Insignia

Fashionable tributeThe company that found such success with replicas of the Negro League's baseball caps is introducing an entire line of active wear. Just in time to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut in the major leagues, the San Francisco-based Blue Marlin now makes sweat hirts ($63) Henley tees ($60) and T-shirts ($22-$28) with Negro League insignia -- including the Baltimore Elite Giants and the Baltimore Black Sox. Their caps, like this Baltimore Black Sox hat, are priced in the $30 range.

A Baltimore man accused of dealing marijuana from his Hampstead liquor store is being held on $25,000 bail at the Carroll County Detention Center, court records show.Craig R. Arman, 33, of Bonnie Ridge, was arrested Friday during a raid by state police and town officers at C & E Liquors, which he owns and operates in the 4100 block of Lower Beckleysville Road.State police said the raid ended a two-month investigation of Arman and an alleged drug distribution operation being conducted from his store.

1994 Joseph Phelps Insignia, Napa Valley ($65).Two years ago, this Bordeaux-style blend astonished me at a tasting in Washington, where I thought it was the best California barrel sample I had ever tasted. Now that it is bottled and on the market, it has lost none of its incredible concentration, supple texture, enthralling complexity and captivating charm. It is simply loaded with flavor: black currant, black cherry, exotic spices, raspberry, smoked meat and cedar. It is so appealing now that you might think it couldn't age, but there's plenty of tannin lurking behind the enormous fruit.

This is a genteel wine column, so we don't get "pig-biting mad" here, as the legendary Ed Anger does in his commentaries for the Weekly World News, a supermarket tabloid.So let's just say I was "pork-chomping perturbed" recently when I picked up a log of "Montrachet" cheese in my local Safeway and found it had come from Wisconsin.Excuse me? Last I heard, Montrachet (besides being the name of a famous wine) was one of the most prized cheeses of France -- a delicate chevre of the highest quality.

Fashionable tributeThe company that found such success with replicas of the Negro League's baseball caps is introducing an entire line of active wear. Just in time to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut in the major leagues, the San Francisco-based Blue Marlin now makes sweat hirts ($63) Henley tees ($60) and T-shirts ($22-$28) with Negro League insignia -- including the Baltimore Elite Giants and the Baltimore Black Sox. Their caps, like this Baltimore Black Sox hat, are priced in the $30 range.

WASHINGTON -- More than 200 American intelligence reports about the 1991 Persian Gulf war that were removed from public (( inspection earlier this year by the Pentagon are scheduled to be released again this week -- but not by the Defense Department.The owner of a small Washington publishing company said yesterday that he would defy the Pentagon and the CIA and make the documents public again, beginning tomorrow on his Internet site.The 226 documents, which detail the possible release of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons in the vicinity of American troops during the gulf war, were removed this year from a Defense Department site on the Internet known as Gulflink, at the CIA's request.

A Stoneleigh couple's fascination with the "heraldry of valor" -- medals, badges and insignia -- dating to their childhood during World War II has turned into a new business supplying custom displays of veterans' awards."

Waco, Texas. -- If in fact there's truth to a certain obnoxious bumper sticker, there's none in the phrase, ''Profanity happens.''Most profanity is quite conscious, a matter of cultivation, as is learning Latin or loving Shakespeare. You have to be taught how to cuss. Potty mouths are made and nurtured, not born.Consider Michael Moorer, new world heavyweight boxing champ. The other day at his coming-out press conference, with two championship belts draped over him, Mr. Moorer said, ''I'm the [bleep]

Petty attack on Confederate BannerIt was a cheap publicity shot for Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun D-Ill. to attack the United Daughters of the Confederacy by pushing to have the Senate withdraw its support for the 95-year-old patent of the UDC insignia containing the symbol of the Confederate flag.When there are so many problems facing our cities and public school systems, it would seem that Ms. Moseley-Braun could better concern herself with them rather than stoop to such pettiness as attacking a group which honors its ancestors who fought and died for the Southern cause.

Although veteran collectors, dealers and auctioneers always are battling to conquer new fields, this Veterans' Day some are targeting old allies and finding that Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Pluto, Goofy, Jiminy Cricket and the corps of Disney characters are perennial heroes. But rather than setting their sights just on Disney animation "cels" and vintage wind-up toys in which there already has been explosive growth in demand and prices, they're stalking an overlooked corner of "Disneyana:" World War II military insignia designed by the Walt Disney Studio.

The president has declined to talk about racism in connection with the carpet-chewers of the Right who are suffering road rage over his existence, and he's wise to turn that one down. The country doesn't need a sermon on race or civility right now. What it needs is to believe that our leaders are trying to do the right thing, no matter how inconvenient, and if they forge ahead and fix health insurance, then the ragemeisters of the Right will find other hobbies. Mr. Obama is a Chicago guy, and he doesn't wilt if some gin-crazed cracker from South Carolina calls him a liar, so don't trouble your pretty head about civility.

