Ilk

Politicians routinely use false language to conceal the frauds they're committing and the harm they're doing. Journalists shouldn't echo the politicians' falsifications. Yet The Sun's John Fritze, in writing about U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski's taking over the Senate Appropriations Committee, says that the committee deals in "investments" ("Mikulski is set to lead Appropriations," Dec. 20). What a load of cow manure. Neither the committee nor the Congress nor the federal government deals in investments.

Politicians routinely use false language to conceal the frauds they're committing and the harm they're doing. Journalists shouldn't echo the politicians' falsifications. Yet The Sun's John Fritze, in writing about U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski's taking over the Senate Appropriations Committee, says that the committee deals in "investments" ("Mikulski is set to lead Appropriations," Dec. 20). What a load of cow manure. Neither the committee nor the Congress nor the federal government deals in investments.

On July 8, 2003 KATHERINE STIRLING ILK, beloved wife of the late William R. Ilk; loving sister of Adelaide Boyd and Harry E. Stirling and his wife Malema. Also survived by nieces nephews and cousins. Due notice of Memorial Service at a later date.

Those who remember the Academy Award-winning documentary "Scared Straight," which showed a group of lifers from New Jersey's Rahway State Prison terrifying a bunch of cocky juvenile delinquent boys with tales of jailhouse horror, will understand when I say that MTV's "16 and Pregnant" is the chick version. The show follows teen girls who find themselves pregnant — from the pregnancy test all the way to the delivery room and home again with baby — and it includes graphic scenes of pain, both physical and emotional.

If there was ever a life that confirmed Lord Acton's statement "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely," it was that of Nicolae Ceausescu.Actually, according to Edward Behr's fascinating PBS documentary "The Rise and Fall of Ceausescu," which will be on Maryland Public Television, channels 22 and 67, tonight at 9 o'clock, that should be two lives, those of both Nicolae and his wife, Elena.For almost 20 years, this pair ruled Romania as they constructed a personality cult around themselves with propaganda so powerful that, in the end, even they seemed to believe it.The Ceausescus fell in December of 1989 -- their trial and execution captured on a crude videotape that ends the program -- as the iron curtain had crumbled.

It's a little late for New Year's resolutions, but I'll make one anyway. I swear that I will never again write anything even mildly critical of the heroic President Clinton or his brilliant wife.This is the first time I've taken such an oath and it isn't easy because I have been sniping at presidents -- Republicans and Democrats -- since Lyndon B. Johnson was in the White House.But I'm calling it quits because I cannot endure the shrill shrieks of Clinton's liberal Democrat admirers.Their furious howls are far worse than anything I ever heard from the conservative Republican supporters of Ronald Reagan, the tight-lipped hisses from George Bush's fans, or even the raspy snarls of Richard Nixon's crowd.

GET UP ON ITKeith Sweat (Elektra 61550)There's always been something of a lover-man aura to Keith Sweat's music, but he's never presented that side of his sound as literally as he does on "Get Up on It." Between the pillow-talk persuasiveness of his voice and the single-minded insistence of his lyrics, Sweat makes no secret of how he defines romance. As such, "Get Up on It" comes across less as a musical valentine than a sort of danceable sex manual. To his credit, Sweat avoids the kind of slavering explicitness that marks the work of his proteges in Silk, but even so, there's not a whole lot of subtlety to be found in the likes of "Come Into My Bedroom" or "Grind On You."

ALMOST everyone has known a grandfather who was a boot- strapper. The stories of hard work and personal achievement have a certain sameness: how he delivered newspapers to buy school shoes, how he worked his way through college driving an ice truck, how he started a business even though no one wanted to rent to someone of his ilk.(Pick an ilk. Many ilks. I have heard this story from grandfathers Irish, Polish, German, Italian.)These are inspiring stories that reinforce the notion that the United States is a place where perseverance and hard work can turn a poor person into a rich one. But there is sometimes something mean-spirited at the core of these simple parables.

In "Fair Game," Cindy Crawford proves that she can't act.So? What's wrong with that? I have no problem with that.The movie is one long action sequence with such non-essentials as dialogue, character, plot and tone neatly excised to keep everybody's embarrassment to a minimum. It's mainly a study in abstract design that reduces the supermodel to angular planes, geometric shapes and landscape architecture, as the filmmakers keep trying to come up with yet more ways to get Cindy mussed, bruised, stripped, drenched or running perkily down the beach sans support garments.

