Matter

Watching presidents go into free fall near the end of their tenure makes me quite nervous. Not so much for their sake, but for ours. Several presidents ago, while still early in my years as a Treasury Department public servant, I underwent such a change in bosses at the top. We were called on once again to write memos as a primer to one in a long string of novices - as treasury secretaries almost always are - on the department's role, the issues that...

SAT SCORES, high school graduation rates and college enrollment are up.Teen sex, teen pregnancy and teen abortion are down.Condom use is up. Seat belt use is up.Physical fights on school property are down.Alcohol is used by an alarming 50 percent of all teens, but the good news is, it's not increasing.These statistics and others like them paint a picture of teen-agers today who are smarter and more ambitious, healthier and more safety conscious; wiser and more gifted; optimistic and with positive visions of their own futures.

I was hanging out with a lively group of women who had recently traded power suits for Pampers. They'd gathered for a weekend of networking while the hubbies watched the kids, illustrating one of the critical lessons of super-motherhood: Babies don't stay babies forever, so you better keep your hand in the game if you want to work again.I was overhearing lots of conversations I'd had -- about a million years ago, I think -- about the isolation of staying at home; the fear of skills rusting away; the helplessness of the modern male; and how those preschool choices will keep you awake nights.

When: Today-Sunday.Where: Charlotte (N.C ) Coliseum.TV: All games on Raycom/Jefferson Pilot network or ESPNRadio: Maryland games on WBAL (1090AM).Favorite: Can Maryland - or anyone else, for that matter -- stop No. 1 Duke? The Blue Devils are a prohibitive favorite to win the NCAA title, so it's a foregone conclusion that everyone expects coach Mike Krzyzewski's team to win the conference tournament, something it last did in 1992. In constructing a 24-game winning streak, Duke became the first team to go 16-0 in the ACC regular season, and posted an average margin of victory of 15.3 points, making them, statistically at least, the most dominant team in conference history.

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Perhaps it was the money-raising record he'd just set that left his presidential rivals slack-jawed and demoralized. Or maybe it was the way his early success suddenly appears to be forcing the Clinton administration's hand on policy matters.In any event, there was Gov. George W. Bush aggressively wooing hundreds of high-tech millionaires over quiche and sausage last week and letting his tongue -- and self-confidence -- get ahead of him."It's not my first trip to this incredible land known as Silicon Valley.

Quote: "It'll be in a sling for a few days, I guess. No big deal. I'm a lefty, anyway, so it doesn't matter." -- Rockies manager Jim Leyland, who plans to have surgery on his right elbow to repair a pinched nerve.It's a fact: Padres manager Bruce Bochy last night used his 61st different lineup in 64 games.Who's hot: The Mets' Rey Ordonez is batting .436 in his past 11 games.Who's not: The Expos' Dustin Hermanson is 0-4 with an 8.33 ERA in his past seven starts.On deck: The Cubs' Terry Mulholland is within seven of 1,000 career strikeouts.

NovelA little white lie begat a lust for power and sex. But truth would have its day.Let us face it. From a writer's point of view, the Starr report is a pretty juicy item. It has everything. Power, obsession, the possibility of downfall, and the odd sense that in the background, in some way that none of us has been able to yet explain, fate, in all its fascination for detail, is at work with its usual delight in misery and poetic justice.But, if this were a work of fiction, or the basis for one, I think the most attractive aspect of it is the suggestion that something went wrong long ago, probably some small lapse, and that a lifetime has been spent trying to compensate for the seemingly small thing that was tragically lacking.

JERUSALEM -- The Israeli Cabinet approved a plan yesterday to expand the city of Jerusalem's control far beyond its current borders, despite angry protests from Palestinians and Washington's warning that the plan was "provocative."Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a news conference after the unanimous decision that the plan had no political ramifications and was not a violation of the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords, under which the final status of Jerusalem is to be negotiated with the Palestinians.

BOSTON -- Chalk this up as the Great Parenting Paradox of our era.Just as kids spend more hours out of their parents' sight, we privatize child development. Just as more kids go to day care, school care, other care, we rachet up the message that parents are overwhelmingly responsible for how they turn out.This is how it goes today in the child advice world: Music for the womb. Bonding in the first week. Flashcards for the crib. Reading for 2-year-olds. It's all over by 3.In this anxious atmosphere, you would think Judith Harris would get a standing ovation for telling parents to "relax" because they matter less than they think.

When it comes to heroin, we can't afford delusionHeroin use. How do we illustrate the historical misery of it for county residents in terms that can be easily grasped?Do we start with the body count? Add two well-liked Howard boys one recent week. One was asthmatic, but it was his alleged fondness for heroin that put him in jail in the first place. Or should we measure it in promising careers ruined, as happened earlier this year when a kindergarten teacher was found nodded out in a boys room stall?

