Empire

"Mr. Obama and his senior national security advisers have sought to reassure allies and answer critics, including many Republicans, that the United States will not abandon its commitments in the Persian Gulf even as it winds down the war in Iraq and looks ahead to doing the same in Afghanistan by the end of 2014. " I pluck a paragraph from The New York Times, and for an instant I'm possessed by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, aquiver with puzzlement down to my deepest sensibilities. I hold you here, root and all, little paragraph.

"Mr. Obama and his senior national security advisers have sought to reassure allies and answer critics, including many Republicans, that the United States will not abandon its commitments in the Persian Gulf even as it winds down the war in Iraq and looks ahead to doing the same in Afghanistan by the end of 2014. " I pluck a paragraph from The New York Times, and for an instant I'm possessed by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, aquiver with puzzlement down to my deepest sensibilities. I hold you here, root and all, little paragraph.

Liberty exists only in the brief time between the fall of one tyranny and the rise of another. The nation's founders understood this explicitly. That's why they constructed the system they did, under which the three branches of government would check and balance each other. The idea was to prolong the life of the Republic for a longer time than would naturally be the case. The Civil War left more than 600,000 Americans dead, along with the then-popular notion that states which had voluntarily joined a union could decide to withdraw from it. Ever since, except for brief periods during which an emerging America stopped to catch its breath, the path toward ever more powerful consolidated government has been trod rather swiftly.

Laurel Park Jockey Pino moves into 13th on wins list Mario Pino moved ahead of Hall of Famer Eddie Delahoussaye for 13th on the all-time win list when he guided 13-1 shot Torcello ($29) to victory in Thursday's second race at Laurel Park. The 50-year-old Ellicott City resident has 6,385 trips to the winner's circle during his career. Pino's next goal is to land in the top 10 all-time before retiring. He is 86 wins away from passing Earlie Fires and moving into elusive company.

And so it ends. The United States is leaving Iraq. I'm solidly in the camp that sees this as a strategic blunder. Iraqi democracy is fragile and Iran's desire to undermine it is strong. Also, announcing our withdrawal is a weird way to respond to a foiled Iranian plot to commit an act of war in the U.S. capital. Obviously, I hope I'm wrong and President Obama's not frittering away our enormous sacrifices in Iraq out of domestic political concerns and diplomatic ineptitude. Still, there's an upside.

PRESIDENT BUSH wants Robert Gates to head the Central Intelligence Agency, a job Bush once held. President Reagan also favored Gates, but withdrew his previous nomination in 1987 as facts about the Iran-contra affair surfaced.Gates was a CIA leader when the agency waged covert warfare hidden from the American people. He helped his boss, former director William Casey, deceive Congress. Gates is "a very smart guy who ... covered his rear end" in the affair, security expert Tom Blanton says.

The Mulberry Empire, by Philip Hensher. Alfred A. Knopf. 512 pages. $26. Among historical novelists there is a class that aims for something superior to your average Michener or Uris potboiler. One thinks of Guy Garcia, Susan Sontag and now, Philip Hensher, author of The Mulberry Empire. Members of this "better" breed are intellectually and aesthetically more ambitious than the best-selling writers but often lack the best sellers' ability to engage us in a tightly constructed story of a faraway time and place.

RUSSIAN PRESIDENT Vladimir V. Putin announces his intention to strengthen the role of the state and reminds the world and his country that Russia remains a great nuclear power. Strobe Talbott, the Clinton administrations previously upbeat Russian policy maker, now sounds a distinctly less optimistic note in concern about a resurgent Russian past. Is empire again on Russia's agenda? We do not know the motives of Russias present leaders, but if they do yearn for restoration of an empire, they will have great difficulty bringing the voters along.

The headline reads: "Thousands of angry Iraqis pillage billion-dollar U.S. Embassy in Baghdad." The article details the ransacking of the grandiose American Embassy by Iraqi mobs. This is the story I expect to read one day within the next decade. In the 1950s, when I was in high school in Baghdad, my friends and I admired the technological advances of America and the West. But we resented the colonial tendencies of the West (especially, at the time, those of the British). Many demonstrations were held in front of the British and American embassies.

When in Rome, ABC can't do as the ancient Romans did. The current furor over television indecency obviously limits Empire, a lavish drama about the power struggle after Julius Caesar's assassination. The program uses quick, flashy editing to suggest gladiatorial violence and orgiastic hanky-panky. Yet the six-hour miniseries, which starts tomorrow at 9 p.m. on WMAR, Channel 2, feels limited in other, more profound ways. The story, a liberal mix of history and fiction, takes adventurous leaps that strain credulity.

