Fear

Donna Beth Joy Shapiro has had "lifelong, recurring dreams of plunging off an enormous bridge." Earlier this year, she told a friend that one of her biggest fears was that her truck would die on the Bay Bridge. Two days later, she came face to face with that fear. Shapiro, a Bolton Hill resident, was one of several readers who answered the call in last week's column for stories of their experiences with immobility on bridges and tunnels with no shoulders for refuge. Shapiro writes that it was about 3:30 p.m. on a Sunday this spring, while she was driving in 50 mph traffic on the westbound span of the bridge, when "I smelled something acrid for about 30 seconds, and then my truck just stopped."

According to Wall Street folklore, investors can expect results for September to turn out like the first trading day of the month. It is not clear if that will happen this time. But if you'd like it to be true, you had better hope it applies only to the first trading day. Tuesday - the first trading session of the month - was a pleasant day as the Dow Jones industrial average climbed just over 91 points and investors held onto the courage they mustered just before Labor Day, when they began imagining the Federal Reserve would soon wave a magic wand and sprinkle the economy with the life-giving power of lower interest rates.

All I can say about this movie is, pay attention! All will be revealed." Those were Guy Ritchie's opening remarks before the screening of his long-languishing twisty noir thriller, Revolver, at the Tribeca Grand Screening Room on Sunday. When the lights came up, Guy stood again and said, "Thank you all for your support and applause. And you know what - this is the first time I've understood the movie!" Guy Ritchie is a fascinating man, part "larky" bloke out for a good time at the pub with his pals, part (the bigger part)

HE'S A kid who wears a mask.If you saw him walking toward you late at night in a dark place, you'd watch him warily and sigh in relief when he allowed you to pass unmolested. You wouldn't dream of saying a word to him.So you'd never know that he's 16 and lives in my neighborhood with both his parents or that he has a job and is on the honor roll in school. He's a good kid.A mean swaggerYou'd never know because he hides who he is behind that mask. Behind baggy pants, two or three oversize T-shirts and a bandanna.

Racial stereotypes are wrong, but gender ones OK?It is interesting how we are taught to avoid generalities and stereotypical references, especially when it comes to race, in education. But it seems to be all right if the subject is gender.Take the unbelievable explanation for test results broken down by gender contained in Mike Bowler's Dec. 3 column.He writes, "Experts disagree on what causes the gender gap." Here are some of the reasons experts give.From birth, girls develop faster than boys.

KUKES, Albania -- Life for the ethnic Albanians of Prizren, Kosovo, took a terrifying turn for the worse at the end of last week, when Serbian forces began driving them out in earnest and sent them fleeing by the thousands into Albania.Arriving in Albania, the refugees spoke of half the people of Prizren, Kosovo's second-largest city, having fled, many with little more than the clothes on their backs.Refugees who have arrived here over the past few days from Prizren described a city where for the past month the food shops sold only to ethnic Serbs, fear of police had kept all but elderly Kosovar Albanians indoors, and "ethnic cleansing" had reduced the population by half.

In a potentially damaging blow to the prosecution, an Anne Arundel County circuit judge threw out the four extortion charges against former state Sen. Larry Young yesterday but left it for a jury to decide five remaining counts of bribery and tax evasion."

"Fear," by Irini Spanidou. Knopf. 182 pages. $21.Irini Spanidou's "Fear" involves at least two wonderful activities. Foremost, of course, is reading it. Please do so under the bedclothes, by flashlight -- if, like me, you can recall sneaking past the Young Adult section of the neighborhood library to secrete your flat-T-shirted self in a dim corner of Adult Fiction. Decades gone, the thrill returns.The second wonderful thing is trying to categorize this book. The project flashes one's whole life-as-a-reader before her. I say "her" because one category is certain: "Fear" is a woman's book, though, like many such, it would do a man a world of good to read it; indeed, one of the central issues is what it means to possess "the soul of a man."

THE BEAUTY of the the Islamic revolution in Iran 20 years ago, like the Communist revolution in Cuba 20 years earlier, was that it allowed opponents to escape. In exile, millions opposed it ineffectually. Pent up at home, they would have caused trouble. The remaining population was more docile. The balance of the country tilted toward the minority regime.The students demonstrating for the past week in Tehran, suppressed and some killed by tyrants afraid of them, know only the education and government provided by the Islamic Revolution.

WASHINGTON -- The nation's Roman Catholic bishops overwhelmingly approved yesterday guidelines that strengthen their supervision of Catholic colleges and universities in their dioceses, despite concerns of college presidents and theologians about infringement on academic freedom.The document, which seeks to strengthen the religious identity of the nation's approximately 240 Catholic colleges and universities, was passed by a vote of 223 to 31, with one abstention, after an hour-long debate.

