Real World

Even if they end up being a villain, we always have love for Baltimore folks on reality shows. So far on "The Real World: St. Thomas," Dundalk native Trey Weatherholtz, 23, is far from a villain. He reminds us of that popular guy in high school who also happened to be really nice to all the cliques. So we felt (slightly) bad for asking him these semi-inappropriate questions. You're from Dundalk. What's the grandest showcase of Dundalkian pride we should expect from you this season?

"Is there any way out other than the main stairs?" I asked. My husband, our real-estate agent, the seller's agent and I were standing in the finished basement of a home in Owings Mills. It was a vast space: a nice bathroom, a media room, a room big enough to waltz in and another room with hidden panels in the walls for stashing who knows what. There was even a fireplace at the bottom of the stairs, creating a spa-like atmosphere. But no, the selling agent said that there was just the one staircase, noting that some people like having only one way into the basement because exterior doors attract thieves.

After his time spent as one of seven strangers on MTV's "The Real World: D.C.," we're assuming Baltimore native Ty Ruff, 23, was better equipped to handle drama. Then came this season of MTV's other addictive reality show "The Challenge" (10 p.m. Wednesdays). This year, the "Real World"/"Road Rules" vets still compete in random feats of athletic strength, but each cast member is paired on a team with an ex. In Ruff's case, that means working with former "D.C. " flame Emily Schromm. Ruff, who grew up in Park Heights and now lives in Los Angeles, said he had mixed feelings about the pairing.

Inside a classroom at Howard Community College's new health sciences building are computerized mannequin patients, a replica ambulance and other devices that place students in simulated life-and-death situations. The facilities are part of the school's emergency medical service/paramedic program, which trains students to respond to the situations they'll face on emergency calls. But for Cory Boone and Nick Frazier, there's nothing like the real thing. They would know. Early this year, the Ellicott City residents, both students in the program, applied the skills they learned in class and while volunteering with the Howard County Department of Fire and Rescue to assist victims of cardiac arrest.

When Ty Ruff, a 22-year-old Baltimorean, heard that he'd be a castmate in "The Real World: D.C.," he was disappointed. The previous season had been filmed in Cancun, Mexico, and the one before that took place in Brooklyn, N.Y. Once he settled in, though, being in Dupont Circle "was like ... the other side of the world." Ruff moved into the house at 2100 S St. on July 2 with seven strangers, but the castmates, some of whom were just 5 years old when the original "The Real World" was broadcast in 1992, can't say much about the 23rd season of the show, which is scheduled to premiere at 10 p.m. Dec. 30 on MTV. Their tight-lipped spiels sound rehearsed, as each castmate chants the "live hard, play hard" mantra they say defines D.C. culture.

Casco Bay, Maine. -- The tomatoes are in the ground at last. I step back and look at the neat rows, each small green plant set in its own mound of earth, waving slightly in the warm breeze, like a fragile banner to summer.By July, I will tie them to stakes or encase them in their metal cages. But to do so now would be absurd, like tucking an infant into a king-sized bed.In the next few hours, the temperature will dive by 40 degrees and on Sunday, it will rain solidly. The weatherman on the television set will banter with the anchors, apologizing for this inconvenient bout of bad weather, as if it were a flaw in his radar equipment.

Disasters, tragedies and other front-page dramas come and go, but the Oklahoma City bombing has the feel of an event from which there is no turning back. America will never be the same. The country has become a part of the real world -- a little less special, and a little less safe. It may also become a lot less pleasant.Isolationism is our oldest, most fundamental tradition, and it dies hard because it is fundamentally psychological rather than political. It has to do with a deep yearning to be somehow apart from the disorder, corruption and danger of the world outside, to be safe within our superior institutions and our spacious continent.

LAS VEGAS -- "My house in Cutoff is, like, a country house," says the all-smiles Trichelle, a 22-year-old from an aptly named rural Louisiana town, soon after the opening credits of the season premiere episode of MTV's The Real World. The cameras-in-the-house show that helped unleash a flood of so-called reality programming begins its 12th season on Sept. 17, set this time in the new youth-oriented Palms Casino Resort just off the Las Vegas strip. "This," drawls Trichelle, who -- like all cast members -- uses only her first name, "is a city house."

Paul Foster gives new meaning to the term multi-tasking. He offers a quick handshake as he troubleshoots a problem with students printing a school newsletter. He helps another student with a computer graphics question, while checking the progress of yet another of his charges. He never breaks stride as he goes from one to the next in his graphics and printing communications class. When Foster accepted his teaching position at Sollers Point Technical High School, his main goal was to show his students what to expect in the real world of printing.

