Lifetime

Kristen Ulloa, along with the rest of the Towson University marching band, is used to playing in front of a few hundred people, maybe even a few thousand at TU football and basketball games. But when they march in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade Thursday, an audience approaching 50 million people will be watching. But like most of her fellow Marching Tigers, she insists she's too excited to be nervous. "This is probably the coolest thing that could happen to a band," says Ulloa, a 20-year-old junior from Finksburg who's a member of the band's color guard.

On a cool Saturday morning, Hamilton A. Smith - the programs call him that, but most every acquaintance calls him Ham or Hammy - is doing his best to do as he always has. He moves around his barn at Laurel Park, working his staff. His rapid-fire delivery is steady, always, and his humor wry. But he can be sarcastic, too. "You're never quite sure how to take him," says Sheldon Russell, the 24-year-old who is Maryland's leading jockey. Smith does this on purpose, keeping his riders and other workers - he's never had an actual assistant, like many trainers - on edge.

For once in my lifetime / I feel like a giant / I soar like an eagle / As tho' I had wings / For this is my moment / My destiny calls me / And tho' it may be just once in my lifetime / I'm gonna do great things. - "Once in a Lifetime," by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse COLUMBIA, S.C. --There she is, Miss A-mer-i-ca. There she - oh, no, sorry. It's just Hillary. But standing there center stage, surrounded by queens (the kind who wear tiaras), she looked like Miss Queen of the Universe greeting her court.

Kevin Byrne, the Ravens' senior vice president for public and community relations, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from Marquette University's athletics department and the Marquette University Alumni Association on April 27. He earned a degree in journalism from Marquette in 1971. Byrne returned to Marquette as sports information director during baskeball coach Al McGuire's legendary years (1974-77) , including the 1977 national championship. He then became the youngest PR director in the NFL when was hired by the St. Louis Cardinals in 1977.  After working as Trans World Airlines' director of public affairs, he returned to the NFL with Cleveland Browns.

ON AND OFF THE AIR:* It has been said that one way to judge the relative advancement of any culture is to consider the way it treats its elderly and its children. Unfortunately, in our current culture we entertain ourselves at the expense of children.A case in point is "Stop At Nothing," a new movie premiering on the Lifetime basic cable service at 9 tonight, with Veronica Hamel ("Hill Street Blues") and Lindsay Frost ("Mancuso: FBI").The plot involves a case with echoes of the sensationalist ongoing real-life story of young Hilary Foretich, the girl hidden by a mother who accused her former husband of sexually abusing the child.

It was a year ago today that Mike Flanagan was named Orioles pitching coach for the second time. But rather than celebrate his anniversary, he might resign.No one can blame Flanagan if he leaves manager Ray Miller's staff to return to the Home Team Sports broadcast team. The former pitcher has sacrificed enough for his old team. Now it's time for him to protect his future.Perhaps Flanagan will stay out of loyalty to Miller and the organization -- that's why he agreed to return to coaching in the first place.

The law that protects a woman from brutality at the hands of a male co-worker sometimes fails the woman whose husband beats, berates and otherwise brutalizes her.That message of lopsided justice is but one of many sobering ones delivered in "Prisoners of Wedlock," a 60-minute study of domestic violence, the eighth in a continuing Lifetime Television series, "Your Family Matters" (tonight at 9).The debut of this hour is timed to tie in with National Domestic Violence Awareness Month which begins Oct. 1. And each frame of the documentary is filled with tear-stained faces and voices that struggle to make sense of senseless violence.

Hundreds of Annapolis-area tennis players are unhappy that they're going to be bounced off the indoor courts at the Naval Academy at the end of March, when the school will cancel what the players say were billed as lifetime tennis memberships at the Brigade Sports Complex. The players are burning up phone lines, e-mail and more, as they try to save their access to the coveted indoor courts. "My impression is that if they don't make this right, that the Naval Academy has just created a lot of ill will in the community," BSC tennis member Donna O'Malley said.

There used to be a television industry joke about Lifetime, the self-described "channel for women," that the reason its murder-mystery movies and series kept failing is that there was no suspense: The killers always had Y chromosomes. Behind the joke was almost two decades of one-dimensional characters in dramas that were drawn with heavy hands along stereotypical - and sometimes biased - gender lines. On TV Side Order of Life and State of Mind air at 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Sunday, respectively, on Lifetime.