On July 23, 2009, JOHN "JOEY" FEAR, JR., of Edgewood, MD. Beloved husband of Autumn L. Fear. Devoted father of Christy Fear, Tracy Stanforth, Jennie Freeland, Jessa Fear, Andy Padgett, and Todd Padgett. Loving brother of Dolly Mistretta and husband Joe. Also survived by grandchildren Stevie Freeland, Brandon Stanforth, Andrew Padgett, Brady Stanforth, Leah Freeland, Adam Padgett, and Mason Percival, daughter-in-law Michele Padgett, sons-in-law Steve Freeland, Stan Stanforth, Bill Stuart and Brian Percival.

Crime is down 9 percent this year, city police tell us. The mayor says we're seeing "extraordinary results" and attributes the drop to her plan to target violent criminals. Meanwhile, people are being attacked in and around downtown, from Mount Vernon to Federal Hill, and five people have been killed this week, including a man shot near the baseball stadium shortly after the bars and clubs had closed. Cops say they're beefing up patrols at the Inner Harbor and neighboring communities, and people say they're scared.

Military should end missions, not restore draft In his thought-provoking article, "Asking 'someone else's son' to fight" (May17), Dan Rodricks points out the cultural/class dichotomy between those who serve, i.e., those who may be maimed and killed, or psychologically damaged in the defense of our country, while the rest of the American people go about their business, oblivious to the sacrifices being made on their behalf. I would add that what is left out of Rodricks' article is the nature of wars being fought by the U.S. in the last 50 years.

Tyson is a staggering movie. James Toback's documentary about the career and life of boxer Mike Tyson gives the lie to the Nietzschean thought, "That which does not kill me makes me stronger." Tyson may not be the walking dead but he is lost, his glory years tainted as well as faded. At one point the most admired and feared heavyweight ever to grace the ring, and later the most loathed, he empties his heart and mind to Toback. He still revels in his victories while trying to explain his self-destructive character.

NEW YORK -Stock markets around the world tumbled yesterday amid deepening concern over the health of the banking industry and doubts about the ability of governments to spur a recovery. The Dow Jones industrial average sank almost 300 points, closing less than a point above its late-November low. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index and Nasdaq composite index fell more sharply but stayed well above their November troughs. Banking stocks were pounded. European markets closed down more than 3 percent on average.

Consumers might welcome the prospect of falling prices. But widespread price declines would actually accelerate the economic downturn - and it turns out that fear of possible deflation was one reason the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to near zero last month. According to minutes released yesterday of the December Fed meeting at which governors made the historic decision to slash interest rates to less than 0.25 percent, it was fear of deeper economic catastrophe that persuaded them to open the monetary spigot as wide as they could go in an effort to keep the failing economy from running completely aground.

Marc Hayes has been in the mortgage business for 19 years, but these days he often feels more like a therapist. With all the uncertainty in the economy, buyers are looking for reassurance about their home purchases, Hayes says. "There's a lot more hand-holding - a lot more coaxing," he says. As another disappointing real estate year nears an end, experts have various theories about what is shaping the mindset of sellers and what is holding back buyers, whether it's gloomy economic news or urban legends about the million-dollar estate to be had for $250,000.

I'd like to think it was the sangria talking. But the plain truth is, when Anna said she doesn't find this country to be especially free, it was Anna talking. Granted, her complaint is hardly new. People often grouse about the lack of freedom in the land of the free. But you see, Anna - a friend's fiancee - is from Estonia, a former republic of the old Soviet Union. As in the Evil Empire, world's leading exporter of communism. So when Anna says she feels less free in the United States, where she now lives, than in the once-totalitarian regime where she was born, well ... it gets your attention.

Sunday services at Frederick's Falam Baptist Church took on a solemn tone as Phun Thang led parishioners in a prayer for the people of Myanmar, where officials warn the death toll from a devastating cyclone could reach as high as 10,000. The 50 members of the church's congregation are all from the Southeast Asian nation, formerly Burma, and many of them have come to Frederick within the past couple of years seeking asylum from their country's military dictatorship, which has a record of human rights abuses.

The family began to worry in April 2006. That is when Ria Reshma-Ramkissoon left home with her 18-month-old son, Javon Thompson, cut off access to relatives and moved in with a tiny religious group based in East Baltimore, said Colleen Khadan, a sister. This week, relatives learned that the child might have been killed -- his remains left in a suitcase in a Philadelphia house. Those remains have not been positively identified, and the family, while holding out hope, fears that the child's death could be connected to the group that Reshma-Ramkissoon joined.