Ostrich

IT IS OFTEN said that a teacher learns more from his pupils than he imparts. The adage was proved true for me this summer as I led 19 San Francisco teenagers through a five-week exploration of writing, theater, movement and voice. We gathered in a tiny theater with the mission of developing a play about folks who feel shut out - from cliques, from society, from the norm. We would address the gulf between artistic and athletic prowess, between economic sectors, between the privileged and the repressed.

On a recent afternoon, close to sunset, there weren't too many visitors at the Cape of Good Hope, at the southern tip of South Africa. I had the blustery beaches nearly to myself, save for a small colony of penguins and a capering pair of ostriches. These ostriches were the first I'd ever seen in the wild. The one with black feathers, I later learned, was male; another, gray-plumed, a female. I was delighted by their odd, loping gait; their small heads jutting about at the end of long, twisting necks; and their protuberant eyes.

Two all-ostrich patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles . . . ostrich patties?Maybe not in the United States. But McDonald's is considering using the bird -- which produces a low-fat, low-cholesterol, low-calorie red meat -- in restaurants opening in India, a Union Mills ostrich farmer told the Carroll County agricultural community yesterday."

If it takes a tough man to make a tender chicken, who could possibly be up to this task: making a $2,500 jeweled evening bag out of an ostrich egg? The tough guy's chick, that's who. While describing some of Nancy Grasmick's fancy-schmancy knickknacks the other day, I mentioned that Frank Perdue's widow makes "faux Faberge eggs," one of which sits in the state school superintendent's living room. Fowl! cried Mitzi Perdue, all the way from Paris, where she was visiting friends. "No, no, no, my goodness, no!"

Anyone who says the U.S. economy has lost its vim and vision doesn't know a thing about ostriches.The lanky birds with Barbara Bush eyes have set off a speculative boom. Lawyers, real estate agents, antique dealers: all are plunking down as much as $40,000 for a pair of the flightless birds, convinced that on a Thanksgiving not too far off, their fellow Americans will be carving ostrich legs."It's the meat of the 21st century," said Chuck Ball, executive director of the American Ostrich Association in Fort Worth, Texas.

ACONSULTANT, somebody said, takes your watch to tell you the time. Leave it to the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association to spin new absurdity into the joke. BACVA has hired the consultant, handed over the watch and still doesn't know what time it is. It doesn't want to know. Do not be amazed by the fact that BACVA is conflicted about the highly negative report card it got a few weeks ago from Performance Management Inc., of Stamford, Conn. Reputations and egos are at stake.

Diana Beuchert moves about her kitchen gathering implements and utensils, getting ready to prepare what she hopes will be standard family fare in a few more years: A nice fillet of emu.E-who?For those whose antennae are not yet tuned to the next wave, emu (pronounced EE-myoo) are large flightless birds native to Australia. They look like dinosaur rejects and taste like heaven.The taste, and the fact that emu and its cousin the ostrich are low in fat, low in cholesterol and high in protein and iron are encouraging producers, and a so-far narrow market of health-conscious gourmands, to consider these members of the ratite family "the red meat for the '90s."

On a recent afternoon, close to sunset, there weren't too many visitors at the Cape of Good Hope, at the southern tip of South Africa. I had the blustery beaches nearly to myself, save for a small colony of penguins and a capering pair of ostriches. These ostriches were the first I'd ever seen in the wild. The one with black feathers, I later learned, was male; another, gray-plumed, a female. I was delighted by their odd, loping gait; their small heads jutting about at the end of long, twisting necks; and their protuberant eyes.

BIXLER VALLEY - Oh, those wacky ostriches.They look at you with big, brown eyes, their small heads bobbing on long, skinny necks, their beaks lending a permanently goofy expression.The big birds that can't fly are fond of eating weeds and kernels of corn and taking a shower under a hose.But will they like Carroll County?Will the birds most common to the wilds of South Africa take to a place populated by cattle, horses and suburbanites?They just might, seeing as how they really don't stick their heads in the sand so they don't need all that sand anyway.

ZOO ZONE What's for dinner? Ostrich eat plants, roots, seeds, and insects. Little Brain Big Bird... The ostrich is the largest bird, but it has a very small brain -- one-fourth the size of a human brain, smaller in size than the bird's eye! Ostriches eat vegetation, but they also ingest rocks and stones to help digest their food. WILD FACTS Do you know? How tall are ostriches? Answer: Some ostriches reach 8 feet in height. Learn more! Visit the ostrich at The Baltimore Zoo. Read "The Lovely Lioness and Ostrich Chicks" by Verna Aadema.

