Paranoia

On the University of Maryland campus in College Park this month, senior Pavel Beresnev was a hunted man. Threats and hate mail came his way. Fliers were posted in dining halls and traded online listing his address, phone number, e-mail address and Instant Messenger screen name, along with a clear message: "Can't get on Direct Connect? Say thanks to Pavel Leonidovich Beresnev." Students hoping to download a catchy song they heard on the way to campus were caught by surprise earlier this month when their link to Direct Connect, a popular online file-sharing program, was suddenly shut down.

It would be naive to think that psychological profiling of prospective jurors doesn't occur in the American legal system. After all, it had been employed by the legal defense team in the Angela Davis trial some 30 years ago, and it was reported then that even some jurors who acquitted her had joined her in a post-trial victory celebration. Undoubtedly, the tactics of finding jurors who will be sympathetic to your client have grown more sophisticated, meaning that only those who can afford the expense - the rich - can employ them.

HAVING SURVIVED two attempts on his life, David Palmer appears on his way to becoming the United States' first African-American president, even though his marriage is toast. Counterterrorism Agent Jack Bauer is alive and well, too, though his wife just got iced and his ex-lover turns out to have been working for the other side. The Croatian bad guys have been killed off, but somehow, some way, Germany's involved. So ended the "longest day" of Agent Bauer's life, as portrayed in 24, 24 one-hour TV shows adhering to the wonderful conceit of a real-time telling of a Byzantine web of plots and subplots over the course of one day, from midnight to midnight.

WE REMAIN alert to even more unsettling threats in the aftermath of Sept. 11. We are assaulted by things that are both near and well-known (the mail, hollowed-out sneakers) and yet unknown and unfamiliar (invisible microbes, plastic explosives). The war is not just over there happening to them, it's here happening to us, and it can make anyone anxious and hyper-vigilant. Though many are worried, allowing our worries to incapacitate us is neither helpful nor healthy. Freud observed that neurotics seem to do better during times of war and catastrophe.

Some schools won't let students near the mail. Area poison centers are inundated with calls from people whose newly arrived letters look slightly suspicious. And postal carriers are being turned away when they bring mail to the door. "Some of the mail carriers are being shunned and told to throw down the mail on the doorstep," said Monica Gaines, a 25-year U.S. Postal Service veteran who works at the Lamond Riggs mail facility in Washington. "A lot of people are saying they don't want their mail.

IN THE PAST month, horrified Russians have watched officials' helplessness as a nuclear submarine sank and Moscow's gigantic television tower burned out of control. Yet even these catastrophes could pale in comparison with a disaster currently in the making -- President Vladimir Putin's attempt to muzzle the country's free-wheeling media. At the moment the Kremlin is trying to take over two nationwide television networks. The owner of gutsy NTV, Vladimir Gusinsky, is resisting, even though he was jailed on trumped-up charges for three days during the spring.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- Paranoia plays an important part in every America's Cup, and the current go-round here is no exception. On the eve of the best-of-nine challenger finals, there is so much tension between San Francisco's AmericaOne and Italy's Prada Challenge that the air fairly crackles across the wire-topped security screens separating their adjoining waterfront compounds. AmericaOne skipper Paul Cayard is particularly incensed at the way in which the Italians have sought to impugn his jealously guarded reputation for sportsmanship.

When Mark Pellington showed his new movie, "Arlington Road," at the Maryland Film Festival in April, what might have been a giddy homecoming for the Baltimore native turned out to be an evening of more mixed emotions.Just four days earlier, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris had killed themselves, 12 of their classmates and one teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. And Screen Gems, the division of Sony Pictures that is releasing "Arlington Road," had informed Pellington the night before that they would be changing the film's release date from May until mid-July.

It's one of the closest rivalries in lacrosse. Scratch that. It's one of the most lopsided.Just pick your point of view.When No. 4 Duke squares off against No. 5 Georgetown in Saturday's NCAA quarterfinals, the Hoyas prefer to remember that four of the past seven annual meetings have been decided by one goal. The Blue Devils, however, will take a different spin, highlighting their 12-0 record vs. the Hoyas and their 10-8 win at Georgetown on March 27."Yeah, it's been close," Georgetown coach Dave Urick said.

Pity David Cronenberg. How was he, one of the most imaginative directors working in film today, supposed to know that his foray into the world of virtual reality would be eclipsed by a little movie called "The Matrix"?Although "eXistenZ," Cronenberg's new movie about a virtual reality game gone awry, has its own creepy charms and humanist message, it can't help but pale in comparison to its predecessor's spectacular effects and dazzling action sequences.In fact, the two are boon companions in what looks to be a spate of paranoid futuristic thrillers.