Europe

Last summer, while traveling in England, I went on a hike through the Cotswolds countryside. The two-hour trek took me from the charming hill town of Stow-on-the-Wold, through the villages of Lower and Upper Slaughter to Bourton-on-the-Water, the "Venice of the Cotswolds. " Along the way, I caught backyard glimpses of farms in action, ducks rudely swimming butt-up in mill ponds, rabbits popping up in fields videogame-style, ancient wind-sculpted trees, wet and slippery kissing gates, and slender slate church spires marking distant villages where I knew a hot cup of tea was waiting.

It's Europe Day! (Yeah, we didn't know that either.) Welcome to your trends report for Friday, May 10. You're not alone if you were in the dark about the EU's annual holiday: Apparently, very few Europeans know that it exists. Nonetheless, between that, soccer championships and some market-related news articles, Europe managed to get some major attention on Twitter this morning. Also getting heavy traffic -- mostly on Google search -- was the NBA. This weekend's matchups include Heat-Bulls and Warriors-Spurs.

The Maastricht Treaty of 1991, tightening the unity of the European Community, is still alive. British House of Commons approval, after Prime Minister John Major made it a test of confidence in his government, means the treaty is as good as ratified in all 12 EC countries. A single currency for most of Europe may become a reality by the next century after all.The high drama of the treaty's rejection in the House of Commons last Thursday, followed by passage on Friday after Mr. Major threatened an immediate election if it lost, brought him from the pits to the peak of his career.

William Deal Waxter III, a retired securities analyst and World War II veteran, died of a stroke Feb. 11 at Broadmead Retirement Community. The former Roland Park resident was 88. Born in Baltimore and raised on Lombardy Place, he spent his summers at Ocean City 's Plimhimmon Hotel, a landmark founded in 1894 by his great-grandmother, Rosalie Tilghman Shreve, on Second Street at the Boardwalk. Family members said that as a teenager he ran the hotel's switchboard and began a lifelong interest in communications.

PARIS -- The future of Europe was decided last week, even though the Europeans do not yet realize it. There are to be two ''Europes,'' not one.Last Tuesday the European Commission told the European Parliament that it recommended inviting five former Soviet-bloc countries to join the EU. These are the three already invited to join NATO -- the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary -- plus Estonia and Slovenia.The next day, the commission took note of the radical structural changes necessary to make the European Union work, but postponed acting on them until the new millennium.

As a practicing physician for more than 40 years, I read with interest Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s column on Obamacare ("Injecting Obamacare into economy will hurt - a lot," Dec. 30). He envisions the consequences will be higher taxes, bigger budgets and less choice. While all of that is probably correct, the key fact about Obamacare is that by 2019 the number of uninsured Americans will have been cut in half, from some 50 million to 25 million. But this is still a national disgrace, because it leaves the United States as the only industrialized country in the world that does not provide all of its citizens with a guaranteed level of basic health care.

Several years ago, "Europe '92" was the hottest topic of economic futurists. What would happen when 12 markets became one, when an engineering design specification good in one country needed no change for the other 11, when a sausage meeting health standards in one met them in all, when people traveled from one to another without bothering to show papers?Would U.S. business be ready for the challenge and the opportunity? The phrase Europe '92, the year in which all the bureaucratic changes would be accomplished, really meant '93, the first day of which all changes would be in effect.

While Germany calls the shots in Europe to the discomfort of others, the French relish their role in Sunday's referendum. They alone will decide if the supernational unification movement in Europe goes forward or backward. In the last poll, they were split down the middle.The Maastricht Treaty for monetary union was a natural progression for Eurocrats. The officials and politicians in the European Community are pushing the transformation of formerly warring powers into one economic superpower.

One of the startling contrasts at the 34-nation assemblage of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe is the self-assurance of NATO countries and the fretting that afflicts Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and other nations which have broken free of Moscow's grip.Their time for celebration occurred a year ago. Now they face a future in which they are very much on their own -- burdened with economies wrecked by Communist theory, plagued by ethnic and nationalist unrest, tied to a Warsaw Pact that will shortly be dismantled, held at arms length by their prosperous western neighbors and very much at sea about their future security.

New York. WHAT MAKES twice as much money as Japan and may live better than the United States? That's easy; the answer is Europe.These are thrilling times in what we have always called the Old World. Europe was old because America was new, but the name stuck because Europe and Europeans have always had trouble with the new, trouble with change.''You know the difference between them and us?'' said an American businessman frustrated after a long day of negotiations with French bankers. ''In America you can do anything that isn't written down.