There are two possible ways to interpret the temporary or permanent departure of four top executives and two traders from securities brokerage Ferris Baker Watts. One: Maybe the company is bending over backward to cooperate with a federal investigation that will turn out - for Ferris - to be a minor problem of paperwork and procedures. Two: Maybe the disruption signifies that Ferris Baker abetted an alleged $50 million Ponzi scheme. In either case, there is only one label for the way the Baltimore firm has handled disclosure of the situation.

For a clear-eyed view of the threat posed by global warming, just ask an insurance underwriter. Those green-eye-shade guys work for folks who make money by accepting risk - but no more than the minimum necessary to be profitable. And after covering $51.5 billion in losses when three once-in-a-century storms all hit in 2005, insurance companies that survived became very wary of protecting property owners against loss from natural disasters that are increasingly unpredictable because of climate change.

The Southwestern burger served at Cirella's at Saks Fifth Avenue in Huntington Station, N.Y., is both juicy and uncommonly flavorful. Delivered on a brioche bun, it's revved up with cumin and chile, topped with red onions and a melt of Swiss and dolloped with mango chutney. The surprise? It's fashioned of ground chicken. And, according to executive chef Anthony Colombo, it accounts for 30 percent of burger orders. A number of alluring alternative burgers are almost staples these days on menus and home grills.

It was the 1996 movie Swingers that gave us the immortal words, "You're so money, and you don't even know it." In this season of baseball free agency, it's time to recall some individuals who thought they were more money than they actually turned out to be. In 1993, infielder Jody Reed rejected the Dodgers' offer of $7.8 million for three years, then, after changing agents, wound up signing a minor league contract with the Milwaukee Brewers that was...

IT IS OFTEN said that a teacher learns more from his pupils than he imparts. The adage was proved true for me this summer as I led 19 San Francisco teenagers through a five-week exploration of writing, theater, movement and voice. We gathered in a tiny theater with the mission of developing a play about folks who feel shut out - from cliques, from society, from the norm. We would address the gulf between artistic and athletic prowess, between economic sectors, between the privileged and the repressed.

ACONSULTANT, somebody said, takes your watch to tell you the time. Leave it to the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association to spin new absurdity into the joke. BACVA has hired the consultant, handed over the watch and still doesn't know what time it is. It doesn't want to know. Do not be amazed by the fact that BACVA is conflicted about the highly negative report card it got a few weeks ago from Performance Management Inc., of Stamford, Conn. Reputations and egos are at stake.

LEANDER, Texas -- Call it the Ratite Rage. Call it big time money, the hottest fad in farmdom.Ratite? As in flightless birds. We're talking ostriches and emus here, the former being the largest and dumbest bird in the world; the latter being the similar but slightly smaller national symbol of Australia and not very high on the brainpower scale, either.But get this: These birds are now being raised in every state in the United States, even in chilly northern climes. They're being -- TTC raised in Canada, for that matter.

LEANDER, Texas -- Call it the Ratite Rage. Call it big-tim money, the hottest fad in farmdom.Ratite? As in flightless birds. We're talking ostriches and emus here, the former being the largest and dumbest bird in the world; the latter being the similar but slightly smaller national symbol of Australia and not very high on the brainpower scale, either.But get this: These birds are now being raised in every state in the United States, even in chilly Northern climes. They're being raised in Canada, for that matter.

ZOO ZONE What's for dinner? Ostrich eat plants, roots, seeds, and insects. Little Brain Big Bird... The ostrich is the largest bird, but it has a very small brain -- one-fourth the size of a human brain, smaller in size than the bird's eye! Ostriches eat vegetation, but they also ingest rocks and stones to help digest their food. WILD FACTS Do you know? How tall are ostriches? Answer: Some ostriches reach 8 feet in height. Learn more! Visit the ostrich at The Baltimore Zoo. Read "The Lovely Lioness and Ostrich Chicks" by Verna Aadema.

Even before there was an Easter, there were decorated eggs. Pagans used them in spring festivals. Many ancient cultures dyed eggs, exchanged them and generally considered them symbols of fertility. Their link to Easter is centuries old -- a simple yet colorful symbol of man's rebirth. To celebrate the season, The Sun asked a handful of people -- all with links to eggs -- to try their hand at decorating an egg or two for Easter. The results ranged from the traditional dye job (shades of the eternal Paas)