TILGHMAN -- Two mallards locked up and slid to a landing beyond a barrier of reeds. A heron stood on one leg, its head cocked, its eyes scanning the shallows for a meal. Behind us, the sun, 90 minutes up, began to escape a cloud bank, and Capt. Buddy Harrison throttled up the Pleasure Merchant as we escaped Knapps Narrows.The weather forecast had been for morning rain and gusty wind early after noon, but the day broke mostly fair as the 42-foot Merchant ran strong southwest -- beyond The Hook and toward the 50-foot bottom contour along the edge of the main channel in Chesapeake Bay.When the lines first went down, we were north of Devils Hole and, I think, well south of Brownie's Hill -- not that it matters much when a captain is working what have been his home waters for as many years as I have been alive.

Compiling an end-of-the-year list always makes me a little nervous. I worry I'll leave off an artist whose work was tight, whose effort deserves a mention. But for some reason (chiefly space limitations), I can't get everyone in. This year wasn't so hard, though. When thinking about the "best" CDs of the year, sales and critical buzz don't matter much to me. "Best" means that the artist stepped his game up and, in the process, set a higher standard within his genre. It's music that either added something fresh to current trends or bucked them altogether with a vibrant and memorable approach.

The Rev. Al Sharpton's desperation is showing. His recent attacks on presidential candidate Barack Obama and his threat to withhold his support have exposed the trick behind Mr. Sharpton's magic act. His audience is leaving the tent, and Mr. Sharpton is scrambling for relevancy. Mr. Sharpton has been challenging Mr. Obama's credentials in the black community and saying that the Democratic senator from Illinois is the darling of white leadership, according to Democratic sources. Mr. Sharpton told CBS News that he is withholding his endorsement until after his National Action Network summit next month.

L. Dennis Kozlowski, whose excesses damaged the reputations of everything from shower curtains to ice sculptures, is now in a New York state prison for at least seven years. He is lucky that his sentence was not determined by a jury of his peers. Even as some lawyers moan that it is unfair to send business executives away for years or even decades, there is a stunning lack of sympathy for them from those who used to be their peers: people who are or were at the top of large corporations.

On July 8, 2003 KATHERINE STIRLING ILK, beloved wife of the late William R. Ilk; loving sister of Adelaide Boyd and Harry E. Stirling and his wife Malema. Also survived by nieces nephews and cousins. Due notice of Memorial Service at a later date.

AS A white Southerner who voted in the 1948 presidential election, I think Sen. Trent Lott and the resultant commentary are giving 1940s-style white Southern segregationists a bad name. I lived in Georgia in 1948. It and six other of the 11 states of the old Confederacy voted for President Harry Truman. We Crackers gave the president three times as many votes as we gave Mr. Thurmond. That was a predominantly white vote, too. Most Southern blacks were still disenfranchised then, and many if not most, of those who weren't voted Republican.

THE TERRORISTS who attacked India's parliament Dec. 13 killed 12 people, including themselves. They achieved their probable goal, to drive India and Pakistan to war or its brink. If the purpose was to change the subject in Pakistan, to create tension with India greater than the alliance with the United States, to divert troops from Afghanistan's border, it has worked. Two nuclear powers stand at the abyss, missiles targeted, politicians threatening war. India is greater in population, geography, arms, technology and economy.

WASHINGTON -- "Media," the word as we use it now, was created by advertising men in the 1920s. I don't much like it or most of its refinements and manifestations, words like "the product," "data," "platform," "niche," "brand name," "market research" and "profit center."That said, the worst thing that ever-expanding "media" did to me and my ilk -- and to my nation, too -- was to merge news and entertainment, blending fact and fiction and making news into just another subset of entertainment.

I hopped into a cab, gave the driver an address, then said: "Excuse me, but do you mind if I pray?"He laughed and said: "Don't worry, I drive careful. You got nothing to worry about.""No, it's not your driving," I said. "I wanted to pray for a variety of things. Do you have any objection?"Peering into the rear-view mirror, he said: "No, sir. That's your business. Uh, but you're not going to do it real loud, are you?""Oh, no. I always pray in a soft mumble. I doubt if you'll be able to hear me."

The network fall TV season is only two weeks away from its first early rollout of new series. So it's probably time to start preparing for the really bad news: You are going to see the worst collection of sitcoms in recent memory.In fact, the sitcoms of the 1999-2000 TV season are so bad that that you can't help but wonder: Is the sitcom dead?Take "Shasta McNasty" from UPN, featuring three teen-age members of a hip-hop group living together in Venice Beach. Based on the pilot, the one black and two white members of the group don't do much singing.

SUPREME COURT Justice Clarence Thomas went before the National Bar Association July 29 and pleaded for reason.Thomas told the gathering of black lawyers that he had a right to think for himself, that his fellow blacks have "singled [me] out for particularly bilious and venomous assault" and that his being black didn't mean he had to think a particular way. Then Thomas posed a question."Isn't it time to move on, to realize that being angry with me is no solution?" the justice queried. "Isn't it time that we respect ourselves and each other as we have demanded respect from others?"