Generation

Last week, a decade after Maryland deregulated electricity by splitting the business of generating power from the business of delivering it to your house, worried regulators took a step backward. They essentially ordered Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. and Potomac Electric Power Co. to seek proposals for building a big, new electricity plant — and billing the cost to ratepayers. BGE, Pepco and other delivery companies were supposed to be through with generation plants. They were supposed to supply households, factories and stores with electricity bought from third parties on the unregulated wholesale market.

Recession being the bane of piano retailers, it seems wholly remarkable that Harry Cohen and his son, Lou, decided to start selling Baldwins and Wurlitzers in 1937 - the year the economy relapsed toward the end of the Great Depression. But somehow the Cohens survived the recession of 1937 and 1938. In fact, the family business, founded in Philadelphia, thrived through three generations and extended into three states. Hundreds of families in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland bought new and used pianos from one of the Cohens over the years.

Steve Job's death had the same impact on the younger generation of today that the death of John F. Kennedy had on a previous generation While it is difficult to quantify the impact of one person on an entire generation, it is safe to say that the passing of Steve Jobs had the same impact on the younger generation of today that the death of John F. Kennedy had on a previous generation. For those who witnessed both events, we will always remember where we were and what we were doing when both of these heroes passed on. Paul Jankovic, Bethany Beach, Del.

We baby boomers get blamed for just about every economic hiccup, because there are so many of us. And our children are particularly furious because they believe the crisis in Social Security, which may affect their ability to retire, can be laid at our feet like kindling for a burning at the stake. They are convinced we boomers, with our outsized appetites and sense of entitlement, are going to consume everything on our way to the cemetery, right down to the amount of ground we leave for those who die after us. But data from the Social Security Administration itself, provided by chief actuary Stephen Goss, demonstrates that boomers are not the pig-through-the-python that we have been described as being.

Constellation Energy Group has completed the $365 million purchase of two natural gas generation facilities in Texas, the company announced Tuesday. The Colorado Bend Energy Center, a 550-megawatt facility near Wharton, Texas, and the Quail Run Energy Center, a 550-megawatt facility near Odessa, gives Constellation a physical presence in Texas, where the Baltimore-based corporation sells power in wholesale and retail markets. Company executives had announced in February plans to use $1 billion in cash balances to purchase additional generation facilities in areas where it sells more load than it produces.

For the past few days, I've watched commentators on both the left and the right examine and analyze the reaction of the "American street" to the news of the death of Osama bin Laden. Many of those who gathered at the White House and other places of national significance have been college and university students. It is an error to compare these spontaneous demonstrations with those in the Arab world following the attacks of 9/11 or to insinuate that such demonstrations by young people were simply expressions of over-excited youth.

Bill has been my favorite nephew since he entered this world 32 years ago as the first of my parents' grandchildren, and I am certain that he would not hesitate to care for me in my declining years. It is the other 75 million members of my generation that Bill isn't interested in supporting, and the prospects of having to do so threaten to wreck an unusually harmonious relationship between generations — in many more families than mine, I suspect. You see, Bill believes there is little money left in the coffers of the entitlement programs meant to cushion the golden years of my cohorts and me, and he is certainly there won't be any when it is his turn to call on Social Security and Medicare.

J.D. Salinger, one of contemporary literature's most famous recluses, who created a lasting symbol of adolescent discontent in his 1951 novel "The Catcher in the Rye," died Wednesday. He was 91. Mr. Salinger died of natural causes at his home in Cornish, N.H., his son Matthew said in a statement from the author's longtime literary agency, Harold Ober Associates, which made the announcement on behalf of Mr. Salinger's family. Perhaps no other writer of so few works generated as much popular and critical interest as Mr. Salinger, who published one novel, three authorized collections of short stories and an additional 21 stories that appeared in magazines only in the 1940s.

Washington.-- Just a few months ago, it seemed almost certain that the president would be a man in his 70s for at least the next four years, with aides and cronies almost as, er, mature. It's shocking enough to find yourself in your 40s. The added shock of finding that suddenly the people running the country are also in their 40s is doubly cruel.The moment of truth comes with another surprise: national leadership is apparently going to involve repeated decisions about whether to send younger Americans off to risk their lives in war. Only in the last year has it become clear that the end of the Cold War will probably introduce a new era of military activism.