The makers of The Real World Movie: The Lost Season apparently couldn't decide whether to make a reality show spoof or a thriller about kidnapping. The combination of the two really doesn't work. The movie follows the fictional Vancouver cast moving into the house and experiencing the quintessential Real World moments - running around the bizarrely decorated space, choosing bedrooms, getting to know one another. But then they're kidnapped by Roland, a Real World reject who is so desperate to be on the show that he's built a secluded house set, filled it with cameras, and threatened to blow them all up if they don't cooperate.

The world of academia - the world of ivory towers, learned scholars, and ivy-covered walls - is a fraud. And I am a living fraud. As an academic, I cannot escape the fact that I work in the fake world. What else can I conclude when people use the term "the real world" to refer to life outside academia? University faculty and support staff hear this phrase so often that we barely pause over it. Worse still, we have thoroughly imbibed it and utter it regularly. Sure (I tell myself)

Letter writer John Bonn's accusation that former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and the GOP are out of touch with reality as related to the journalistic elitist left is a pure example of self-delusion ("The GOP lost because it's out of touch," Nov. 28). If Mr. Bonn's lofty opinion of reality is shaped by today's journalistic credentials then he needs to re-examine the reality of the left's agenda without the arrogance of a card-carrying liberal. Since when do Democrats have the sole pulse of "real world" politics or societal challenges?

I found it highly amusing that a majority of those taking your reader poll on climate change are still in denial that the looming environmental disaster is man-made. They remind me of the Kevin Bacon character at the end of the movie "Animal House," who is frantically stamping his feet and screaming "all is well" just as an oncoming stampede of people tramples him to death. I guess if you sit in your air conditioned living room watching Fox News and listening to Rush Limbaugh, you can still pretend climate change isn't happening - as long as you avoid going outside in the real world.

Even if they end up being a villain, we always have love for Baltimore folks on reality shows. So far on "The Real World: St. Thomas," Dundalk native Trey Weatherholtz, 23, is far from a villain. He reminds us of that popular guy in high school who also happened to be really nice to all the cliques. So we felt (slightly) bad for asking him these semi-inappropriate questions. You're from Dundalk. What's the grandest showcase of Dundalkian pride we should expect from you this season?

As a parent of a son who attends Loyola University, I was highly offended by the headline on the story about the school's first NCAA men's basketball tournament appearance in 18 years ("Back to the real world," March 16). There wasn't anything unreal about the tremendous season the team had. Nor was there anything unreal with how hard they worked to get to the NCAA tournament. The only thing that needs to get back to the real world is The Sun for printing something so insulting.

After his time spent as one of seven strangers on MTV's "The Real World: D.C.," we're assuming Baltimore native Ty Ruff, 23, was better equipped to handle drama. Then came this season of MTV's other addictive reality show "The Challenge" (10 p.m. Wednesdays). This year, the "Real World"/"Road Rules" vets still compete in random feats of athletic strength, but each cast member is paired on a team with an ex. In Ruff's case, that means working with former "D.C. " flame Emily Schromm. Ruff, who grew up in Park Heights and now lives in Los Angeles, said he had mixed feelings about the pairing.

Caps and gowns were the dress, and character and the uncertain future were the themes as four Maryland colleges unleashed 3,500 graduates yesterday into the "real world of work."The future is likely to bring some frustrations, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson told 650 Morgan State University graduates, including 141 who received advanced HTC degrees.Mr. Wilson, who wrote "Fences," "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" and "The Piano Lesson," said the world is more fast-paced and competitive than when he graduated from college, and he urged students to persevere through the uncertain times they may face.

Ah, another person writes in with the true skinny on why people in "the real world" will never get off unemployment ("Payroll taxes and unemployment benefits: two bad decisions," Dec. 28). Funny, all the people I know who are unemployed are trying their best to get a job. And though grateful for the assistance, they are finding it difficult to make ends meet even with their unemployment checks - all of which, let it be noted, go right back into the economy. Charles Rammelkamp, Baltimore

I have had enough of political bullying. What candidates are doing and saying to each other is tantamount to character defamation and harassment, both of which are against the law. I am a retired teacher mentor. I substitute, provide professional development for teachers and mentors and enjoy working in a school setting. We are all there for the same reason - student achievement and success in the real world. But the adults in the real world who want to be president are misbehaving.