New Era

He's very Obama, isn't he? The Ivy creds. The biracial parentage. The lawyer wife. The victory, after some contentious balloting, of his more youthful candidacy over the more establishment one. The selection of Benjamin Jealous this weekend as the new president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People puts a decidedly fresh face on an organization that many have criticized as too rooted in the past. At 35, he is the civil rights organization's youngest president ever, and by picking him, board members seem to be saying, "This is not your father's NAACP."

Let's not pretend we didn't see this day coming eventually. We just didn't know it was coming this specific day. Everybody knew the Steve McNair era in Baltimore would end soon -- the fans knew, McNair had to know and certainly the Ravens knew. But it happened yesterday, and now the Ravens have a couple of options. An intelligent one, befitting an intelligent organization. Or a delusional one. The Ravens have to take the intelligent path -- one, by the way, already being followed by the other major league franchise in town, that until now had mastered the art of delusion.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra that takes the stage this week bears only superficial resemblance to the one that glumly gathered two years ago. That September, multimillion-dollar deficits, looming contract negotiations and the musicians' lingering ill will over management's selection of a new conductor seemed heavy enough to sink the venerable Baltimore institution. But today's BSO is revitalized and refocused, eager for the launch of a new season that will be closely watched by the national TV and print media.

If you thought that college was the only place to attend lectures on the Gilded Age, the Meiji period or the Han Dynasty, you would be mistaken. Look no further than the Baltimore Summer Antiques Show. Running today through Sunday, the 27th annual show will feature its first lecture series. Six lectures will be led by industry collectors, dealers and professionals who will highlight antiques specific to different periods. Today at 3 p.m., Gary Vikan, director of the Walters Art Museum, will lead a discussion on a jewelry collection from the Gilded Age. Other lectures will cover such topics as Satsuma earthenware, smiling Sichuan statues, living and decorating with antiques and book collecting.

In the shorthand version of rock 'n' roll history, one thing happened four decades ago - The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, forever changing the face of rock music. But, as important as Sgt. Pepper's was - and is - it was only one of numerous iconic albums released in 1967, a year that might be the most important in the history of this popular musical form. The music produced that year still reverberates 40 years later. Some of its albums sound as if they could have been made yesterday.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore, the mother ship of American Catholicism and, for more than a century, a refuge for progressive Catholic thinking, has a new archbishop - Edwin Frederick O'Brien, a man who has made no secret of his concerns about gays in the priesthood and one who has spent much of his career ministering to the tradition-oriented U.S. military services. So the question arises: Are Maryland's liberal Catholics likely to feel less comfortable with their new leader? The answer, some liberals and conservatives in the archdiocese agree, is that most Catholics are likely to continue to peacefully coexist here, regardless of ongoing debates within the church over practices and politics.

Responding to safety violations that led to the death of a recruit, Baltimore fire officials called yesterday for a cultural overhaul that would encourage firefighters to focus on safety, even if it meant challenging supervisors, something they are taught early in their careers not to do. "We need to reinforce to everyone how dangerous this job is," Fire Chief William J. Goodwin Jr. said during a news conference in front of Engine Company 46 in the...

FORT MYERS, FLA.-- --With all the things he had to do this winter, the countless interviews, appearances and rubber-chicken banquets, Minnesota Twins first baseman Justin Morneau said there was only one awkward moment. Nothing was stranger than boasting to a rolling TV camera and several young baseball stars, "I'm the MVP." He had little choice. It's tough to say no to Spike Lee. "I didn't want it to come across too cocky so the first couple takes I didn't even say the lines," Morneau said.

With the election of 32-year-old Columbia native Ken Ulman as Howard County executive, and five virtually untried County Council members, Maryland's second-smallest, but most centrally located jurisdiction embarked on a new phase of its history. A sparsely populated rural farm county just a half-century ago, Howard is poised now to join what used to be called the East Coast Megalopolis. With thousands of federal defense jobs headed to nearby Fort Meade and the National Security Agency, and talk of extending the Washington Metro's Green line north at least to Laurel, Howard's time as a quiet stretch of open land is over.

When building a baseball franchise, it's best not to be sentimental. That's what new Arizona Diamondbacks general manager Josh Byrnes and general partner Jeff Moorad made clear last week. Left fielder Luis Gonzalez, the face of the Diamondbacks for the past eight seasons and hero of the 2001 World Series, became Arizona's first significant casualty of that philosophy. Gonzalez, 39, was told Thursday that his $10 million 2007 option would not be picked up. That's not a surprise. The surprise was the timing of the announcement and the Diamondbacks' unyielding position that they would not negotiate a lesser deal in the offseason with their team leader, something he was hoping for. "This wasn't a financial decision," said Moorad, who was Gonzalez's agent before entering management.