College students may not agree with everything Paul Rogat Loeb has to say about them, but they have to admit he's done his homework.That's more than he can say for some of you.Mr. Loeb began researching this book in the early '80s while lecturing on college campuses about citizen involvement in critical public issues. He followed this up with hundreds of student interviews from 1987 through 1993. The observations and questions that arose from those interviewed, and Mr. Loeb's passionate analysis of his subjects' responses, make up the bulk of "Generation at the Crossroads."

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is expected to introduce legislation Monday that would give the city authority to levy two new taxes. One bill would authorize a tax of about 25 cents per taxi trip. Another would impose a tax on billboard advertisements within the city limits - $15 per square foot for billboards that electronically change images, and $5 per square foot for those that don't. A third measure would keep the tax on parking at its current rate of 20 percent, instead of decreasing it to 19 percent, as had been planned.

What we know of what Mother Nature provides in the spring has come to us over years of watching for the emergence of spring flowers, the scampering of the squirrels, and the change in the songs of the birds. We like the idea of knowing when each sprout breaks through the cold earth of winter every green stick and flowering twig. Just getting whiff of the fresh perfume of the daffodils puts life into an otherwise dreary day! The love of flowers is universal. We saw Russian children in Moscow carrying handfuls of tulips in the month of May. In the South Seas, girls wear flowers in their hair and ropes of orchids around their necks.

When Bill Clinton took the podium to address the country in January 1993, I was moved to tears. Here, then, was my first president. My parents had had all the presidents up to that point. Here was a man of my generation. Married to the working mother of a school-aged child who was his educational and professional equal. To someone like me. Mr. Clinton acknowledged the passing of the "greatest generation" when he thanked outgoing President George H.W. Bush for his 50 years of service to the country.

There's something about "Les Miserables" that keeps me coming back. It's not that "Les Miz," running through Sunday at the Hippodrome Theatre , is my favorite musical. Far from it. It's all too easy to point out the technical flaws in Claude-Michel Schonberg's melodies (bombastic) and Herbert Kretzmer's lyrics (unsurprising). The critics have been making these arguments for the past 27 years, and for the past 27 years, audiences have been ignoring the critics. Producer Cameron Mackintosh's much-hyped new staging incorporates brighter costumes and screen projections to simulate such effects as Paris' underground sewers.

Four generations of Nellie Plott's family got together recently. Plott is great-grandmother to Kylie Riha and Aiden Riha, grandmother to Jay Riha, and mother to Donna Riha. All reside in Abingdon.

Revenue at Maryland's three casinos in March reached $58 million, with two that have been opened for at least a year seeing a decrease from a year earlier, the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency reported Friday. Hollywood Casino Perryville in Cecil County generated $9.48 million for the month from slot machines and newly introduced gaming tables - a decrease of $4.24 million, or nearly 35 percent, from a year ago. The Casino at Ocean Downs in Worcester County reported revenue of $3.95 million - a decrease of $130,622, or 3.2 percent, from the year before.

Win or lose the nomination, Sen. Robert Kerrey of Nebraska and Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas set a Democratic theme this week for the 1992 effort to oust George Bush from the White House."

"As a baby boomer yourself,'' my friend the English journalist asked, ''how do you feel about the Democrats nominating two men from your own generation?''I don't often think in generational terms -- in part because, at 42, doing so reminds me that the gray in my beard no longer can be be called ''premature.'' And there's something a little silly about a bunch of middle-age people running around calling themselves baby anythings.Still, my friend's question was more interesting than most obvious ones.

The course is Human Space Flight. The subject for today: analogues - the scenarios found in the world or contrived in the laboratory that NASA uses to simulate work and life aboard a space ship. Naval Academy professor Ken Reightler leads the class of 13 midshipmen through a discussion that traverses Ernest Shackleton's 1914 expedition of the Antarctic, deep-sea exploration and the experiments at Biosphere 2 - and how lessons from each will help astronauts prepare for the first manned mission to Mars.

COLLEGE PARK -- More than a dozen former Maryland football players made their way onto the field at Byrd Stadium on Wednesday, likely for the final time in their playing careers. It was the Terps ' pro day, and the players were looking to show off their capabilities to 14 NFL scouts on hand. It's a nerve-racking experience. The players took part in a series of drills that tested their speed, agility and athleticism in hopes that their performance will lead to a team calling their name during April's NFL draft.