Gathering

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Delays and confusion over information on the major battle between United Nations forces and Somalian militiamen this weekend has underscored the difficulties for journalists operating in Mogadishu.Most major news organizations have withdrawn from the Somalian capital for safety reasons and because travel restrictions made it virtually impossible to do any reporting. Only a handful of reporters are left in the capital. As a result, news gathering has relied mostly on limited U.N. and Pentagon briefings.

In a precedent-setting meeting, the entire Carroll County schools staff -- at about 2,200, the largest group of employees in the county -- will gather today to hear a national specialist on improving schools.The meeting will be at Western Maryland College's Gill Physical Education Learning Center.Another 200 parents and community members have been invited as well.Yesterday, 350 teachers and parents who are on the individual school improvement teams attended an all-day talk with the specialist, Larry Lezotte, at the college.

In hopes of changing their world, Antonio Reaves' family and friends gathered yesterday around the marble steps in East Baltimore where he was killed. They started with a prayer vigil, then marched slowly down a street dotted with boarded-up rowhouses. "This gathering is not just to burn candles," said the Rev. Willie E. Ray, an activist who helped organize the gathering in the 1200 block of N. Bond St. -- the latest among dozens he has staged in response to city killings. "We want to send a message to the neighborhood."

NEW YORK -- Hundreds of Grateful Dead followers, many in tie-dyed shirts and dresses, played cat-and-mouse with police across Central Park yesterday in defiance of a ban on a gathering in memory of the band's leader, Jerry Garcia.The fans, denied a permit for the observance, converged on the Great Lawn near the Metropolitan Museum of Art but were confronted by parks enforcement officers who told them they would not be allowed to play the bongos, drums and guitars they carried unless they moved to another part of the park.

Do you have something to say outside the Carroll County Courthouse?Well, unless you have permission from Westminster police, you might as well pack up your picket and head home.The combination of a decades-old Westminster ordinance and a long-established courthouse regulation makes almost any form of protest, public gathering or picketing on the court's property impossible without an official sanction from the government.The rights to peaceably assemble and "petition the government for a redress of grievances" have been part of the U.S. Constitution since 1791.

The three most prominent public leaders in the Baltimore-Washington area met yesterday to develop a cooperative approach to the region's crime problem.During a 90-minute meeting in Annapolis, Gov. William Donald Schaefer, Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and Washington Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly discussed ways their respective police agencies could coordinate resources to better fight violent crime and drugs."We know we have a job ahead of us," Mayor Schmoke said during a joint news conference at the State House.

NEW YORK -- There is some old-fashioned political hardball being played by freshman Gov. George E. Pataki and the host of other GOP leaders who have joined Sen. Al D'Amato in his attempt to hand Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole the state's 102 delegates to the 1996 Republican National Convention on a silver platter.They are turning a totally deaf ear to the plea earlier this month of four other declared Republican presidential candidates that they reform the party's delegate-selection rules and procedures in ways that will give them a fighting chance to compete with Dole.

As you were just saying to Marty O'Malley, perhaps, or depending on the party, Madison Smartt Bell. Big names in town, among others: Cal, Peter, Barry, John (Waters), John (Paterakis), and so on. With holiday parties upon us, it's always nice to enter the fray armed with a few good names to drop. Perhaps you once did interior decorating for Cal and Kelly, and what wonderful, down-to-earth people they really were. Perhaps you personally sat in the corporate skybox with Brooks, or maybe it was Ben Carson.

Neighbors along Pioneer Drive called for unity and peace with a weekend party to celebrate their communities, take a stand against crime and bring local support for more services for residents."

Like his life, David Driskell's art is chock full.Driskell combines the careers of artist, teacher (at the University of Maryland), art historian and curator. He has written so many books and articles, organized so many exhibitions and published so many catalogs on the history of African-American art that he is widely regarded as the world's leading authority on the subject.Despite so many demands on his time, he has never ceased to pursue his own art. "David Driskell: Masterworks" at School 33 brings together three dozen works of the last 10 years and so affords a generous view of the artist at this stage of his career.