Saga

"Many Brave Hearts Are Asleep in the Deep" 1897 sea chantey The ferocious February nor'easter that severely disrupted Atlantic shipping more than a half-century ago nearly took the life of a Baltimore merchant mariner who was aboard a crippled oil tanker. The gale that snapped the SS Pendleton in two off Cape Cod in the early morning hours of Feb. 18, 1952, inflicted a similar fate on another T-2 class tanker, the SS Fort Mercer, that was steaming some 30 miles southeast of Chatham, Mass.

The county public school system held the fourth annual Black Saga countywide competition Feb. 7 at Patapsco Middle School. Sixty children representing 15 schools competed and were tested on their knowledge of facts from American history and geography. At the elementary level, Hammond took first place in the competition, followed by Talbott Springs and Ilchester. The members of the Hammond team were Irene Lu, Xiaolu Guo, Mathias Richardson and Pavan Vemulakonda, all fifth-graders. Their advisers were Alicia Marner and Nicola Walker.

Seventeen days before free agency formally arrives, the negotiating table between Ray Lewis and the Ravens is littered with propositions, mixed signals and perhaps even some wishful thinking. Ravens coach John Harbaugh is the latest to enter the dialogue. While in Honolulu for the Pro Bowl last week, Harbaugh sounded cautiously optimistic that the team will keep its All-Pro middle linebacker. "Ray Lewis is going to be a guy we're going to pay a lot of money to in order to keep," Harbaugh told USA Today.

This is Chizoba Ukairo's last chance to win it all. The eighth-grader at Cradlerock School has competed in the Black Saga competition for the past four years. Her best finish was 10th place at the state level last year. This year, she is returning to the competition with new teammates and a renewed desire to win. "I think we have a good team," the 13-year-old said. "I've gotten to know the competition. It's a gut feeling." Chizoba and her teammates - Cradlerock eighth-graders Kimberly Tang-Nian and Caroline Pyon - have been studying together at the library, over the phone and at one another's homes for weeks trying to memorize hundreds of black history facts.

Can the X-Men be reunited and save the world? That's the question facing Wolverine as Nicktoons Network introduces Wolverine and the X-Men with back-to-back episodes tonight. The 26-part animated saga focuses on Wolverine, the most famous of the X-Men, a year after a mysterious explosion destroyed the Xavier Institute and led to the breakup of the heroic X-Men fraternity. Embittered, alone and trying to keep a low profile, Wolverine is suddenly drawn back into trouble in the form of the government's Mutant Response Division.

It's the story that won't go away. Like peeling back layers of an onion, almost every month we learn more about the Maryland State Police's indefensible program to collect information on peaceful activist groups. Also much like an onion, the whole thing stinks. Col. Terrence B. Sheridan, state police superintendent, has acknowledged that the surveillance activities were wrong. But words must be matched by deeds, and his agency has been less than forthcoming about this unpleasant episode in its recent history.

Recently, a dear friend, who was raised Jewish, asked me, raised Catholic, about the official duties of the godmother. She had been invited to be one of the godparents of her newborn niece and was thrilled with the honor. Still, she wanted to be sure she knew what was expected and could carry out her responsibilities. I don't think I was mildly helpful on the subject, because I think it depends on your perspective. From the adult one, most parishes require you to attend some sort of formal training to be a godparent.

COLUMBUS, OHIO -- With most of the nation's best swimmers scheduled to compete at the Toyota Grand Prix here this weekend, record-breaking performances might take a back seat to the swimsuit competition. The Speedo LZR Racer, a $550 seamless, water-resistant swimsuit, has dominated pre-Olympic meets, and its use has been praised - and questioned - because of its cutting-edge technology and high price tag. Since the suit's debut in February, 18 long-course world records have fallen, 17 of them to LZR-clad athletes.

The past few months have been spent in almost constant analysis of the way Orioles president Andy MacPhail has reconfigured the roster and set the team in a new direction, which might or might not lead to a new era of competitive baseball in Baltimore. The only thing certain is that it won't lead there right away. MacPhail's reconstruction project was never aimed at 2008 and probably won't reach fruition in 2009, so the challenge of this season is finding reasons to remain interested in the rebuilding Orioles when all you're going to be able to see is the concrete being poured for the foundation.

What started in 1957 as a mannequin-repair shop eventually grew into D'Agostino Studios, which for the past two decades has created lifelike sculptures, casts, molds and costumes for museums such as the Smithsonian and has worked on hundreds of mannequins of characters from the Star Wars saga for displays across the globe. Studio owner Lania D'Agostino began working for what was then called Mannequin Service Company in 1985. Today, she and her staff of artisans create, fashion and adorn an array of faces and postures, with an eye on realism.