Insult

To understand how angry and disappointed many Democrats are that Barack Obama has invited evangelical preacher Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inaugural, imagine if a President-elect John McCain had offered this unique honor to the Rev. Al Sharpton - or the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. I know, it's hard to picture: John McCain would never do that. Republicans respect their base even when, as in Mr. McCain's case, it doesn't really return the favor. Only Democrats, it seems, reward their most loyal supporters - feminists, gays, liberals, opponents of the war - by elbowing them aside to embrace their opponents instead.

Lisa Lampanelli is an equal-opportunity basher. Blacks, whites, Asians, Jews and Hispanics are all in the cross hairs of this up-and-coming insult comic. The only demographic she doesn't lampoon on stage? Europeans. "You only hurt the ones you love," she said. "That's why I don't make fun of French people and Europeans - because they smell and I hate them. They do. Try smelling one. I have. Horrible." Tomorrow, Lampanelli brings her stinging stand-up act to Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. She has about a week to refine her live routine before she tapes a one-hour special for HBO at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, Calif.

INDIANAPOLIS - In the final two minutes of a game already lost, the Ravens suffered one final indignity at Lucas Oil Stadium. They lost right guard Marshal Yanda on a play that didn't count. Yanda went down hard on a 4-yard pass play that was erased by a penalty against the Indianapolis Colts. The post-game prognosis was a sprained right knee. But magnetic resonance imaging was scheduled for today and indications are the injury could be serious. Yanda wore a supportive sleeve over his entire right leg and was on crutches in the locker room after the game.

You have to believe that the pitch for Nickelodeon's first prime-time family movie was something along the lines of "Will Ferrell-light." Gym Teacher: The Movie, which premieres tonight, is the story of a failed Olympic gymnast-turned-gym teacher who faces his last shot at glory in the form of a new National Gym Teacher of the Year contest. Even with Christopher Meloni (Law & Order: SVU, Oz) in the lead on Nick, it still echoes Blades of Glory, Semi-Pro and Kicking & Screaming. The main rabbit-trick of loser-turned-winner comedies is humiliation - the protagonist must be brought low to give his subsequent transformation that heady feel-good lift the genre requires.

Defense attorney Leslie Stein gripped both sides of the witness stand on Thursday as he forcefully rebutted allegations that he had tried to coerce a witness in a murder trial to change his testimony. "Of course not!" he exclaimed when Assistant State's Attorney Kevin Wiggins asked Stein whether he'd called witness Christopher Meadows a snitch and threatened him and his family. "Did you tell the witness to lie?" Wiggins asked Stein. Stein threw his hands in the air. "For this case? Why?"

Brace yourself. I'm going to use a word that offends folks. I'm talking the F-word. Feminist. This woman sent me an e-mail Monday and it got me thinking. See, in describing herself, she assured me she was not a "women's libber" - the late 1960s equivalent of feminist. She also said she was retired from the Navy. There was, it seemed to me, a disconnect there: She doesn't believe in women's liberation, yet she is retired from a position that liberation made possible. Intrigued, I asked my 17-year-old daughter if she considers herself a feminist.

When the Senator Theatre holds a Wire screening Saturday, the night before the acclaimed HBO series begins its fifth and final season, someone a little surprising will be in the audience: the mayor of Baltimore. City leaders have never been big fans of the show, complaining that the gritty urban drama scares off tourists. In 2002, the City Council even considered a resolution calling for an ad campaign to counter the negative publicity. The council scrapped the measure after creator David Simon threatened to move production to another city.

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Hundreds of demonstrators in Khartoum, Sudan's capital, poured into the streets yesterday demanding the execution of a British teacher convicted of insulting Islam because her class of 7-year-olds named a teddy bear Muhammad. The protesters, some carrying swords, screamed, "Shame, shame on the U.K.!" and "Kill her, kill her by firing squad." They were calling for the death of Gillian Gibbons, who was sentenced Thursday to 15 days in jail. Under Sudanese law, she could have spent six months behind bars and received 40 lashes.

"So," the woman asked, "how do we beat the bitch?" And Sen. John McCain laughed. It was, he said, an "excellent" question. Yes, he went on to express respect for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, to whom the woman referred. But not once while answering that question at a campaign stop in South Carolina recently did he suggest that it wasn't appropriate to call Mrs. Clinton a "bitch." Can you imagine if the Democratic front-runner were Sen. Joe Lieberman and the woman said, "So, how do we beat this Hebe?"

Residents of the 19th century mill town of Woodberry, nestled in the Jones Falls Valley, barely had time to mourn the loss of 19 acres of woodlands when they learned that an extra 50,000 square feet of old forest had been illegally cleared as well. Loyola College, which is clearing the land southwest of Cold Spring Lane and the Jones Falls Expressway to build a new stadium, has paid a $30,000 fine and promised to replant the extra acre or so that a spokeswoman said was "disturbed inadvertently."