Metal Detectors

State leaders, workers in the Annapolis legislative complex and the general public will find tougher security in and around the State House when the General Assembly convenes next month, including metal detectors and electronic identification cards. The new security plan follows recommendations proposed a year ago but deemed unnecessary until the terrorist attacks Sept. 11. The security upgrades around Maryland's top-level government offices are adding $2.8 million to the state budget and will remain in effect year-round.

THE FISH Out of Water Internet auction closed last week, with 111 of the art fish selling on eBay and netting $315,000. Add the $361,000 raised at a live auction of 60 other fish last month at the Walters and that makes $676,000, of which a major share goes to city youth arts programs and the mayor's wired-classrooms project. Rock Fish, by an artist named Bonnie Printz, got the highest online bid, $8,300. (That certain Baltimore TV personality who was hot-bidding for Annabelle, the Sea Flower Fish, got Squat the Squid instead.

I HAVEN'T heard anyone complain about increased security at BWI, and what I have here isn't a complaint so much as a suggestion that in addition to their beefed-up training and better pay and benefits, airport security personnel should get a little indoctrination in Beloved Local Legends. Not that BLL's are above scrutiny. But I can't say I feel any safer having heard that Johnny Unitas got the metal-detector wand treatment at BWI recently by a security guard who seemed clueless as to whom it was he was scanning.

General Assembly leaders have raised concerns about a proposal to put metal detectors in the State House but stopped short yesterday of halting plans to install the devices. Several ranking legislators - both Republican and Democrat - have come out against the proposal to force visitors to the State House and adjoining legislative buildings to go through metal detectors. In a letter released yesterday, Assembly leaders instructed the state Department of General Services to proceed with plans to improve security but asked the department to take into account the concerns of legislators.

ANNAPOLIS - Aesthetically, it's a little like putting a Pizza Hut in the Coliseum at Rome. The Maryland State House is the oldest state capitol in continuous legislative use in the United States, and until now visitors have come and gone pretty much unhampered by undue worries about security. The Continental Congress assembled here without frisking its constituents on Dec. 23, 1783, the day George Washington resigned his commission as commander-in-chief of the victorious Colonial army.

Legislative leaders are considering making Maryland's State House safer by closing its historic entrances and forcing tourists, lobbyists, political junkies and ordinary folks to go through a metal detector on the ground floor. Metal detectors would also go up in legislative office buildings - and their side doors would be shut - under a consultant's proposal to clamp down on security at the state capitol. Only lawmakers and state employees with electronic access cards could continue to walk freely in and out of the large brick buildings that dominate downtown Annapolis.

WASHINGTON - If George W. Bush had set out to choose a running mate with the most conservative voting record possible, he could hardly have done better than Dick Cheney. As a Republican member of the House from Wyoming during the 1980s, Cheney almost never wavered from a stance that was tight-fisted, hawkish, pro-business, anti-regulatory - particularly environmental regulations - and staunchly opposed to federal funding for abortion and even the most modest forms of gun control. "I'd say he was about 98 percent perfect," quipped Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, who served with Cheney in the House GOP leadership.

He doesn't adopt the flashy style of a used car salesman, but Baltimore Housing Commissioner Daniel P. Henson III is ready to deal.For sale: 17 used metal detectors from the old Margate Court, Lexington Terrace and Murphy Homes public housing communities,which have been torn down or are scheduled for demolition."

A MADMAN's shots shattered the peace in the U.S. Capitol on Friday, killing two police officers, injuring a young woman and depriving the nation of its already tenuous sense of security.Washington is America's most fortresslike city. Both the White House and Capitol sit like medieval castles surrounded by artificial moats of cement and metal. Virtually every government building and many private buildings feature metal detectors, surveillance cameras and armed guards posted at their entrances.

Academy animals, Part 1WITHOUT SAYING a word, the Naval Academy's spokesman -- Cmdr. Mike Brady -- showed reporters why the Navy doesn't need to be in the dairy farm business.During a recent tour of the 865-acre farm in Gambrills, which the academy said will no longer be used to supply milk to midshipmen, Brady stepped very tentatively around cow manure and through muddy stalls.Brady was wearing his bright-white summer uniform and later joked that he'd be spending the rest of his afternoon polishing cow poop off his shoes.