Remedy

WASHINGTON -- The state and federal officials prosecuting the Microsoft antitrust case say their goal in any settlement, or court-imposed remedy, will be to break Microsoft's monopoly in personal computer operating systems or limit the power to wield it.The Justice Department officials and state attorneys general have not decided how that should be done.Proposals include forcing Microsoft to publish the proprietary code for Windows so that other companies could design competing systems and breaking up Microsoft.

Q. I am desperate for a remedy for canker sores. My mouth is just full of them and they are so painful I am having trouble eating. My doctor prescribed Aphthasol, but it didn't help. My dentist has offered antibiotics and strong steroids, but nothing has worked.A. Physicians don't know what causes canker sores (aphthous ulcers), but a deficiency of folic acid, vitamin B-12 and iron may contribute. Prescription treatments are not always effective.We recently heard from D.W. in Garland, Texas, whose mother was a dental assistant in the 1930s.

Q. Why is the Microsoft case being tried before a judge, not a jury?A. If the plaintiffs (the Department of Justice and 20 states) were seeking damages (money) from Microsoft, then either side would be entitled to request a jury trial.However, the plaintiffs are not seeking money -- they only seek injunctive relief, such as stopping Microsoft from packaging its Internet browser in Windows 98. The Microsoft trial thus falls under a category of law called "actions in equity."According to a tradition dating back to English law, "actions in equity" are tried before a judge, not a jury.

Dear Mr. Gisriel:I recently settled on a house. After settlement, when I arrived at the house, I noticed that the back storm door was gone and the house was full of trash and debris. Do I have any recourse?Marcia WatersBaltimoreDear Ms. Waters:I always recommend that a buyer of a house walk through it before settlement. You should try to schedule the final walk-through either the morning of or the day before settlement.This way, any unanticipated problems such as your missing back door or trash and debris left in the house can be discussed and resolved at the settlement table -- usually by a credit to the buyer from the seller for the reasonable value of the missing item or cost of cleanup.

100 years agoIt is reported that on account of the protracted drought, wells and streams are rapidly drying up in parts of Anne Arundel County. -- The Sun, Jan. 9, 1897.It is estimated that $6 million is needed to remedy the disgraceful physical condition of the U.S. Naval Academy with new buildings, relaying the grounds and installing a good system of sewerage. -- The Sun, Jan. 12, 1897.Pub Date: 1/19/97

When Shelly and David Sturtz bought their house in the Running Deer development near Gamber last fall, they did not expect to own waterfront property.But whenever it rains, a torrent of water nearly a foot deep crosses their front yard, angles toward a neighbor's house and cuts a swath through the back yard to a spring in a ravine about 300 yards away.On sunny days, the Sturtz yard looks as if an 18-wheeler has driven through through it. Parallel ruts created by the runoff from steep yards higher up in the development are about 3 feet wide and 6 to 8 inches deep.

AT FIRST, there's just a little cough. Or maybe a sneeze or two. You think: "It's nothing. An allergy. An aberrant asthmatic flutter." But it lingers -- until the cough causes your chest to cramp, your throat to throb and your ears to ache.You begin to understand the origin of such cliches as "cough your head off" and "sneeze your eyes out." You wonder if it's possible. You almost hope it is.Everything hurts.You'd give real money to anyone who could teach you how to have an out of body experience.

THE RAGING headache, the complaining tummy, the sou taste in the mouth. It must be the morning after New Year's Eve.A politically incorrect New Year's Eve, we might add. Aren't stylish celebrants supposed to choose their beverages from a selection of over-priced mineral waters, rather than from a bar full of alcoholic drinks?Well, yes. But as in most things politically correct, theory doesn't always match reality. Hangovers, alas, are still with us, and probably always will be.We concede that if there's one thing worse than a hangover, it's probably advice about getting over it. Earlier this week, The Evening Sun thoughtfully provided readers with a doctor's advice for dealing with the effects of too much to drink.

Puzzled voters might ask why such liberal Democratic senators as Maryland's Paul Sarbanes and Michigan's Donald Riegle seem intent on saving President Bush from Herbert Hoover's fate at the polls. Each time Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan appears before their committees, they pressure him to lower interest rates in the hope of jolting the economy into recovery before the election. This also happens to be the White House formula for quick anti-recession action.The patriotic answer is that these senators are interested in what's good for their country.

New York -- CAN ANYONE recall a disappearance more precipitous than that of the national celebration of Desert Storm, last winter's great victory in the Persian Gulf -- the war whose fighting men and women, unlike those of Vietnam, were to be honored and remembered?HTC The honors, like yellow ribbons, quickly came and went. The remembrance of the war, as evidenced by polls and public statements, has been equally short-lived, and soured by the survival of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.President Bush's popularity, meanwhile, has gone south just as swiftly.