He'll never play piano like his idols. He doesn't have what you'd call a great voice. So what is John Alexander Jr. doing giving a concert Sunday afternoon at Light Street Presbyterian Church?There's a simple answer, but it takes some getting to. A man's whole lifetime, really. Have a listen.John Alexander Jr. is 67 years old. Two lifetimes ago, he was a young jazz man, jamming at the Eagle Lounge, at Martick's, all the bars that used to be on Charles Street between Preston and Mount Royal.

ADVERTORIAL CONTENT Investing in the housing market was once practically a no brainer. Through the downturn, however, many of the fixed  assumptions about housing - that property values would  always rise and equity would naturally grow - became variable, leaving many consumers questioning the extent to which the real estate market was a good investment option for them, or if now was the time to purchase that new home they have always wanted....

Nearly 2.3 million Marylanders with serious illnesses no longer have to worry about their insurance running out because of new provisions under health care reform. The Department of Health and Human Services said that because lifetime limits on insurance were elminated under health care reform that 872,000 women and 585,000 children in Maryland are no longer losing coverage because they can't afford to pay. Before health reform patients with serious illnesses such as cancer risked hitting the lifetime limit on the dollar amount their insurance companies would cover for their health care benefits.  Some plans provide coverage without dollar limits on lifetime benefits, but 105 million people across the country had plans with lifetime limits.

The Home Builders Association of Maryland recently presented its Lifetime Achievement Award to Frank Hertsch, of Fallston, a longtime associate member of the regional trade association that represents home builders and support industries. Hertsch, who is president of Morris & Ritchie Associates in Abingdon, was honored during the association's Icon Awards dinner in Columbia on Nov. 30. Hertsch has been involved in home building since the 1960s, when he worked as a construction laborer.

Mortgage giant Freddie Max reports the interest rate on 30-year mortgages have fallen to their lowest levels in more than 50 years. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.15 percent for the week ending today.  A 15-year fixed rate loan fell to 3.36 percent. Freddie Mac's chief economist credits the Fed's pledge to keep rates low for two years as one reason for the favorable terms. Plus, jitters over the European debt crisis also contributed to low rates.  

Who sets the priorities in Baltimore City ("Trees make way for race" Aug 2)? To remove 136 mature trees to erect temporary seating for three days of street racing is extremely poor judgment. It will take a lifetime to replace them. And where did the city "find" the millions of dollars to resurface the streets? E. Sproul, Forest Hill

As I mentioned Thursday, a few national analysts have recently voiced their opinions on Joe Flacco. CBS broadcaster Phil Simms believes Flacco can lead the Ravens to the Super Bowl . ESPN’s Matt Williamson said that Flacco is on track . And NFL Network’s Joe Theismann thinks Flacco will break out this season . But consider Steelers linebacker LaMarr Woodley unimpressed. Appearing on NFL Network’s “NFL Total Access” on Thursday, Woodley said the Ravens quarterback will never win a Super Bowl “in this lifetime.” “No, not at all because they have to go through one team -- that's the Pittsburgh Steelers in that AFC championship,” Woodley said.

In the 1940s, a woman's lifetime risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer was 1 in 22. It is now 1 in 8.

Harry Weinberg would not let the civic establishment decide how to spend his money in his lifetime, and he's not going to change now.

A new environmental study has found people and wildlife face higher-than-normal health risks from long-term exposure to toxic contaminants in the Patapsco River near Sparrows Point, the legacy of pollution from more than a century of steel-making on the outskirts of Baltimore's harbor. The risk assessment commissioned by the Maryland Port Administration determined that people who swam their whole lifetime in the waters off the Coke Point area of Sparrows Point would be two to five times more likely to develop cancers or other health problems as people who did the same elsewhere in the harbor.

It is worth noting the apt meaning of William Donald Schaefer's surname — "shepherd. " His lifetime of care for his flock, the citizens of Baltimore and of Maryland, was a wonderful blessing to us all. Donald N. Langenberg, Baltimore