Standing before a new director, the midshipmen in the Naval Academy Gospel Choir seemed a little nervous. The music was lethargic, as though everyone was holding back. The harmonies didn't quite gel, didn't quite come together to reach that glorious depth of sound that can shake the ground and make the skin tingle. At one point, Karla Scott, who recently replaced 17-year director Joyce Garrett, stopped and ask the Mids to raise their hands if they "don't like change." Many complied. Still, she introduced a new song, "Amen, Siakudimisa," a popular spiritual sung in Xhosa - the language of one of the largest ethnic groups in South Africa.

Standing before a new director, the midshipmen in the Naval Academy Gospel Choir seemed a little nervous. The music was lethargic, as though everyone was holding back. The harmonies didn't quite gel, didn't quite come together to reach that glorious depth of sound that can shake the ground and make the skin tingle. At one point, Karla Scott, who recently replaced 17-year director Joyce Garrett, stopped and ask the Mids to raise their hands if they "don't like change." Many complied. Still, she introduced a new song, "Amen, Siakudimisa," a popular spiritual sung in Xhosa - the language of one of the largest ethnic groups in South Africa.

In Bedrich Smetana's comic opera The Bartered Bride, opening tonight for three weekend performances at Anne Arundel Community College's Pascal Center for the Performing Arts, music department Chairman Douglas Byerly might have hit upon the ideal vehicle to fulfill his mission of "making opera accessible to everybody." And the AACC folks offer the added bonus of transferring this opera of Czech peasant living to our own contemporary "land of pleasant living." The only Czech opera in the European and American repertoire, Smetana's 19th-century work takes place in a small Bohemian village where young lovers Marie and Hans contemplate their future.

1994 Joseph Phelps Insignia, Napa Valley ($65).Two years ago, this Bordeaux-style blend astonished me at a tasting in Washington, where I thought it was the best California barrel sample I had ever tasted. Now that it is bottled and on the market, it has lost none of its incredible concentration, supple texture, enthralling complexity and captivating charm. It is simply loaded with flavor: black currant, black cherry, exotic spices, raspberry, smoked meat and cedar. It is so appealing now that you might think it couldn't age, but there's plenty of tannin lurking behind the enormous fruit.

A Baltimore man accused of dealing marijuana from his Hampstead liquor store is being held on $25,000 bail at the Carroll County Detention Center, court records show.Craig R. Arman, 33, of Bonnie Ridge, was arrested Friday during a raid by state police and town officers at C & E Liquors, which he owns and operates in the 4100 block of Lower Beckleysville Road.State police said the raid ended a two-month investigation of Arman and an alleged drug distribution operation being conducted from his store.

Fashionable tributeThe company that found such success with replicas of the Negro League's baseball caps is introducing an entire line of active wear. Just in time to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut in the major leagues, the San Francisco-based Blue Marlin now makes sweat hirts ($63) Henley tees ($60) and T-shirts ($22-$28) with Negro League insignia -- including the Baltimore Elite Giants and the Baltimore Black Sox. Their caps, like this Baltimore Black Sox hat, are priced in the $30 range.

Fashionable tributeThe company that found such success with replicas of the Negro League's baseball caps is introducing an entire line of active wear. Just in time to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut in the major leagues, the San Francisco-based Blue Marlin now makes sweat hirts ($63) Henley tees ($60) and T-shirts ($22-$28) with Negro League insignia -- including the Baltimore Elite Giants and the Baltimore Black Sox. Their caps, like this Baltimore Black Sox hat, are priced in the $30 range.

This is a genteel wine column, so we don't get "pig-biting mad" here, as the legendary Ed Anger does in his commentaries for the Weekly World News, a supermarket tabloid.So let's just say I was "pork-chomping perturbed" recently when I picked up a log of "Montrachet" cheese in my local Safeway and found it had come from Wisconsin.Excuse me? Last I heard, Montrachet (besides being the name of a famous wine) was one of the most prized cheeses of France -- a delicate chevre of the highest quality.

WASHINGTON -- More than 200 American intelligence reports about the 1991 Persian Gulf war that were removed from public (( inspection earlier this year by the Pentagon are scheduled to be released again this week -- but not by the Defense Department.The owner of a small Washington publishing company said yesterday that he would defy the Pentagon and the CIA and make the documents public again, beginning tomorrow on his Internet site.The 226 documents, which detail the possible release of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons in the vicinity of American troops during the gulf war, were removed this year from a Defense Department site on the Internet known as Gulflink, at the CIA's request.