Lady Bird Johnson

NEW YORK -- She was, in life, the most private of citizens, the most public of American icons. And so it is in death that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is being doubly mourned -- both as the complex woman beloved by family and friends and as the womanly ideal revered by a generation of Americans."

WASHINGTON -- Lyndon, we hardly knew ye.We knew you were earthy and we knew you were emotional. We knew you were manipulative and we knew you were maniacal. We knew how big were your dreams and how big were your demons.But only this month, three decades later, are we discovering just how earthy and emotional, just how manipulative and maniacal, was Lyndon Baines Johnson, man of big dreams and big demons.Smack in the middle of a modern-day controversy about presidential tapes comes the publication of transcripts of President Johnson's taped conversations -- and surprisingly intimate and revealing tapes made by his wife, Lady Bird Johnson.

DALLAS -- The public will get its first taste of Lyndon B. Johnson's often-fiery telephone conversations in the days after the Kennedy assassination when the long-secret tapes are released this week.The Lyndon B. Johnson Library said Friday that transcripts of about 275 phone calls from November and December 1963 would be made available Wednesday, both in Austin and at the National Archives in Washington.Lewis Gould, a University of Texas history professor who helped review the tapes, said Friday that, although they contain a few historical tidbits, "Johnson's personality is going to impress people, more than any clues to the Kennedy assassination."

WASHINGTON - Former Virginia Gov. George F. Allen handily won a bitter U.S. Senate race last night against Democratic incumbent Charles S. Robb, a two-term senator who was the only member of his party to hold a statewide office. With 95 percent of precincts reporting, Allen had captured 52 percent to 44 percent for Robb. "We laid out a constructive, positive campaign. I'll be a senator for all the people of Virginia," Allen told cheering supporters last night. "[Virginians] voted for lower taxes and better schools ... and an all-out war on illegal drugs."

Towson University's fifth annual College of Liberal Arts Foreign Film Series opens Wednesday with Zhang Jiarui's 2002 When Ruo Ma Was Seventeen. The film focuses on a young girl from rural southwestern China who dreams of riding in an elevator. The series continues Wednesdays through April 16 with films that look at Chinese history and society. Films are set to include Zhang Yang's 1999 Shower, Gu Changwei's 2005 Peacock and Zhang Yimou's 1990 Raise the Red Lantern. Showtime for all four films is 6:30 p.m. in the auditorium of Van Bokkelen Hall on the Towson campus, 8000 York Road.

LOOKING FOR some good summer reading? Want a biography that has weight and substance? Well, try a new book, ''First Ladies'' Volume II; Presidents' Wives and Their Power, 1961-1990'' by Carl Sferrazza Anthony.I finished ''Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography'' in April, then in May I finished ''First Ladies.''There are biographies and ''trashographies'' and the Kitty Kelley book is the latter.In one sense I am comparing apples and oranges, or apples and sour grapes with these two books.

Before Martha Stewart told the world she'd just like to focus on her salad, before most of us had even heard of ImClone, some of the nation's florists had made up their minds. Martha Stewart -- good for flowers, bad for florists. The do-it-yourself domestic diva encouraged millions of fans to buy their gardenias wholesale -- or, conveniently, from her Web site -- and then arrange the bouquets themselves. So when the Baltimore-based American Institute of Floral Designers honored Stewart with its Non-Industry Award of Merit in 2002, a handful of florists complained.

Hillary Rodham Clinton came to town yesterday, making Baltimore the first stop on her "Save America's Treasures" tour.Clinton gave a speech by the Francis Scott Key monument in the city's Bolton Hill neighborhood and visited Fort McHenry to see the place where the flag was still there in the dawn's early light in 1814, inspiring the young lawyer's poem that later became the national anthem."

ME, Loana. You, Tumak." That was Raquel Welch's big line in One Million Years B.C. Her only line, in fact. As a screen incarnation of Woman in the Time of Dinosaurs -- human beings and dinosaurs never actually co-existed -- Miss Welch grunted and pantomimed her role. Her snarly cave girl catfight with Martine Beswick was especially evocative. Raquel, a proud Latina, was distressed to have to streak her hair blond as Loana, and certainly didn't think this movie was her ticket to stardom.

Mary L. Wilson, who was one of the secretaries to four Maryland governors and was known as "Mrs. Maryland Democrat," died Friday of cancer at Lions Manor Nursing Home in Cumberland. She was 95.In a 1960 interview in the Cumberland Evening Times, Mrs. Wilson stated the substance of her life's work:"I was born a Democrat, and I'll always be a Democrat. I believe in the principles of the Democratic Party and will work in every way possible to get women as well as men into the Democratic Party."