Greek

LAKE PLACID, N.Y. - Chris Chelios would like to turn back the clock 15 years. That might give him time to win another Stanley Cup, a Norris Trophy or an Olympic hockey medal. It also might have given him more of a chance to go to the 2006 Winter Games as a member of the Greek bobsled team. The 42-year-old Detroit Red Wings defenseman says that while he's enjoying the diversion bobsled training presents from the NHL lockout, he really believes Laird Hamilton has a better shot of making the Greek team.

Time has passed Ikaros by. Thirty years ago it was hottest Greek restaurant in Baltimore -- maybe even the hottest ethnic restaurant, since we didn't have many of them. The lines waiting for a table on a weekend night went out the door. Over the years, its success spawned imitators in Greektown, other inexpensive restaurants that served favorites like moussaka and stuffed grape leaves. Then Greek food went upscale with places like the Taverna Athena in Harbor-place, which is now closed, and Opa!

WASHINGTON -- As NATO grapples with how to aid the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians trapped inside Kosovo, the Greek government is trucking tons of food and medicine into the beleaguered province and may soon be joined in that work by a Baltimore-based charity.NATO has become something of a silent partner in the Greek effort -- which is also aiding Serbs in the troubled province. NATO officials have been told when and where the relief convoys are heading so they won't be bombed by mistake.

Christos Vlachos, a 20-year-old Greek Navy cadet on his first voyage, was trying to call home on an Inner Harbor pay phone yesterday morning when a passer-by alerted him to a crisis in the water.The Athens native barely speaks English, but he quickly realized that a man had jumped into the murky harbor water from the Bay Lady, a party ship docked behind the Greek naval vessel Aris, about 9: 40 a.m.Petty Officer Vlachos and Warrant Officer Nick Anestis dove in and pulled the 79-year-old man, who was face down in the water, to the edge of the Light Street pavilion.

Zorb a the Greek was the rare movie that proclaimed it was about the life force and managed to embody it anyway, reviving the spirits of audiences in 1964 and maybe for all time. So it's depressing to see it reduced to a touchstone for a measly little picture called M y Life in Ruins. This cute title rests on top of a sappy scenario about a Greek-American scholar named Georgia (Nia Vardalos) who loses her university job in Athens but finds her soul or spirit or chi or mojo - or, as the Greeks say, her kefi - while working as a guide for a seat-of-the-pants touring company.

MIAMI -- In a major shift of strategy, Paul E. Tsongas is coming out swinging against Bill Clinton in the race for the Democratic nomination.His new, fighting pose, unveiled as the campaign enters perhaps its most crucial 10-day phase, underscores the extent to which style and tactics are replacing substance in the Democratic contest.Many politicians expect a clear front-runner to emerge 10 days from now, after a round of 13 primaries and caucuses concludes with elections in Illinois and Michigan on March 17. That leader will be either Mr. Clinton or Mr. Tsongas, whose positions on most major issues are either similar or complementary.

Will Noel knows a treasure when he sees it. Lately he has been like a man just put down in Ali Baba's cave.The treasure Noel is contemplating these days is a thousand-year-old book, containing ideas that go even deeper in time. It is the most important ancient text ever to fall into the care of the Walters Art Gallery, where Noel is curator of manuscripts and rare books.It is a "palimpsest," a twice-used book. The Archimedes Palimpsest.The original texts in the book were inscribed in Greek in the 10th century, probably in Constantinople while it was still a capital of the Christian world, and before it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 and became a capital of the Islamic world.

Baseball is not a major sport in Greece, which explains - at least in part - why the Greek national baseball team held a series of important workouts at Camden Yards last weekend. America's national pastime is largely a foreign concept in the country that will be host to the 2004 Olympic Games, so the Hellenic Amateur Baseball Association looked to the United States for help in forming a competitive team to represent Greece in the Summer Games and in the international play leading up to the XXVIII Olympiad.

ATHENS - When they bought tickets for yesterday's Olympic track and field events, Yiannas Trakadas and Jan Araz expected to have a clear view of Greek star Kostas Kenteris as he crossed the finish line for his second straight gold in the 200-meter dash. Trakadas and Araz instead chanted their fallen hero's name before the 200 final and booed the U.S. sprinters who swept the medals. Greeks snapped up seats to yesterday's track events months ago because Kenteris was a heavy favorite to repeat his victory in 2000.

You can still see a genuine Greek fishing village in this city where nearly one-third the population is of Greek heritage.But in Tarpon Springs, on Florida's west coast, the old ambience is being replaced by gaudy shops with plastic trinkets and hawkers waving menus in front of restaurants. Tacky T-shirts are everywhere.What's left of the Tarpon Springs that Greek sponge divers made famous early this century can be seen in the few remaining Greek coffee shops, where old men sit late at night playing cards, and at Zorba's, a nightclub where young Greek women take to the dance floor and move like liquid silk, as the bouzoukis blare.