Explorers

The Annapolis Police Department is holding an open house Tuesday for its law enforcement Explorer program. The program is open to boys and girls who have completed eighth grade and are at least 14 years old, or are between the ages of 15 and 21. The program has hands-on activities, helps teenagers gain insight into law enforcement careers and promotes personal development. The open house will start at 7 p.m. at the Annapolis Police Headquarters, 199 Taylor Ave., Annapolis. Anyone younger than 18 must be accompanied by a parent.

"The New Normal" was supposed to be the new normal. After "Modern Family" brought two gay dads into the spotlight on ABC, NBC was bringing audiences a show that put a gay family at its center. "The New Normal" executive producer Ryan Murphy had already shown two gay teens' first sexual encounter on "Glee. " There was little concern his new show's central couple (Bryan and David) would be the chaste, sexless gay men generally seen on primetime television. I tuned in eagerly when the show premiered, elated to see a romantic gay duo given the amount of screen time generally reserved for straight sitcom leads.

A MOUNT AIRY couple with a love of working with children, and a large defense contractor with a desire to become involved in public service have teamed to provide area youngsters with a learning opportunity. The Explorers is a youth organization for high school students. The group falls under the umbrella of Boy Scouts of America, but also is open to girls. Four years ago, defense giant Lockheed Martin called on its employees to become involved in public service projects. The Gaithersburg company decided to sponsor an Explorers post and needed adult advisers.

A monthly astronomy lecture at Baltimore's Space Telescope Science Institute on Tuesday will delve into Saturn's active outermost ring, known as its F Ring. The institute's Bonnie Meinke will deliver a lecture titled, "Saturn's Intricate F Ring and the Small Moons that Perturb It. " Data from NASA's Cassini mission, which has been exploring Saturn since 2004, has shown the ring to be constantly changing. Scientists believe that may be because of what are known as "shepherd" moons that orbit within or around rings like Saturn's.

INTERNET USERS OFTEN talk about exploring the World Wide Web, and the analogy is a good one. The Web is a vast, unmapped region with exotic scenery, strange languages and customs, hidden treasures, dark alleys and treacherous technological jungles and rapids.For armchair explorers, the Web is the most thrilling communications medium since the crystal radios that allowed my father's generation to eavesdrop on the conversations of heroes like the pilot Wylie Post, as he barnstormed the North Pole more than half a century ago.The Web, along with such relatively recent gear as lightweight portable computers, digital cameras and radio and satellite telephones, now enables us to participate in grand adventures as they happen on land, sea, air and in space.

Have you ever noticed the seasonal change affects our mood?Look around your workplace and community. If the weather outside is delightful, co-workers and neighbors are upbeat. When the weather turns cold and damp, our moods take a downward turn.Let's all think spring and be confident that it is here to stay.*With spring thoughts in mind, let's think about outdoor activities.The Sea Explorers, a nationwide co-educational program for young adults ages 14 to 20, is designed to incorporate character building, citizenship training and fitness in youths through maritime skills and outdoor activities.

When a police officer visited Karen Slack's eighth-grade clas to discuss a new law enforcement program for young people, he piqued her interest immediately. But as she approached him to learn more about the Police Explorer program, a boy interrupted her and yelled: "It's just for boys, you can't join."But Ms. Slack, now 18, didn't let the doubts of others stop her. "A lot of people laugh in my face, and say, 'you can't do that, you're a girl,'" she said. "But that only makes me want to be a cop even more."

Public television visits Johns Hopkins Hospital for the second time this week.On Monday, PBS launched its "Medicine at the Crossroads" series with a look at how medical doctors are trained at Hopkins. At 8 tonight, "The New Explorers" series profiles cardiac surgeon Levi Watkins Jr. in a half-hour segment titled "A Dream Fulfilled" on MPT (Channels 22 and 67).For those not familiar with "The New Explorers," its host is Bill Kurtis, a TV anchorman in Chicago. It often features individuals pushing the boundaries of science.

"The New Explorers" (9 p.m.-10 p.m., repeats 1 a.m.-2 a.m., A&E) notes that every three seconds somewhere on Earth there is a sighting of an unidentified flying object. In "Bringing UFOs Down to Earth," host Bill Kurtis and his team head out to investigate two sighting reports -- one on the edge of a rain forest in Brazil and the other in the town of Puebla, Mexico. Both believers and skeptics are interviewed before Kurtis draws his own conclusions.At a glance"C-16" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WMAR, Channel 2)

ALUMNI FROM THE old Brooklyn Park High School had many jobs to complete on the morning of the Drug and Alcohol Resistance and Education (DARE) celebration at the new Brooklyn Park Middle School. There were stands to be built, straw to be laid and pumpkins to unload. Unloading and carrying the 8-foot display tables in time for the arrival of vendors seemed nearly impossible. Then six teens dressed in blue arrived on the scene. They quickly unloaded and placed the tables, and prepared the displays.

