Keane

The Midshipmen, sailing coaches, officers and personnel at the NavalAcademy Sailing Squadron enjoyed one of their winningest months in October.The season's race results place them in the top ranks of the Intercollegiate Yacht Racing Association schools. A national ranking from Sailing World is anticipated soon.The Naval Academy's Varsity Offshore team performed well also andtook several prize trophies within the CBYRA.On Oct. 5-6, Navy won the Danmark trophy at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy's 50th Danmark Regatta.

DALLAS -- The celebration began before the second period was complete.The party poured over into the second intermission, the entire third period, and long into a sticky Texas night.Game 7 of the Western Conference finals was never really in doubt. The Stars outclassed their gutsy opponent, the Colorado Avalanche, in every aspect of the game. They had to win the last two games to advance and end the scrutiny and probing that has surrounded their rise to the NHL's elite.They did it, and did it with panache, finishing off the Avalanche, 4-1, last night at Reunion Arena, ending what was a terrifically entertaining and well- played series.

I am a child of the 1960s and I have tried, off and on, to impress upon my children the searing nature of my coming of age. Just about my first real memory is of the televised funeral of John F. Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were killed when I was in high school. Kent State abruptly ended my freshman year in college. My boyfriend had a draft number in the teens. Feminism and the pill changed the definition of my sex. Watergate changed my career choice from a job to a calling.

DUBLIN, Ireland - Paddy Cullan's pub advertised on its window, "Come watch the World Cup!" but come game time Saturday morning, its door was locked and the surrounding streets deserted. Then three young men stealing furtive glances and wearing floppy Irish tricolor hats darted in a side entrance. A knock on the door produced a nervous-looking man in an apron. Standing outside, you could hear the cheering inside. "No pub in Dublin will be open or showing the game this morning," the man says in a fiction worthy of native sons Joyce, Beckett and Yeats.

"Vaclav Havel: A Political Tragedy in Six Acts," by John Keane. Basic Books. 532 pages. $27.50. In the liberation of Eastern Europe from Soviet control, no heroes shine more brightly than Lech Walesa, the valiant electrician who came out of the Gdansk shipyards to lead Poland to freedom, and Vaclav Havel, the bourgeois writer of absurdist plays who made it from prison to the Czech presidency in the 1989 "Velvet Revolution." History will pair these two, and rightly so, even though Walesa receives only cursory mention in this first full-fledged biography of Havel.

For Thomas Paine, token honor and public disregard have been his modern lot. Up-country school boards do not ban "The Age of Reason"; talk-show hosts are unaware how often he used the word "liberal." Paine's writings are now enshrined in the Library of America. Two hundred years after the violent births of two republics, with Paine at the bedside, he is the property of 500-page biographers.Winter began with the publication of "Thomas Paine, Apostle of Freedom," by Jack Fruchtman Jr., professor of political science at Towson State University; winter ends with the publication of "Tom Paine, A Political Life," by John Keane, professor of politics at the University of Westminster in London.

BaseballIndians: Signed P Daron Kirkreit to a minor-league contract.Giants: Signed C Damon Berryhill to a minor-league contract.Rockies: Agreed to terms with P Jerry DiPoto on a one-year contract. Named Billy White batting and field instructor for Double-A Asheville.BasketballGrizzlies: Waived C Rich Manning.Heat: Signed G John Crotty to a 10-day contract. Placed G Gary Grant on the injured list. Waived G James Scott.Hornets: Signed F Jamie Feick.Jazz: Signed G Ruben Nembhard.Knicks: Waived C Eric Leckner and F Chris Jent.

WASHINGTON - It was December 2002, and the Pentagon was planning to invade Iraq. Top Army commanders were preparing for a computerized war game in Germany. Huge cargo ships were rented to carry troops and tanks to Kuwait. Thousands of National Guard and Reserve soldiers were about to be called to active duty. And in the midst of all this careful planning, a crisis emerged with the potential to ruin everything: a battery shortage. Not just any battery - but the vaunted BA-5590, the military's most widely used portable power source.

BOYS CO-RUNNERS OF THE YEAR Nicholas Keane River Hill Seemingly destined to be the Hawks' No. 2 runner, Keane made his presence felt by picking up his first Howard County and Class 3A East region titles. The junior won the county championship in 16 minutes, 51.75 seconds at Centennial High's 3.1-mile course. A week later, he added the region crown by crossing the finish line in 17:25.21. Keane's kick in the final 200 meters played a defining role in his victories. Keane upended teammate and No. 1 runner Sergiy Zubko in two county meets and never dropped out of the top seven in River Hill's seven major invitationals.

Because of an editing error, an incorrect performance date for the band Uprising was listed in yesterday's Maryland Live. The band will appear tonight at the 8x10 Club.*Uprising When: Today, Feb. 15, 10 p.m.Where: 8x10 ClubTickets: $6Call: 625-2000,*All Mighty SenatorsWhen: Saturday, Feb. 16, 10:30 p.m.Where: Grog & TankardTicket: $5Call: 752-5522.'*Karen Goldberg When: Feb. 16, 9 p.m. Oxbow Inn (969 Ritchie Highway in Arnold); Feb. 21, 8 p.m. Maggie's (Washington Road and GreeneStreet, Westminster)