Inconvenience

WASHINGTON - Prince Bandar is known as the Arab Gatsby. Rising from a murky past in a racist society, born in a Bedouin tent as the son of an African palace servant impregnated by a Saudi prince, to a glamorous present as dean of the Washington diplomatic corps. Tossing glittery parties with celebrity entertainment at his sumptuous mansions in Aspen and England's Wychwood, a royal hunting ground once used by Norman and Plantagenet kings. Smoking cigars and bragging about his fighter-jock exploits - flying upside down 50 feet above the ground - at parties at his McLean, Va., estate overlooking the Potomac, "where there was more chilled vodka in little shot glasses than I've ever seen," as one guest recalled.

Business halted in a busy section of downtown Baltimore yesterday after one of the city's largest water mains burst Thursday night, dumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of water into two major office buildings and clogging traffic throughout the area. Utility crews worked to repair damage in the first block of St. Paul Street, where a 20-inch cast-iron pipe ripped open about 10 p.m. Thursday. The cause of the break was not known, but a city official said it might have resulted from ground movement during the seasonal change.

If you're planning a new subdivision in Howard County's suburbs, you have to meet the neighbors early on. Six months into this requirement, residents are giving the concept high marks - but they have found flaws in the notification and scheduling of meetings, which developers must hold before asking permission to build in eastern Howard. A common complaint is that builders can hold community meetings whenever they feel like it - often in the midmorning on a weekday. Fewer than 40 percent of the meetings have been scheduled at 5 p.m. or later, and only one has been held on a weekend.

ONE HUNDRED years ago this month, the New York Central railroad introduced a new train on the run from New York to Chicago, and called it the Twentieth Century Limited. It became the most famous and most glamorous train in America, and by the time Cary Grant, in the movie North by Northwest, was stowing away in an upper berth, it was streaking between the two cities in 16 hours. It left Grand Central at 5 p.m. and arrived in Chicago at 8 the next morning. A century after The Century, Amtrak runs a train over the same route -- in 19 hours.

The city government's top lawyer showed up unexpectedly and disrupted the arrest of his nephew on drug charges last night at the young man's Northeast Baltimore home. City Solicitor Thurman W. Zollicoffer Jr. later apologized for his conduct, saying he went too far when he rushed to his nephew's house in the 1900 block of E. Belvedere Ave. "I apologize for letting my heart get in the way of my head this evening," Zollicoffer said in a statement issued by City Hall spokesman Tony White.

THE MOST reassuring aspect of terrorism, professional and amateur, real and imagined, is its capacity to bring out common sense, cooperation and heroism on the part of ordinary people. The heroes of this holiday season are the 14 flight crew members and 183 passengers who were aboard American Airlines Flight 63 Saturday. They prevented a real act of terrorism that might have killed them all when they subdued a mad bomber who had outwitted airport security. Stewardesses Hermis Moutardier and Cristina Jones, and passengers Thierry Dugeon and Kwame James, acted coolly and efficiently in preventing the man with the British passport in the name of Richard C. Reid from igniting explosives in his shoes.

Stay alert! And never mind for what. Maryland university chiefs used to connive to become governor. Finally, it's the other way round. This state must continue to jail innocent people. Anything else would inconvenience the bail bond industry, and we just can't have that. Cheer up. Not only will the Ford Motor Co. be run by a Ford again, but one whose mother was a Firestone.

In hopes of significantly reducing long lines, state employees could soon begin assisting in security checks at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, the result of a deal brokered yesterday between Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Federal Aviation Administrator Jane Garvey. The arrangement, a first in the nation, is aimed at reducing the lines that have irritated BWI passengers since airports reopened after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Until now, baggage searches and scans have been handled solely by the airlines or their private security firms.

FOR WEEKS, the world has watched in awe the spectacular fireworks of Mount Etna, the Italian volcano whose rumblings and eruptions have been a part of Sicily's village life for thousands of years. The fiery fountains and rivers of molten rock provide high drama with limited danger, even to those living under the shadow of the cone. While an army of bulldozers urgently erects 10-foot hills of earth and volcanic rock to divert the flow of magma, the main threat is to cable cars, ski lifts and other tourist attractions.

The chairman of the Carroll homebuilders association said the industry won't be inconvenienced while Mount Airy puts new development proposals on hold for a few months to study the town's water supply. Richard L. Hull, who works in Mount Airy as owner of Carroll Land Services Inc. and serves as chairman of the county chapter of the Homebuilders Association of Maryland, said he has had no complaints. "The plans that have been previously submitted in the concept phase or beyond they're allowing to move forward," he said.