Paul Wilson Ramey, a member of the Army Corps of Engineers who was a founder of AIDS Action Baltimore, died of cancer Dec. 29 at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. He was 55 and lived in Hampden. Born and raised in Woodstock, Va., he was a 1975 graduate of Central High School who earned a civil engineering degree "with distinction" at Virginia Military Institute. He then served as a first lieutenant in the Army Reserves' transportation corps. After work at the Wilson T. Ballard engineering firm in Owings Mills, he practiced civil engineering at Whitman, Requardt and Associates from 1983 to 1991.

As a practicing physician for more than 40 years, I read with interest Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s column on Obamacare ("Injecting Obamacare into economy will hurt - a lot," Dec. 30). He envisions the consequences will be higher taxes, bigger budgets and less choice. While all of that is probably correct, the key fact about Obamacare is that by 2019 the number of uninsured Americans will have been cut in half, from some 50 million to 25 million. But this is still a national disgrace, because it leaves the United States as the only industrialized country in the world that does not provide all of its citizens with a guaranteed level of basic health care.

Marie McG. Leaf, a World War II combat nurse who cared for the wounded and dying on the battlefields of Europe, died Thursday of complications from Alzheimer's disease at the Augsburg Lutheran Home and Village in Lochearn. She was 95. The daughter of Irish immigrants, Marie Kathleen McGee was born in New York City. After her mother died when she was 3, she and her sister were sent to County Cavan in Ireland to be cared for by relatives. Her father, who had remarried, and brother moved to a home on Fulton Avenue in Baltimore.

As the presidential election counts down to (despite recent tightening in the polls) a likely Obama victory, even moderate Republicans despair that America is going the way of "social democratic" Western Europe, with a smaller private sector, more power in the hands of political and technocratic elites, and unlimited government. For their part, liberals cheer that America will finally catch up with the more "advanced" lands across the Atlantic. The fears of the right and hopes of the left reflect popular misconceptions about European realities.

The view of a 16th-century Lisbon street is such a teeming hodgepodge of races, social classes and religions and has so much life on display - much of it mischievous - that's it hard not to smile. Slightly to the right of center, an African man wearing the wide pants of a sailor dances with a stranger. He's trying to embrace a middle-aged white woman carrying a jug, who recoils in surprise. Toward the left, two Jewish policemen - identifiable by their long beards and armbands - support a sheepish-looking black prisoner who appears to be drunk.

People passing through the intersection at Charles and Centre streets recently may have noticed an intriguing banner hanging from the wall above the entrance to the Walters Art Museum . The oversize image depicts a black woman dressed in the manner of a 16 t h century Italian lady-in-waiting, who returns our gaze with an expression of ironic, amused self-awareness. Who is she? Alas, we don't know. The picture is based on a painting attributed to the Italian master Annibale Carracci, probably from the 1580s and possibly completed in Venice, where the artist is known to have traveled during those years and where objects such as the richly ornamented gilt tower clock the woman holds in one hand were common in the homes of that city's wealthy elite.

TODAY'S Slovenia could be tomorrow's Slovakia, or Transylvania, not to mention the Baltic states and the other separatists who are breaking up the U.S.S.R. from within. What is the answer? Do we continue as before, by waving a wallet of money before them and advocating wisdom?In Yugoslavia's case, Europe seems to have missed the boat. But the question is a far wider one. There is a need for open-mindedness about risks posed by the pan-European situation, something that was lacking before the Yugoslav situation exploded.

LONDON -- If Britain's defeated prime minister, John Major, had any real commitment to Europe he betrayed it by the timing of his resignation as leader of the Conservative party.Privately he touts as his successor Chris Patten, the most pro-Europe of senior Conservatives, but by resigning immediately he has made it impossible for Mr. Patten to throw his hat in the ring. Mr. Patten's current preoccupation as governor of Hong Kong precludes involvement with British electoral politics until the hand-over of Hong Kong to China in seven weeks.

Pick, don't bet on U.S. Teddy Greenstein Chicago Tribune I'll pick the Stars and Stripes. You can justify the pick like this: Even though the Americans have lost four straight on the road, they've won two of their last three in the land of the free. Plus Tiger Woods is to Chicago golf what pre-busted Lance Armstrong was to the Tour de France. Woods won the last two majors played at Medinah. But the Europeans have the better putters (Luke Donald, Rory McIlroy, Ian Poulter)

In a perfect world, there's a parking space next to your destination and it's free. For an imperfect world where parking is scarce and must be paid for, there's Dani Shavit, who wants to turn your mobile phone into a parking lot cashier's window. Shavit holds the U.S. license for Pango, an app-driven mobile parking service that is big in Israel and Europe but just getting started here. Since opening its headquarters in Baltimore last year, Pango Shyyny USA LLC has signed deals with Latrobe, Pa.; a private garage in the heart of New York City; and CityScape, a retail and office complex with 2,500 spaces in Phoenix.