And so it ends. The United States is leaving Iraq. I'm solidly in the camp that sees this as a strategic blunder. Iraqi democracy is fragile and Iran's desire to undermine it is strong. Also, announcing our withdrawal is a weird way to respond to a foiled Iranian plot to commit an act of war in the U.S. capital. Obviously, I hope I'm wrong and President Obama's not frittering away our enormous sacrifices in Iraq out of domestic political concerns and diplomatic ineptitude. Still, there's an upside.

Michael Kenneth Williams is feeling lucky these days. The 44-year-old performer known to fans of HBO's "The Wire" as fearless stickup man Omar Little says there is nothing he's wanted more since the Baltimore-based drama ended than to "just continuously stay working" as an actor. And as the new TV season rolls out, evidence of his eminent employability is hard to miss. Williams returns to HBO tonight as a 1920s African-American community leader named Chalky White in the critically acclaimed drama series "Boardwalk Empire.

Everyone seems to be upset about the Emmys last night. And it's not just because of the bizarre inclusion of the singing Emmytones. It's what's being perceived as a big diss for HBO's "Boardwalk Empire. " After winning a slew of technical awards at the unaired Schemmys, many had predicted the 1920s period drama could eke out a Nucky Thompson-esque underdog win. Not so much. Yes, Martin Scorsese rightfully won for directing the visually stunning, movie-quality pilot episode. But I'm not surprised the show failed to take home some of the major acting awards and lost in the outstanding drama race.

If you're like many people, when you think of New Jersey, you probably think of larger-than-life gangsters bullying everyone around them.  Television and pop culture have ingrained this image in our minds, but, graciously, the modern-day politicians of the Garden State have done more than their fair share to uphold this stereotype.  Dislike what somebody says? Rudely put them in their place.  Don't get your way at the state house? Threaten to punch someone in the head.

Brice R. Phillips, the patriarch of a Maryland seafood empire that began 55 years ago with a simple crab shack in Ocean City/, died Friday at his home in the seaside resort town. Mr. Phillips, who was 90, had been in declining health. The cause of death has not yet been determined. The family business now includes 19 Phillips restaurants, along with a line of retail products sold under the Phillips Seafood name and seafood products for the food service industry. Mr. Phillips, who co-founded the restaurant business with his wife of 68 years, Shirley, remained closely associated with the company even after handing day-to-day responsibilities to a son, Stephen B. Phillips of Annapolis, in the mid-1990s.

Rick Ross is the most consistent — and arguably the most important — rapper working today. Hip-hop's crown changes heads with swift regularity (ask me tomorrow and I could say Kanye West or Lil Wayne based on whatever new leak was liberated). But on Monday, May 23 — the day Ross and his Maybach Music Group drop the compilation album Self Made, Vol. 1 — the Miami behemoth is king, thanks to an unrelenting onslaught of crisp, expertly edited lifestyle videos and less-engrossing-but-still-entertaining low-budget music videos.

KARAKORUM, Mongolia -- In a quiet valley at the end of a rutted road, a few stone and ceramic fragments have been piled on top of each other in memory of the past. The beheaded stone lions and smashed tiles are about all that remain above ground of ancient Karakorum, once the capital of the world's largest empire.Now, 790 years after Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire, his descendants are trying to establish themselves in the modern world, breaking out of centuries of isolation and foreign occupation to build an open, prosperous nation.

Ray Lewis said he doesn't have a gut feeling on whether there will be a full 16-game NFL season this year. Asked why he doesn't, the Ravens linebacker offered this cryptic response Wednesday: "I don't know. I'm more on the inside of it of talking to [NFL Players Association leader] DeMaurice Smith and talking to all those guys. But a lot of it, I'm totally away from them because I look at it totally different, and I'll share that at another time. " The NFL and the players disagree on who should oversee talks after a judge handling the injunction urged the sides to go "back to the table.

Atlantic City Antiques & Collectors Show What: Antiques show with appraisals, glass repair, pottery restoration. The show organizer has partnered with AntiqueClothier.com to present "Revisit the Empire through Fashion," an exhibit that will feature clothing and accessories from the 1920's, styles often seen in "Boardwalk Empire," a TV show on HBO that's set in Atlantic City during the Prohibition era. "Boardwalk" actor Michael Stuhlbarg (he plays Arnold Rothstein) and producer Terence Winter will sign autographs from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.