Happening

TALIBAN, THE SEQUEL: Columnist Ellen Goodman writes, "Somewhere in southern Afghanistan another little girl is being 'protected' from school ... This is happening on our watch." For the full commentary, go to baltimoresun.com/opinion

It may be hard to picture, but it's possible for us to have clean waterways in the Baltimore region. Imagine a Herring Run safe for kids and dogs to play in, a healthy Gwynns Falls, or an Inner Harbor that is no longer hazardous but is actually suitable for swimming and fishing. Clean waterways generate enormous benefits. It's not just more aesthetically appealing to live near streams and harbors that aren't polluted. It's healthier and safer, and we know that vibrant natural resources (think Patterson Park)

Nobody knows exactly how it is that a ballplayer suddenly turns into a star.You can't find the latest stardom breakthroughs listed in the transactions column. They don't break into network programming to announce them. And, these days, you can't even measure star quality by the size of a guy's paycheck.No, this stardom stuff just kind of happens. And it is happening right now in front of your very eyes.It is happening to California's Bryan Harvey, suddenly the best short reliever on Earth.

Update: It looks like West was able to prevail, to an extent: At about 9 p.m., Def Jam Records tweeted that a projection would take place on the Walters Art Museum, 45 minutes earlier than the originally scheduled time in what appeared to be an attempt to buck the cancellation announced by city police earlier in the day. Twitter user @Milly_Esquire posted several pictures that appeared to show just that. "Attention Baltimore: Let's beat the cops," Deaf Jam then tweeted at 9:40.

I have a year-end question for you. If the city is in trouble, how come so many new restaurants opened downtown in 1995, while nothing much was happening in the suburbs?The year's big news as far as restaurants were concerned was two places so new I haven't even eaten in them yet. (I like to give restaurants at least a month before I review them.) The Joy America Cafe in the new American Visionary Art Museum already has a reputation for being offbeat, creative, visually stunning -- both food and decor -- and expensive.

Quote: "The bottom line is that we're getting behind and we're having to play catch-up. We're just in one of those little streaks right now when a lot of good things aren't happening." -- Rangers manager Johnny Oates on his team's having lost five of six games and having hit .219.It's a fact: The Mariners went 2-for-19 with runners in scoring position Thursday night against the Blue Jays.Who's hot: The Indians' Omar Vizquel, who went 2-for-5 last night, is hitting .325.Who's not: The Rangers' Aaron Sele (5-2)

The 67-year-old woman had finished her day as a downtown law firm receptionist, ridden the bus to Northeast Baltimore and was making the short walk to her well-manicured home. The 14-year-old boy and his friends had skipped school, found a rifle in an abandoned rowhouse and were firing off rounds most of that afternoon. Devon Richardson pulled the trigger on Sept. 26, and Janice Letmate died - the kind of crime police called "a senseless tragedy," the kind of crime that made Letmate's adult children and others who heard about what happened fearful of the city.

TOKYO -- A continuing collapse in the Japanese stock market has raised the prospect that Western reality has finally taken hold of the Japanese economic miracle.After years of strong growth, Japan is suffering through its most painful recession since World War II, and with the protracted economic decline, the ebullient confidence that supported share prices on lofty clouds of expectations seems to have collapsed.The benchmark Nikkei Index of 225 stocks has declined 24 percent since August and was hammered yesterday during its worst session of the year, although stocks regained some ground today.

UNLESS YOU KNOW where you are, it is difficult to get where you need to be. It's important to keep that truism in mind in assessing the shockingly poor results of new achievement tests administered to children in Baltimore City's elementary schools.The September tests were given to all Baltimore elementary students in grades one through five. They show that city children enter first grade only a few months behind national norms in basic skills. Yet five years later, the achievement levels of these students have fallen as much as a grade-and-a-half behind in reading and about a grade behind in math.

CHANDRA Fernando's hands rest in her lap like sleeping butterflies. She seems the very heart of all gentleness in the world. But, in her little cottage in Hagerstown yesterday, she recalled that hour of national trauma two Septembers ago and talked about a children's book she has written. It is the stuff that restores souls. Called A Little Book of Peace, the book offers lotus blossoms and nightingales in place of airplanes crashing and buildings going down. It is a kind of haiku distillation of her philosophy, and her career, and her life.