With another difficult August coming to a close for the Orioles, and a daunting September schedule looming, there is a pertinent question that keeps popping up for the franchise as it winds down what will almost certainly be its 12th straight losing season: Just how much do these games really matter? They certainly matter to pitcher Jason Berken, a 25-year-old right-hander with a surplus of heart but not talent. Berken knows every time he takes the mound during these final months, he's trying to convince the team he's not the pitcher who went all of June and all of July without a victory.

INDIANAPOLIS -- When you think about it, Michael Phelps isn't just the greatest swimmer in the world because he's incredibly fast. It's also because, no matter what's going on in his life, no matter what transition he's undertaking or controversy he's facing, he's never slow. There are times when he's faster than others, certainly. But one part of his athletic genius that is so easy to overlook is his consistency. He's occasionally amazing, often good, and never awful. Mentally, he might be furious or frustrated about something, but he's always been able to put it aside long enough that it doesn't matter.

State Sens. Jim Brochin and Jamie Raskin last week asked Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler to investigate whether the state has an interest in Constellation Energy CEO Mayo A. Shattuck III's compensation package. The senators want to know if it amounts to an unlawful use of assets paid by the customers of BGE, the regulated utility that is a Constellation subsidiary. This follows weeks of drumbeating by Gov. Martin O'Malley about an $87 million payment Mr. Shattuck could get under certain circumstances.

This week, 33 elementary and middle school math and science teachers from the Baltimore area are in Huntsville, Ala., to participate in the Honeywell Educators @ Space Academy program. They will be blogging about their experiences all week at baltimoresun.com/InsideEd. Here is an excerpt about the first day from Sabourah Abdunafi of ConneXions Community Leadership Academy in Baltimore: I met so many people from Maryland. ... We always hear ... of Maryland's educational system being so low and we have over 30 teachers here.

ATLANTA -In the opening sequence of last night's game, Maryland sophomore Adrian Bowie lost a shoe on the court, a black Nike left alone in the paint as its counterpart scampered back on defense. There wasn't reason to think much of it. But then it happened again, this time in the opening sequence of the second half. And this time, there was no way to ignore it. The metaphor siren was blaring. This wasn't simply a matter of Bowie not knowing how to tie his shoe. It was the proverbial glass slipper - March's most fashionable footwear - and as that shoe sat alone on the court, as Maryland prepared to build on its lead, there was only one question that mattered: Will these scrappy Terps, not pretty enough to ever be mistaken for Cinderella, make it to the ball?

Come on, what baseball fan was genuinely surprised by superstar Alex Rodriguez's admission this week that he used steroids while playing for the Texas Rangers from 2001 until 2003? Probably just those who believed the Yankees slugger when he previously said he'd never taken a performance-enhancing drug. It's a small universe of the eternally naive - die-hard fans and the SEC. This much can be said in A-Rod's defense - he's got a smarter sense of public relations than Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and those others who believe it's useful to deny, deny, deny the evidence of drug use no matter how overwhelming.

Officials at AES Corp. and others who advocate for the proposed liquefied natural gas terminal at Sparrows Point would be wise to view the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision not to take up the matter as a minor victory at best. While the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is most likely going to eventually approve the LNG facility at the former Bethlehem Steel shipyard as well as the connecting 88-mile gas pipeline - perhaps even within a matter of weeks - it's far too early to plan a groundbreaking in 2009.

The format of the second presidential debate was described as that of a town hall meeting, but it was pure TV from the "citizens" seated on risers on a brightly lit stage, to the candidates moving about a stage like performers. In TV terms, body language and modes of address were never more important. John McCain lived up to his reputation for excelling in town hall meetings, quickly establishing a soft-spoken intimate relationship with the audience even as he attacked his opponent - two things experts say you are not supposed to be able to do simultaneously.

The mother of slain former City Councilman Kenneth N. Harris Sr. stood in front of thousands of mourners at her son's funeral yesterday and said she was thankful for the "abject poverty" in which she brought him up. The horrors of being poor in blighted Park Heights, she said, shaped Harris into a good and a strong man who would rise in city politics and spend a lifetime reaching out to help others follow the same path. "It doesn't matter where you come from," she said to the mourners, who included many of the most powerful lawmakers in the state.

I wish we would stop acting as if these Tampa Bay Rays-Boston Red Sox games are all-important. Both teams are going to make the playoffs, and that's what matters. I don't want to hear any of this nonsense about symbolism. I'm sure the New York Yankees enjoyed caressing their American League East flags for comfort after the wild-card Red Sox eliminated them in 2004. Those division titles probably soothed the Bronx Bombers even more as they were knocked out of the playoffs in the first round each of the next two years.