Tracy L. Palmer was furious when she learned that a Prince George's County judge had decided to reduce her abuser's prison sentence, but attorneys told her it was too late to do anything about it. She fought on anyway, arguing that since she did not receive notification of her ex-boyfriend's attempt to reduce his sentence as required by law, she was entitled to a new hearing and the chance to object. The circuit judge agreed, reversed himself and sent the man, Sharden B. Hoile, back to prison.

Some of the people in my multiple sclerosis support group use the gin and raisins remedy for achy muscles and joints. Does the alcohol evaporate entirely? Would there be cause for worry if a person ate 15 or 20 raisins and was pulled over by a state trooper? The recipe for gin-soaked raisins calls for barely covering golden raisins with gin in a shallow bowl. Allow the gin to evaporate, and eat nine raisins per day. Under these conditions, there is only about a drop of alcohol in the daily dose.

I heard a radio show caller say that an old-timer had told him to pick two small, new, reddish poison ivy leaves each spring, roll them inside a dough ball and swallow them to be immune from poison ivy for a whole season. This is an intriguing and terrifying suggestion. What is your opinion? We have heard this folk remedy from others, but we, too, are terrified by the idea. One reader related the following: "My father had me eat some poison ivy leaves when I was a child. I was always getting into it and breaking out in a bad rash.

WASHINGTON -- In the latest setback to the federal government's case against the tobacco industry, the Supreme Court refused yesterday to hear an appeal of a decision that sharply limited the monetary damages the industry can be required to pay if the government prevails in its legal theory that the industry has been run as a "racketeering enterprise" that falsely promoted its product as harmless. A nine-month trial of the government's civil lawsuit ended in June in federal district court here.

Marcus Harrison drank so much cognac at a Memorial Day party a few years ago that when he tried to go to sleep, his bed started spinning. So he slept on the floor - and wasn't surprised when he felt terrible the next morning. "I had a whole-day hangover," said Harrison, 38, a guest services employee at a Baltimore hotel. Although he describes himself as only an occasional drinker, he has a preferred remedy for hangovers: one or two 10-ounce glasses of grapefruit or orange juice. He also quaffs Gatorade or some other sports drink, if he can find it. "Always avoid coffee.

GOV. ROBERT L. Ehrlich Jr.'s effort to shake budgetary prudence into the culture of government highlights the contradictory and challenging state of Maryland's financial health. The state needs more revenue to erase a built-in yearly budget deficit of $1 billion -- or it needs a radical reduction of services. On the near horizon are the prospects of slot machines -- a corrosive and insufficient remedy -- and higher taxes, which politicians are loath to mention. The need is real, but the problem looms far enough in the distance to make urgency hard to achieve.

It's almost summer: You've had the air conditioner serviced, cleaned the backyard grill and repaired the window screens, but when was the last time you checked out your first-aid kit? One out of five kids ends up in the doctor's office or hospital emergency room each year because of an accidental injury, and summer is the peak season for household accidents. Yet experts believe only 5 percent of homes have a first-aid kit, and many of them aren't properly supplied. "Having a properly stocked first-aid kit can really make a difference," says Connie Harvey, a health and safety expert for the American Red Cross.

Q. I was interested in your column about the person who used yellow mustard for indigestion. I want to provide some positive feedback: I tried the mustard remedy for indigestion over the past couple of days and am amazed and delighted that it works. A. We thank the reader who suggested a teaspoon of yellow mustard for heartburn. Apparently the yellow coloring, turmeric, has long been used for digestive disorders. You are not the only one who remarked on this home remedy: "I was fascinated to read that someone else takes yellow mustard for heartburn.

WASHINGTON - With a corporate breakup order looming, Microsoft Corp. made a last-minute plea yesterday to a federal judge to give it strong protection against letting rivals use its secret software codes to clone Microsoft products before any split occurs. The huge software company repeated, in strong terms, its basic argument that it should not be split up. The plan by the Justice Department and 17 states to break Microsoft into two companies, it said, "is extreme and unjustified." But most of the company's final filing assumed a breakup is inevitable and focused on ways to protect Microsoft's inventions and its secrets in the meantime.

WASHINGTON - Showing a keen interest in dividing Microsoft Corp. into three new companies, a federal judge signaled yesterday that he will bring the antitrust case to a swift close with an order to break up the software giant. U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, at a hearing lasting nearly three hours, gave his first reactions to competing proposals for ways to remedy Microsoft's violations of antitrust law that he had found earlier. Jackson seemed inclined to embrace a breakup proposal, rather than just limit remedies to required changes in the company's behavior.