"Bumps in the road. " - President Barack Obama on the unrest in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East that included the deaths of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, an information officer, and two Navy SEALS. "Crude and disgusting"… "an insult"… "blasphemy"… "[its message] must be rejected by all who respect our common humanity. " - President Obama on the infamous anti-Muslim videotape that was originally blamed for the Benghazi terror attacks. Benghazi happened "a long time ago. " - White House spokesman Jay Carney on May 2, 2013.

Does it occur to anyone in the left-wing Obama administration that arming Syrian rebels with modern weapons will result in arming a group of fighters who live just across the border from Israel ("The best bad option," May 2)? Does it dawn on anyone on the left who supports this president and this leftist administration what the future impact of high-grade weaponry will be on the Jewish state once the Syrian problems are settled and all these Israeli-hating Syrian terrorists and rebels have U.S. arms?

My periodic "Did You Know" columns tend to raise the blood pressure of more conservative readers who are embarrassed/angry/frustrated by the increasingly aggressive counter-cultural policies of the hard left and their allies in Hollywood, on campus, and in Washington, D.C. Yet, some of this stuff is so looney and/or outside what should be mainstream views and opinions that I can't help myself. So, with due apologies to the aforementioned, did you know: •The Defense Department continues to insist the deadly Fort Hood murders (which killed 13, including a pregnant soldier, and wounded 32 others)

A man was shot in East Baltimore shortly after midnight Saturday, according to police. Officers in the 2900 block of E. Monument St. heard gunfire and a the same time an emergency call came in reporting a shooting in the 2700 block of E. Chase Street in the city's Biddle Street neighborhood, according to police. Officers found the victim, who has not been identified, inside a home suffering a single gun shot wound to the right shoulder and medics took him to a local hospital, police said.

In theory, the defending Super Bowl champion isn't supposed to get stronger through the NFL draft because the team has the last pick in each round. That's not the case with the Ravens. After two days, they have picked up one of the top three players at two different positions. On Thursday, it was University of Florida safety Matt Elam with the No. 32 overall pick. On Friday night, they got another gem in Kansas State linebacker Arthur Brown. The Ravens also picked Missouri Southern defensive tackle Brandon Williams in the third round, but he doesn't have the acclaim of Brown.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger of the two brothers accused of perpetrating the Boston Marathon bombing, is the baffling mystery man in this crime. His older brother, Tamerlan, who died in a shootout with police in the dark early hours Friday morning, better fits the stereotype of a disaffected, nascent terrorist. He was nearing adulthood when he came to this country from Russia's predominantly Muslim central Asian region. He talked of having no American friends. He had openly disdained the immorality of American society and adopted a zealous brand of Islam.

In Ms. Fussell's sixth grade math class at Hampstead Hill Middle School, in East Baltimore, a thing is happening last week that has nothing to do with addition, or fractions, or computing the distance from Baltimore to New York in kilometers, whatever they are.The day has been turned over to the violence in children's lives, to changing this condition which stays with us like a stain. And the thing happening in this classroom is at once heartfelt and frightening."It's not just happening in your neighborhood," says Ms. Fussell, "but what?"

As a post-World War II political activist, candidate, office holder and Republican supporter for the past 67 years, I have always believed in the two-party system of Republicans and Democrats. I believe in a political system consisting of "big tent" Republican and Democratic parties that, among other things, consist of liberals, conservatives and independent voters. However, for the past 40 years, the zealots in each party have rejected the emphasis on united parties in favor of fragmented "leftist" and "rightist" principles.

Courthouse East closed Monday following a water pipe burst. A half-inch pipe burst on the fourth floor of the building, and water trickled down to the lower floors, said Captain Roman Clark, a spokesman with the Baltimore City Fire Department. The break appeared to have occurred over the weekend, according to the Baltimore City Sheriff's Office. No one was injured in the burst, and it looked like damage was limited to carpeting, according to the sheriff's office. Connor Scott, a spokesman with the Mayor's Office of Emergency Management, said everyone had been evacuated from the building as a precaution and that the water to the courthouse was turned off. He said the fire department was waiting on an electrician to determine which parts of the building were safe for electricity.