Former Baltimorean Katherine Bouton abruptly lost the hearing in her left ear at age 30. One minute she could hear, and the next, she could not. Over the decades, her impairment worsened. By the time she was 60, she was functionally deaf. But her reluctance to disclose her ailment only increased. And who can blame her? She worked in a highly competitive environment, as a senior editor at The New York Times. In retrospect, Bouton says, remaining silent was a mistake; her hearing impairment contributed to her abrupt departure after 22 years at the newspaper.

As many times as I have stood on the MARC station platform in West Baltimore, I never considered there was a fantastic, Jules Verne-like interior just across Franklin Street. I assumed the fire-damaged brick building alongside the rail tracks was just another derelict structure. After a visit there this week, I learned that one of Baltimore's fascinating industrial archaeological sites endures in the Midtown Edmondson neighborhood. The story of this dusty old West Baltimore ice-making and storage plant has been making the rounds of planners and architects.

Description: Baltimore has a per-person "ecological footprint" that is 13 percent higher than that of the average American, according to a study of local consumption habits led by a researcher at Goucher College. The measure takes into account how large of an area would be needed to accommodate the city's waste and to secure the resources needed to do so. For all of Baltimore, the area is the combined size of West Virginia, Delaware and Rhode Island, the study found. The largest impacts come from traffic and electricity use, according to the research.

"Deep" and "sitcom" are not words often used in the same sentence. But a visit to the "VEEP" soundstage in Columbia gave a glimpse of the larger cultural power of this savvy satire from HBO, returning for its second season Sunday night. I also came away dazzled by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who last year won an Emmy as best comedic actress for her portrayal of Vice President Selina Meyer. "VEEP" drills as far down into the state of the national psyche as any TV comedy has in the past 30 years.

Johns Hopkins Dr. Ben Carson, who has been all over the news following a controversial appearance last week on the Fox News channel, is scheduled for a hometown Fox appearance on WBFF this week. The Sinclair-owned Baltimore affiliate will host a town hall meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday on the "The Proper Role of Government. " Slated to appear with Carson are Towson University Professor Richard Vatz and radio host Mike Papantonio. Here's the Fox 45 Facebook listing: Fox 45 is hosting a town hall Wednesday, April 3 at 7:00 p.m. The topic will be "The Proper Role of Government".

When it was introduced in 1994, the federal housing experiment Moving to Opportunity was, to some, a means to rectify poverty. To others, it was a way for cities to dump their poorest residents on the suburbs. Many deemed it a failure, and officials pulled the plug on it in 1999. The program transplanted families from impoverished neighborhoods to wealthy ones, with mixed results, and the moves weren't permanent for most. But one Hopkins researcher is among those seeking to salvage the program's efforts.

MIAMI -- The Bermuda Triangle is an endangered legend.Ten miles northeast of the Fort Lauderdale coast, deep-sea explorers have discovered the wreckage of five TBM Avengers -- the same number and type of Navy airplanes belonging to Flight 19, the famous "Lost Patrol" that vanished mysteriously in December 1945.The planes are clustered together within a one-mile radius on the ocean floor in about 600 feet of water, said salvor Robert Cervoni, managing director of Scientific Search Project of New York.

The handsome young man sitting in the pink parlor chair radiates restlessness, a disdain for social conventions and undeniable self-satisfaction. The impatience in Richard Caton Woodville's "Self-Portrait with Flowered Wallpaper" can be detected in the wide-thrust knees of the artist born to a wealthy and prominent Baltimore family, and in his hastily buttoned and pointedly shabby jacket. His ego can be gleaned from the care he lavished on painting his face. Woodville imbued his visage with the high, broad forehead and aquiline nose that were thought in that age to signify a lofty mind and an aristocratic, resolute temperament.

Ballet Theatre of Maryland's production of "Frontier: The War of 1812 on the Chesapeake" comes to the Chesapeake Arts Center at 3 p.m. March 17 as part of the Performing Arts Association of Linthicum. The show continues the association's season bringing historic events alive in performance. This acclaimed ballet, capturing the spirit of the young United States, was inspired by the letters and memoirs of Dolley Madison and other women of the period. It depicts major events of the conflict, from the declaration of war and the burning of Washington, D.C., to the battle of Fort McHenry and the writing of "The Star-Spangled Banner.