Masks

While "Beauty and the Beast" has turned a lot of youngsters into fantasy figures this Halloween, the election year is bringing out the politicians in the older generation.Rubber masks of George Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot should help provide the final word in political overload. A lot of customers still buy masks of Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, says Harriet Berlin, owner of Artistic Costumes and Dance Fashions in Loch Raven Plaza. "We wanted to offer Dan Quayle, but it was such a popular mask, we never got our order," she says.

Howard County police charged a Columbia man Monday with assaulting a student on the campus of Long Reach High School in Columbia on March 21. Donnell Maurice Vannison, 40, of the 8500 block of Tamebird Court, faces second-degree assault and disorderly conduct charges. He was released Monday after a court appearance and is scheduled for trial on June 6. Vannison, wearing a ski mask, entered the school property at about 2:20 p.m., police said. He approached a 16-year-old male student and struck him with a blow that grazed the boy's face.

Two men dressed in military clothing and masks forced employees of a Linthicum fast food restaurant into a walk-in refrigerator Tuesday and robbed the store of an undisclosed amount of money.April D. Duncan, manager of Wendy's in the 700 block of Nursery Road, told police she was leaving the building with another employee about 1: 30 a.m. when two men, one armed with a 9 mm Glock semiautomatic handgun and both dressed in military clothing and masks, forced them back into the restaurant. Duncan was ordered to open a safe while three other employees were forced into a refrigerator, police said.

No idea in American society is more pervasive than the notion that we all owe a debt of gratitude to the young men and women who have volunteered to fight our foreign wars. This nearly universal belief flows from a sense of collective guilt that the veterans of our previous Asian adventure in Vietnam were not welcomed home with appreciation for their sacrifices and were somehow held responsible for America's first losing war. This attitude was especially unfair since many of the participants in that conflict were draftees who had little choice about their service.

Two gunmen got away with cash, a loaded coin tray and likely the most-stolen item of any motel - its towels - during the robbery of a Comfort Inn near Annapolis late Friday. Police said the robbers took the towels first - using them as masks when they jumped over the counter and ordered a clerk to turn over the money. They fled the Old Mill Bottom Road motel, apparently on foot, carrying the cash and coins in a motel trash can, police said. The Comfort Inn's general manager, Jim Crouch, said the robbery was the second in the motel's 11 years of operation.

Appropriately enough, when the family plays a game in Splitting Image Theatre Company's production of "Family Masks," the game is charades. It's an ideal choice for this dysfunctional family of six, whose members are often at a loss for the words to express their feelings and are almost always living a charade.It's also a typical example of the impeccable details in this collaborative movement-theater piece, which premiered at Loyola College in 1989 and is now receiving a fresh and partially revamped airing as the first production in the Theatre Project's new program of residencies for local alternative theater companies.

RICHMOND, Vt. -- Huntington River Gorge may be one of the most beautiful spots in Vermont. It is also one of the deadliest. At least 20 people, most in their 20s or 30s, have died, and hundreds have been injured while swimming in the gorge over the past four decades. Seemingly placid waters mask strong currents that quickly sweep over waterfalls and into whirlpools. Last year, the chief of the state's public safety commission called the gorge the "single most deadly place in the state."

NEW YORK -- The last time judges' robes were a big Halloween seller was in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Sammy Davis Jr. made the phrase "Here Come De Judge" a national inside joke on "Laugh-In.""It was hot then," said Mike Burke, co-owner of Zak's Fun House.Enter Clarence Thomas.When Burke and his partner, Larry Greenberg, watched the extraordinary public airing of sexual harassment charges against Thomas by law professor Anita Faye Hill, one word kept coming to mind: masks."We had played with the idea while the hearings were going on," said Burke.

Two men wearing ski masks robbed a High's store on Phelps Luck Drive at gunpoint Wednesday night, taking an undisclosed amount of money, police said. The men walked into the store wearing dark clothes and the masks about 8:45 p.m. One pulled a gun and announced a robbery. One of the clerks opened the register, and both men reached over the counter and grabbed cash, police said. The robbers were last seen running toward Route 108. The two clerks were not injured, police said.

In the art of Africa, the mask is a versatile, multipurpose facade. It may signify identity and the ancestors, politics and medicine or the invisible world of the spirits. And in whatever form a mask appears, color is integral to its meaning. Now color is the subject of the second installment of Meditations on African Art, a three-part series at the Baltimore Museum of Art that explores African art from the point of view of the people who created it. The modestly scaled show presents about 30 traditional African masks from the museum's collection arranged in four groups: red, white, black and the tricolor that incorporates all three hues.

