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.

I was happy to see that Bond Mill Elementary has advanced to the state finals of DestinationImagination, according to Sarah Toth's article in your edition of March 21.  Bond Mill was a worthy competitor when our kids were in Odyssey of the Mind (OM), a similar program, and I see that that school is still at it. Our family was heavily involved in OM for a dozen years in the '80s and '90s.  For months each year our house was littered with art materials, tools and balsa wood.  Our teams were fortunate to get to the World Competition three times, representing Glenarden Woods Elementary, Kenmoore Middle and Eleanor Roosevelt High.

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.

Joan A. Parr, a homemaker and peace activist, died Tuesday from heart failure at her Lauraville home. She was 84. The former Joan Atkins was born in Springfield, Mass., and moved to Baltimore in 1945, when her father joined the upper school math faculty at Park School. After graduating from Park in 1946, she earned a bachelor's degree in history in 1950 from Goucher College. During the early 1950s, she worked as an administrative assistant at the Baltimore Broom Machine Co. In 1951, she married Albert Gilmore Kinsey, who was a food service company personnel director.

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.

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.

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.

What's more embarrassing than to have to take down a commemorative statue? Accomplished individuals may encounter situations over a lifetime that overshadow the acts that brought them recognition. William Donald Schaefer's statue was dedicated at a point in time when he was unlikely to tarnish his legacy. With Joe Paterno, the timing was not so fortuitous. Johnny Unitas ' statue was a safe bet. The Oriole players' statues are probably going to stand the test of time. At 80, we can confidently reflect on the life achievements of Lenny Moore and declare him worthy of a commemorative statue.

They've been married just over two years, but Andy and Seanne Herbick have already exchanged vows three times, most recently Sunday morning at their alma mater, Loyola University Maryland, with about 160 other steadfast lovebirds. Standing in the same stone chapel where they married the first time and listening to the same priest, the Hampden couple reiterated that, yes, they were still in it for good, bad, sickness, health and till death do they part. Since married life has quickly tried them on all of that — including, on the good front, the birth of their son P.J., who's now 13 months old — the words, if anything, ring truer.

The older brother has always blended easily with people. He built his career over a quarter century, meticulous step by meticulous step. He'll probably smile at you, even if he doesn't like your question. The younger brother's talent burned hotter and to this day, so does his demeanor, which sometimes scorches those who dare get in his way. He reached his current position in great, precocious leaps. If he thinks you're an idiot, he'll treat you like one. Yet somehow - in a story too good for anyone to have made it up - John and Jim Harbaugh will face off as peers next Sunday in the Super Bowl, the grandest stage in the game to which they've devoted their lives.

Some came with their kids, not wanting to miss the opportunity to impart a message of political leadership in a live civics classroom hundreds of thousands of people strong. Others arrived with their own place in history in mind, considering President Barack Obama's second inauguration a second shot to celebrate the significance of the nation's first black president and be a part of it themselves. Whatever the reason, Maryland residents joined people from all across the country on Monday who braved the cold weather and long security lines to be on the National Mall for Obama's ceremonial swearing in. 'A piece of history' Matt Jacobson, 30, and friends Chris Franzoni, 31, and Stan Kimmel, 32, were on the mall early after celebrating the Ravens' win the night before at a D.C. bar, where they'd put a Ray Lewis jersey on an Obama cut-out.

Low gray clouds of a late autumn day appear to envelop a two-story cedar cottage and its attached one-story log cabin. Sitting on three acres in Howard County and accessed through a wrought-iron arch down a narrow lane, the property has been the home of 63-year-old Priscilla Griffith for most of her adult life. A roughly landscaped front garden contains the print of a fenced-in vegetable patch, harvested months ago. The path to the cottage is a dirt one; a brick walkway from its side entrance leads to the main house.

Realtor Carole Bowen, of the Long & Foster Realtors, Bel Air Central Office, received the Lifetime Achievement award from the Harford County Association of Realtors at its annual meeting and awards luncheon Sept. 26. "The Lifetime Achievement Award is bestowed, only once in a lifetime, upon the Realtor member in the local association who exemplifies the model member through real estate service to the community, and the local, state and national associations during the many years of their career.

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.

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

Lynn and Scott Wegner are used to people telling them theirs is the most unusual home in the Towson neighborhood of Chartleigh. They agree wholeheartedly, even as they enjoy the multiple renovations they have made since purchasing 1950s split-level back in 1993. On a street lined with old trees, rancher-style homes and more split-levels, the Wegners have completely changed their home's exterior with the addition of another level, dark tan HardiePlank lap siding and, most dramatically — a wrap-around, covered porch, its roof supported by white columns.

Connie and Nancy and I have been best friends since the seventh grade, and when the three of us get together, it is middle school all over again. Card games and board games are part of our mix, and I am happy to report that while I am no better at these games than I was nearly 50 years ago, I am much more mature about losing. I think the wine helps. I have to say, nothing prepared me for life better than Park and Shop, a board game of competitive errand-running. Not even The Game of Life, with its kids and college funds and insurance policies, got me in shape for adulthood any better than Park and Shop.