Opening Ceremonies

Sunday, June 5 Home tour The Villages of Columbia present the second annual Columbia Home Tour from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Participants, equipped with a tour guide book and map, will go on a self-guided tour of five homes in the Columbia villages. There will be a tour guide at each location who will take visitors through the home. All ticket holders are invited to visit the newly renovated Owen Brown Community Center for a reception with refreshments and displays by Columbia Archives.

AH, THE IN-SCHOOL assembly. It's as much a part of the school tradition as the smelly locker, the mushy peas at lunch and learning the "Hora" dance during gym class. Katie Hoff has been there for those assemblies, but always on the other side, the kid looking longingly at the person giving the talk. That is, until Friday, when the 15-year-old swimmer was the person on the rostrum, imparting the wisdom. It was, to be sure, an odd feeling. "Yeah, I remember going to these things. They'd have a speaker, and I thought, I really want to be like them," Hoff said after speaking to a group of kindergarteners, first- and second-graders at Boys' Latin.

IT WAS GREAT to hear that movie ads for Spider-Man 2 will not sully baseball's playing fields, thus averting another national crisis and keeping the sport free forever more from the evil clutches of corporate advertising. Right. C'mon, who are we kidding? Was putting a Spidey image on the bases and on-deck circles really that big of a deal? You would have thought it was a picture of Osama bin Laden they were talking about, from the hue and cry that erupted. You would have thought they just named Saddam Hussein to throw out the first pitch at the All-Star Game.

Roadblock: World 800-meter champion Wilson Kipketer has lived in Denmark since 1990 and wants to compete for that country, but Kenyan Olympic officials said yesterday that he is not eligible to do so. Kipketer has appealed to represent Denmark, but since he will not obtain Danish citizenship until 1998, he is barred by the Olympic charter from representing any nation other than Kenya. The Danish Parliament has refused to grant him citizenship until he completes the normal seven years as a resident.