When you make as many mistakes as I do, it's good to get in the habit of learning from them. Just over four years ago, I made a big one about Mormonism, and I thank the good folks at The Sun for giving me a chance to make it right. During the 2008 primaries, a Sun reporter interviewed me about evangelicals and Mitt Romney. Why, he asked, does a candidate with his squeaky-clean character and demonstrated family values generate so little interest among the Republican Party's evangelical base?

The man who was shot and killed Friday night in West Baltimore has been identified as a 32-year-old who police say was targeted by two masked gunmen who opened fire in a barber shop in the Franklin Square community. The victim's name was not released pending notification of his relatives. Another man, age 37, also was shot in the incident. He suffered a graze wound to the head, according to police. Police said the double-shooting occurred about 7 p.m. in the 1600 block of West Baltimore St., a street with a mixture of residential rowhouses and commercial businesses.

With the broad appeal of a fast-food chain — 54 million people served in 14 countries on five continents — "The Lion King" enjoys a mighty status on Broadway, where it's the seventh-longest-running musical and has packed them in since 1997. The show isn't likely to lose its appeal on tour any time soon, either. When it first played the Hippodrome in 2005, it was a 14-week smash, raking in $15 million. It's back at the theater for a monthlong engagement that is bound to be just as fruitful, nicely timed as it is for the holidays, when families with kids need diversions even more.

The following is compiled from police reports from the Towson and Cockeysville precincts. Our policy is to include descriptions when there is enough information to make identification possible. Cockeysville Reldas Court, unit block, between 12:01 a.m. Oct. 25 and 8:40 a.m. Oct. 27. Boxes containing various items stolen from apartment. Entry through unlocked bedroom window. Timonium Eastridge Road, 2100 block, between 10 a.m. and 11:40 a.m. Oct. 29. Dresser and jewelry boxes ransacked, nothing appeared missing.

The following is compiled from police reports. The Howard County Times includes descriptions of perpetrators only when the description makes identification possible. Ellicott City North Chatham Road , 3300 block, 7:39 p.m. Aug. 6. Two juvenile males assaulted victim in parking lot. Wallet stolen. Juveniles arrested. Montgomery Road , 4300 block, 11 p.m. Aug. 5. Two people wearing hooded sweat shirts, face masks and gloves walked up to McDonald's drive-through window as teller opened drawer, pushed clerk and grabbed cash.

Concern on the part of the Havre de Grace Historic Preservation Commission over the installation of outdoor gas meters in the historic district seems just a bit much. The commission -  led by Ron Browning, who writes a community column for this newspaper's sister paper, The Record -   sent a letter to BGE saying it would be preferred that gas meters not be installed in front of historic buildings. When BGE went ahead and installed meters in front of the buildings, the commission expressed anger.

Masks were the center of attention at the annual fundraiser for the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Sure, there were some great ones on the faces of several guests at the party at the American Visionary Art Museum, but the masks that had everyone talking were those on display, as part of NAMI's "Many Faces of Mental Illness Mask Project." These masks were created by artists, business people, health providers and other members of the community to show their thoughts about mental illness.

LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. -- The sister of Nicole Brown Simpson issued a nationwide plea yesterday, asking consumers to return Halloween costume items that depict either O.J. Simpson or his alleged victims, including masks, blond wigs and even prosthetic slit throats.Denise Brown called on stores handling such items to halt their sale immediately, saying that they are in "extremely bad taste" and hold "no redeeming value for our society." She was joined by Human Options, a domestic violence support group.

Anne Arundel County police are seeking three men, at least one armed with a handgun, who are suspects in a Glen Burnie assault and robbery. A man was walking on a foot path in the 300 block of Highland Drive just after midnight Monday when he was confronted by three men, who, with faces covered, demanded his money, according to police. After indicating that he had none, the three men assaulted the man, stole his lighter and fled on foot.

Verdi's "A Masked Ball" makes an appropriately grand choice for Washington National Opera's season opener. It's a big-gesture work with terrific sweep, yet one with many a subtle musical and dramatic detail. The composer was forced by government censors to turn the opera's plot about the assassination of Sweden's King Gustavus III into an unlikely scenario set in Colonial Boston. But like some other companies these days, WNO restores the original Swedish setting. Although Salvatore Licitra doesn't always use his sizable tenor gracefully, his singing as Gustavus has a certain visceral appeal.