Face To Face

DRESDEN, Germany -- The hooting and the whistling from bands of anarchists started up here last Monday at the rally against racism and neo-Nazism, just as it had the day before in Berlin. It looked as if another moment of national embarrassment was about to occur.But Heinz Eggert, the tall, balding, athletic-looking interior minister of Saxony, strode off the platform and into the crowd. He began talking to the hecklers."I went to them, and we had a very quiet discussion for about an hour," Mr. Eggert says.

When it's time to choose a bank, most customers look to their nearest street corner -- a move that keeps inspiring financial companies to pump millions into building more branches. Bank construction, which can cost upward of $2 million a branch, is picking up speed even as online banking keeps growing. The number of Maryland bank branches is at a decade high with financial companies fighting to recruit and retain customers, both online and in person. While some analysts have raised concerns about a saturated market, construction crews across the region are erecting more branches to bolster several banks and their brands.

I am seeing a new guy, and the stubble on his face has left a large chapped area on my face that almost feels burned. It's an unpleasant aftermath of an enjoyable kissing session. I'm putting Vaseline on it. Is there anything else that might help more? We checked with cosmetics expert Dr. Stanley B. Levy of Chapel Hill Dermatology in North Carolina. He said you can use 1 percent hydrocortisone cream for a few days. It is available over the counter. To prevent or soothe irritation, Aquaphor (made by Beiersdorf)

In NFL circles, Marvin Demoff is the power broker you never see and only occasionally hear about, often after the fact, like some sort of twister that levels the local trailer park.Oh, you mean he was the attorney who backed Bob Irsay into a dark corner in 1983 and forced the Baltimore Colts' infamous trade of No. 1 draft pick John Elway to the Denver Broncos?Yes, he is that attorney -- a man so esteemed in those NFL circles he sometimes is referred to as the "Monsignor"; a man so trustworthy it is said he is a confidant of Al Davis, the inscrutable owner of the Oakland Raiders; a man so powerful he is the contractual voice for Dan Marino and Jeff Hostetler, Rick Mirer and Jim Everett, Rod Woodson and Leslie O'Neal, to name a few of the league's elite.

ATLANTA -- It was, as Dexter King kept saying, an "awkward" moment. What does a son say to the man who once confessed to killing his father?Twenty-nine years after the death of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights leader's son met yesterday with a dying James Earl Ray.The two men shook hands and made small talk.And then King, looking Ray in the eye, slid ever so gently toward the heart of the matter. He asked the question he'd traveled from Atlanta to a Nashville, Tenn., prison hospital to ask: "Did you kill my father?"

IF A program that attempts to rehabilitate first-time youthful offenders through dialogue with their victims, parents and law officers proves successful, it should be expanded statewide.The state Department of Juvenile Justice has awarded Howard County a grant to begin its version of the innovative program, which Baltimore is also trying through a private grant. Similar programs are running in Anne Arundel, Calvert and Montgomery counties.The technique is based on New Zealand aboriginal custom, which encourages "restorative justice" through shame.

In another attempt to prevent three schools from leaving their conference, five Big East presidents sent a letter to counterparts in the Atlantic Coast Conference yesterday, looking for a "face-to-face" meeting about the ACC's plans to add Boston College, Miami and Syracuse. The letter, signed by presidents at Rutgers, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech and West Virginia - and obtained by the Associated Press - was addressed to Clemson president James F. Barker, who chairs the Council of Presidents in the ACC. The stated purpose of the meeting would be to share insights these presidents felt "could not be communicated effectively by anyone else" and to hear from the ACC's presidents about the reasons for the expansion.

Educators call them "teachable moments." Parents call them "getting common sense." Cops call them "scared straight." There are plenty of terms for the moment of truth when you realize that things have got to change right here, right now. Accountants, financial advisers and credit counselors don't have a snappy label for the moments when their clients sit up in shock, but they witness these revelations all the time. Sometimes it's a five-figure credit-card bill. For others, it's the sickening realization that they owe the IRS an awful lot of money.

WASHINGTON - Emerging in a gray mist, the lead actors in a gripping American drama took their places on the inaugural stage. George W. Bush raised his right hand while facing a stone-faced Vice President Al Gore, the man he defeated after a brutal post-election dispute. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist delivered the oath of office just steps from President Bill Clinton, over whose impeachment trial the justice had presided in his familiar gold-barred robe. Bush's father, the one-term president, watched with tears in his eyes as his son followed his path to power.

Panda, shmanda. So we don't have a Tai Shan, the heart-meltingly adorable 6-month-old panda that is drawing unprecedented crowds to the National Zoo. Who needs cute, anyway? This is Baltimore, where cute has never held much sway. Cute is fleeting. Cute is shallow. And cute, it bears repeating, is sold out at least through January. Avoid the "panda-monium," Baltimore, and take solace, if not pride, in the fact that, while Washington may have cornered the market on cute, our town - even with its zoo closed in January and February - boasts some of the strangest, quirkiest, dare we say ugliest, creatures on the planet.