Obvious

Shirley Jeffrey, an East Baltimore resident, remembers the painful moment five years ago when two Sioux Indians told her that "Lumbees aren't really Indians."Jimmy Hunt recalls a similar experience as an Army recruit when a sergeant asked the American Indians in the group to stand up. "There were two others besides myself," he says. "Later they said I wasn't an Indian because I was a Lumbee."Not really Indians? How could this be said of the largest American Indian group east of the Mississippi?

Dani Mazzilli is talking on the phone and the melodic b-l-i-i-n-n-g-g in the background betrays the fact that she is also online, instant-messaging someone else. Suddenly, her cell phone rings, adding to the chorus, and she interrupts two conversations to begin a third with one of her three teen-aged children. Yes, she will bring the equipment bag to school that the child left at home that morning. She will be at school anyway, she says, working on the '70s dance. "Now where were we?"

Winfield Elementary School fourth-grader Eric Combs isTC bright student who uses big words like "evaporate" when he makes up stories about Superman and Lex Luther.But when he tries to write the story on paper, it comes out in letters that spell nothing, and a stream of words that bear no resemblance to what he has composed in his mind.While public perception of special education is linked mainly to students who are mentally retarded, nothing could be further from reality.Most of Carroll County's special education students are like Eric, an intelligent child who has a learning disability that makes it hard for him to read and write at the level of his intelligence.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- What a mess.What a jumbled, incomprehensible, beautiful mess.The Kentucky Derby is never anything less than an equine and human circus, but this year's 125th running is taking the theme to a new extreme.There are geldings, fillies, a battery-charged horse, a female trainer, an Arab sheik, Bob Baffert's possible threepeat and, well, let's not forget about the owner who met his wife when she jumped out of a birthday cake.Oh, and there's no clear-cut favorite, either."You can't say the Derby is boring this year," trainer Nick Zito said yesterday on a cool, clear morning at Churchill Downs.

I n a couple of weeks, the Ravens will begin their offseason meetings to discuss how to improve the team, but that's not hard to figure out. The Ravens need to upgrade the skill positions on both sides of the ball, and the top priority is finding a wide receiver. When draft day in April comes, we don't want to hear that the Ravens are taking the top-rated player on the board. This team needs a legitimate big, speedy receiver and another big cornerback who can start. It might be opposite rookie Lardarius Webb, who will be coming off a serious knee injury, or opposite Domonique Foxworth, who is in the second year of a big four-year deal and who will have to play until Webb has recovered.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must have known how disingenuous he sounded when he professed to be shocked — just shocked! — by President Obama's call on Thursday for a resumption of Israel-Palestinian peace talks based on Israel's 1967 boundaries. That's been the unstated premise for every American-brokered attempt since 1993 to bring about a two-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians live side by side in peace. For Mr. Netanyahu to wax indignant over Mr. Obama's reference to the 1967 lines as a starting point for negotiations appears only to confirm suspicions that the current Israeli government isn't really serious about making peace on any terms.

Today, House Speaker John Boehner scrounged around to find the few votes he needed to pass a deficit reduction and debt limit increase plan, a difficult proposition, as his party's conservative wing has grown bold in its revolt against his leadership. He was forced to add a balanced budget amendment and other sweeteners to appease the tea party caucus. But the task didn't really need to be so difficult. In fact, there were 193 votes ripe for the taking. They're called "Democrats. " Mr. Boehner has resisted crafting a plan that will attract any of them out of the realization that it would irreparably fracture his caucus and threaten his leadership.

There's a transformation taking place this fall that is obvious from the former National Brewery in Brewers Hill. On a terrace just below the iconic Mr. Boh sign, I observed a construction army at work along Conkling and Dean streets. Over the summer, they labored on the creation of more than 600 new apartment rental units in low-rise buildings. Week by week, floors rose. Balconies appeared. Parking decks arrived. And sweeps disappeared down an ancient brick powerhouse chimney. For years, this eastern end of Canton was a hard-toiling industrial neighborhood, served by ships and rail sidings, surrounded by rowhouses and dotted with church steeples.

It's only right that the Orioles will offer refunds to season-ticket holders if they use replacement players. But the point is moot, because owner Peter Angelos would never field such a team.Indeed, yesterday's announcement of a refund policy should not be interpreted as a sign that Angelos plans to join his union-busting brethren and put scabs in Orioles uniforms.Rather, it was an attempt to placate angry season-ticket holders who were given less than two weeks to reserve their 1995 seats.

WASHINGTON -- By choosing Bill Daley to run his campaign, Vice President Al Gore has sent a clear and revealing message to the political community that he recognizes his candidacy is in serious trouble. There is no assurance, of course, that a new chairman can correct things that are wrong with his campaign. But admitting the need for help is at least a first step. This is not a case of a candidate turning to an old friend in time of need. Mr. Gore and Mr. Daley have been political allies in the administration of President Clinton, but they are not close personal friends.