the 19 days remaining on the battle for control of Congress. Republican challenger Bob Dole was gritty and determined in his last face-to-face encounter with an elusive President Clinton, but he remains at a distinct disadvantage in all the major opinion polls.Mr. Dole has to hope for the breakthrough that, so far, has never come: Perhaps hard evidence that Indonesian political contributions to the Democratic Party influenced U.S policy toward the Suharto regime.

Why do judges wear robes? Does their peculiar mode of dress tell us anything about the ideal character and qualities of a judge? Do the robes indicate whether "empathy" - a quality highly touted by President Barack Obama in his appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court - ought to figure in the judicial temperament? From time immemorial, the special quality of a judge has been thought to be impartiality. Lady Justice is always pictured blindfolded. She does not see persons; if she did, she might empathize with some and not others.

Judges should be impartial Byron Warnken states that in order to maintain trust in judges each person has to believe that a judge "understands and represents me" ("Sotomayor would move court in right direction," May 28). I was under the impression that the reason we trust judges is because they are committed to being fair and impartial. I don't expect a judge to judge me personally but to judge whether or not I broke the law or had my rights violated. David Plaut, Reisterstown Court needs diversity Of course a white male could not have the insight into a woman's life or Hispanic's life that a Hispanic woman could have.

Why make this complicated? President Barack Obama prefers Supreme Court justices who will violate their oath of office. And he hopes Sonia Sotomayor is the right Hispanic woman for the job. Here's the oath Supreme Court justices must take: "I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as (title)

My fianc?e and I have six college and graduate school degrees between us. For nearly two decades, we've worked in non-finance-related, white-collar professions. Last winter she was laid off without warning and without a severance package. This spring I found out that my contract will not be renewed at the college where I teach. With no kids and good credentials, we are fairly advantaged members of the swelling ranks of the unemployed. The situation for us isn't dire. Yet. But we are experiencing emotional and financial realities that our parents and our professors virtually promised us would never happen.

Employment nightmare erases American dream I read with both empathy and dismay the "Out of work" article (Nov. 9). Two thoughts crossed my mind. First, the people interviewed seemingly were all law-abiding, upstanding citizens. Second, the magnitude of this epidemic was exacerbated by the fact that the employment niches ran the economic gamut, from janitor to information technologist. Look around. These people are our neighbors, our co-workers and in some cases our brothers and sisters, or mothers and fathers.

Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality By Pauline W. Chen Chen charts her personal and professional rites of passage in dealing with mortality, from her first dissection of a human cadaver, through the first time she pronounces a patient dead, to having to officially take responsibility for the accidental death of a patient in her care. Focusing on the enormous moral and psychological pressures on doctors and on the need for greater empathy in hospital end-of-life care, Chen also reports on signs of change within the profession, stemming from both criticisms of training and institutions and from physicians' initiatives to bring a greater sense of shared humanity to their work.

ARE YOU, like, the queen of Australia?" "No, Cate Blanchett is, I'll be lady-in-waiting." That was the exchange between Newsweek magazine and one of our favorite stars, Nicole Kidman. Nicole is gracious, and though she is probably sincere, she is nobody's lady-in-waiting. This beauty continues on a tightrope, career-wise. She takes chances and works where the inspiration, the interesting directors and the fascinating scripts are. Her latest, Margot at the Wedding, has its flaws, but Nicole gives herself over to a characterization that is relentless and unredeemed in sour spitefulness.

With her straggly blond hair - a few months late on a dye job - and messy makeup, Helene McCready is a tornado of hurt and mistrust in Gone Baby Gone, Ben Affleck's directing debut opening today. The world has given her a raw deal that's only gotten worse with the kidnapping of her 4-year-old daughter. But she's also a street-smart grifter, whose tears you're never sure are real. Helene was just the sort of character Amy Ryan wanted to portray. "I felt like I can do this," says Ryan, recalling her emotions upon reading the script written by Affleck and Aaron Stockard based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, who also wrote the novel Mystic River.

The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban By Sarah Chayes Penguin / 386 pages / $25.95 Afghanistan is sometimes referred to as the forgotten war. Once the linchpin of America's war on terror, which hinged on toppling the Taliban regime and hunting down Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan has been eclipsed by the bloodshed in Iraq. Five years after the Taliban collapsed, the country is struggling to cope with lawlessness, corruption, a roaring illicit drug trade and attacks by insurgents determined to drive out foreign troops.

It's sometimes said that everyone has a double. But what if you found out you also had a triple, or a quadruple? Or, for that matter, what if there were 20 of you? These are among the questions raised by British playwright Caryl Churchill's elliptical drama A Number, receiving its Baltimore premiere at Everyman Theatre. In A Number, a grown son discovers that he has at least 20 clones. Then he discovers that he is a clone -- that his father had his original son cloned, then raised the clone instead.