Freedom

The Soviet Olympic Committee, which for years sought independence from the central government, has found its newly won freedom to be a mixed blessing.The government stopped funding the Olympic Committee this year, leaving it free but struggling to raise enough cash just to pay the hotel bills at the 1992 Games in Barcelona."We have obtained the status of independence, but we also have become independent of money, too," Vladimir Koval, the committee's finance director, said at a news conference yesterday.

London. -- From the streets of Moscow to the debate about U.S.-Mexican commercial relations, people are flinching from the consequences of accelerating change.The 10th decade of this century of rampant statism has now seen fighting in Moscow, the city that was, from 1917 through 1991, capital of the most virulent statism. The uprising by Boris Yeltsin's enemies has been partly the fury of the old communist ruling class, and partly rekindled nationalism, a facet of the old tribalism resurgent in what no longer is spoken of as ''the new Europe.

On Wednesday, Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco raised a few eyebrows when he admitted the team's hurry-up offense probably would go a bit faster if he were calling his own plays instead of looking to the sidelines and waiting for offensive coordinator Cam Cameron to send in the play. One of the Ravens most glaring weaknesses in their two losses this season has been their inability to move the ball quickly when they got down two scores and were trying to rally. Cameron was asked for his take on Flacco's comments today during his weekly session with reporters, and he answered in a way that seemed to imply he'd like Flacco to reach that point in his evolution as well.

Freedom Area Citizens Council will meet at 7 p.m. today in Freedom Christian Church in Carrolltown Center. The meeting will include a forum with Kenneth Holniker and Michael Zimmer, candidates for the South Carroll District 9B delegate seat. Residents of the Freedom District community are invited. Information: Nimrod Davis, 410-795-2896.

WASHINGTON - I happened to be reading Richard Reeves' compelling new biography of Richard Nixon last week, when a paragraph about Israel caught my eye. It was a memo that Nixon wrote to Henry Kissinger in 1969, describing his, and America's, feelings about Israel: "[The Israelis] must recognize that our interests are basically pro-freedom and not just pro-Israel because of the Jewish vote. [Golda] Meir ... must trust [Nixon] completely. He will see to it that Israel always has `an edge.

SHE HAS PLAYED the role of Harriet Tubman for more than eight years, but teaching schoolchildren about Tubman's struggle for freedom has taken on new meaning for Gwendolyn Briley-Strand since Sept. 11. "I lost my brother in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11," said Briley-Strand, who lives in Fort Washington. "He was on the 106th floor of Tower One. I want the children to learn how precious our freedom is. I want them to know that there's a high price to be paid for freedom." She presented her one-woman show, Harriet Tubman: The Chosen One, last week at Swansfield Elementary School.

WASHINGTON - Iraq's new government is a real threat to the Arab world - and the despots controlling other nations in the region know it. As promised, the United States will turn over control of Iraq on June 30 to a new government whose leaders, President Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer and Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, were selected recently. Not only will this new Iraqi team put together an assembly to choose the first representative national council for the Iraqi people, but direct elections will be held as early as January, marking the first time the population of an Arab nation may achieve genuine freedom.

We are engaged in a struggle between freedom and the forces of terror, and mostly I side with freedom, such as the freedom to look at big shots and stick out your tongue and blow, but of course terror has its place too. The dude strolling down our street at night does not break into our house to see what's available because he is terrified that if he's nabbed, his girlfriend Janine will run off to Philly with her ex-boyfriend Eddie, who's been hanging around....

WASHINGTON - Perhaps I have been guilty of a failing that Alexis de Tocqueville warned against in his 1835 prescient guide to America through the ages, "Democracy in America." He warned that our democracy was most likely to breed "general apathy." Quite possibly, I have been apathetic about the fragile condition of freedom in our time. I took it for granted that my fellow Americans relished their freedoms and would defend them. To be sure, we have accepted the government's incursions into our ability to earn incomes free from onerous taxation.

NEW YORK - Ground Zero officials defended plans to build a museum on freedom at the site as dozens of victims' relatives yesterday launched a nationwide effort calling for its removal from the plans. John Cahill, Gov. George E. Pataki's chief of staff, stressed that rebuilding officials won't allow the museum's mission to be "hijacked from the political right or the political left." "We were attacked that day because of our values and because of our freedom," Cahill said. The center is expected to have exhibits on slavery in America, the Holocaust and global human-rights issues, but families are worried that some exhibits would take away from the sanctity of the adjacent memorial.