Iceberg

Marion V. Cusimano's was a grotesque case of elderly abuse: crippled by multiple sclerosis, she died of neglect and starvation. Her body remained a year in the back bedroom of the Essex home she owned.National and local experts point to many other cases, ranging from the hurtful to the horrific. An elderly man left unattended in the same bed with his dead wife. A mother battered by her alcoholic son. A 71-year-old woman left in bed for so long that her bedsores became infested with maggots.

The $11.4 million the Schaefer administration has ordered the University of Maryland System to cut from its budget is part of a statewide $400 million budget-reduction package that is nearing completion.The cuts have forced the UM Board of Regents to propose a permanent 16 percent tuition increase next fall, in addition to a one-time, 15-percent surcharge for the 1992 spring semester.The statewide budget reduction plan is expected to include layoffs of as many as 1,000 state employees, said State House sources.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- Just before noon here tomorrow, the nine yachts in the Whitbread Round the World Race fleet will leave the tranquillity of their moorings, slip out of Auckland's Waitemata Harbour and assemble under the brooding bulk of Rangitoto, the ancient volcano that squats like a malevolent green gnome, guarding this gateway to the Pacific Ocean.There, in a traditional Auckland ceremony, a priest, the Rev. Richard Beck, will take up a Bible and ask the almighty for a time-honored blessing upon those that go to the sea in ships.

Donna Smith once tried to put her father in jail for alleged acts of sexual abuse, some of them supposedly performed during Satanic rituals. But yesterday, she told a gathering of 800 people at a Baltimore conference that the crimes never happened -- they appeared in "false memories" coaxed by therapists.Now, the St. Mary's County native said, two things have put her on the road to mental health: her parents' unconditional love and her resolve to stay out of therapy."Therapy is a very scary thing for me," she said, winning applause at a conference on the "false memory syndrome" held at Stouffer's Harborplace Hotel.

When is a salad not a salad? Actually never, if you enter the brave new world of chefs who are taking a mundane concept (iceberg lettuce on a plate with orange goop on top) to strato- spheric heights. They're doing it with mangoes. With shrimp. Habanero peppers. Figs. Shaved fennel. Nectarines. Chocolate. Chocolate? That would be Thomas Keller's "Salad" Ile Flottante: slow-baked meringues stuffed with chocolate mousse in a pool of creme anglaise, topped with bittersweet chocolate "frisee" on top, drizzled with mint oil and sea salt.

There was a time when our concept of the salad green was pretty much limited to iceberg lettuce: We'd top it with a wedge of tomato and a slice of cucumber, ladle on the French or Thousand Island dressing, and voila -- the perfect salad. But times have changed. Today, the simple salad green has grown up, keeping pace with increasingly sophisticated and multicultural American palates. Besides iceberg, there are now dozens of varieties of salad greens, ranging from familiar spinach, endive and romaine to gourmet varieties, such as tat soi (pronounced tat soy)

Running before the wind, cascading down one steep wave, then careening into the back of the next before flying over its crest, is what attracts most sailors to the Whitbread Round the World Race.It is not a typical sailing experience.Leg 5, which begins Sunday in Auckland, New Zealand, is 6,670-nautical-mile passage to Sao Sebastiao, Brazil, and it offers even more.Winds of 40 to 50 knots and gusting higher. Wave heights of 30 feet. Boat speeds exceeding 30 knots. Snow squalls, icebergs and water-swept decks.

There's nothing wrong with vanilla ice cream or a vanilla-and-chocolate frozen-yogurt cone. But sometimes you just want something different, something more. Some shops in the Baltimore area have taken that idea to a whole new level, offering frozen treats in wacky flavors or spicing things up, sometimes literally, with out-there toppings. Some of the craziest cold concoctions: Dominion's vegetable ice cream, which comes in spinach, carrot, tomato, sweet potato and jalapeno; Mr. Yogato's peach yogurt with extra-virgin olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette; Pitango Gelato's spicy chocolate, with crushed red chili peppers; Moxley's Old Bay ice cream, for that extra little kick; and Sylvan Beach's margarita ice cream, complete with salt and lime.

LOS ANGELES -Pat Mitchell, the president of PBS, announced yesterday that public television will team up with National Public Radio for an unprecedented live broadcast Nov. 1 on the election. The prime-time program, which will bring such NPR talent as Juan Williams and Elizabeth Arnold together with the staffs of "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" and "Frontline," PBS' signature news and public affairs series, is only the start of what Mitchell said she hopes will become an ongoing partnership between the two broadcasting operations.

WASHINGTON -- Money. It's the high-octane stuff that runs American politics, and in this election year the largest sums are fueling the presidential contest. Indeed, President Clinton and Bob Dole have already spent more than $50 million, and there's still a half year to go."Follow the money" remains good advice for those wanting to know what's happening in politics. But few things are harder to comprehend than campaign finance.Ever since reforms were put in place in the mid-1970s in response to the Watergate scandal, the rules and regulations of campaign money have grown to resemble the tax code both in volume and fiendish complexity.