Serpent

A snake short-circuited power to about 400 homes and businesses in Owen Brown village Thursday for up to 34 minutes, and a nest of serpents may have been responsible for brief outages over the previous week, a Baltimore Gas & Electric spokesman said."

Holly Hertsgaard had no idea what she would be painting when she arrived at Serpent Ridge Winery, in Westminster, for its first wine-glass painting class. As the evening progressed, a football field appeared on one glass; Camden Yards appeared on another. On her daughter's two glasses, balloons took shape. "This was supposed to be a mother, daughter night," sadi Hertsgaard, of Westminster, nodding to her daughter's empty chair. "She had to go, (so) I have a lot of work to do," she said dipping her brush into the green paint.

Q: The dish in this photo has been in my family for many years. It is about 5 inches in diameter and 4 inches deep. On the bottom it is marked with a twisted serpent and the words "Willets -- Belleek."Is my bowl Belleek china? Could you tell me something about the manufacturer, its vintage and value?A: Your bowl, quite possibly a soup bowl, is an example of American Belleek. It was made by Willets Manufacturing Co., in Trenton, N.J. This mark was used from 1879 to 1912. The value of this bowl would probably be about $275 to $325 in good condition.

Let us now praise snakes. Yes, with the frenzy surrounding Snakes on a Plane, they may have come to embody the unbridled glee of trashy filmmaking. But without the snake in the garden - of Eden, that is - we humans wouldn't have gained knowledge of good and evil - and the uproarious or mortifying consequences that make up great romantic comedy and drama. My own gratitude to cinematic serpentry dates back to seeing John Huston's The Bible (1966) on the giant D-150 screen, in which Eve was played by a gorgeous Swedish student named Ulla Bergryd (now senior lecturer at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Stockholm)

The snake has an image problem.That's why the slimy, sneaky, evil creature will be used as a symbol for an elaborate art exhibit that confronts fear, hatred and prejudice.Beginning Monday, "The Realm of the Serpent" will be on display through April 30 at the Columbia Art Center.The exhibit will feature a "serpentine labyrinth" -- constructed from hundreds of strips of material submitted by artists from across the nation -- that will be large enough to walk through.The display will be accompanied by a series of lectures about culture, myth and the misunderstood snake.

Four people were arrested on drug charges after Howard County narcotics officers raided an Oakland Mills home Friday night.Members of the county Police Department's Street Drug Section executed a search and seizure warrant at 9:40 p.m. Police said they confiscated a vial of cocaine and drug paraphernalia at the home in the 9600 block of Basket Ring Road.All four people in the home at the time of the raid were arrested and charged with possession of cocaine and drug paraphernalia, police said.

Opera for kids? It may sound unlikely, but Towson University's Music for the Stage class seems to have pulled it off. The students present two operas for children, Sid the Serpent Who Wanted to Sing and Gertrude McFuzz tomorrow and Saturday at Towson University's Center for the Arts Rehearsal Hall. Sid the Serpent Who Wanted to Sing is the story of a circus reptile who decides to travel around the globe in search of learning how to sing in tune. Sid, as well as the audience, learns about music and harmony, as well as about appreciating everyone's individual talents.

A 6-foot-tall, 10-foot-long serpent is on its way to the Children's National Medical Center today, courtesy of the 45-member Columbia United Christian Church in East Columbia's Oakland Mills village.It's a "Peace Sculpture," crafted from toy weapons collected from 300 Howard County children as part of a project to encourage youngsters to seek more peaceful ways to play.The sculpture, made by James and Mary Opasik of Catonsville, includes water guns, toy swords and small action figures. They all were pieced together into the shape of a giant serpent.

IN MICHIGAN, the latest fad in body modification has had dentists gritting their teeth. Members of the state dental association had seen enough injuries and infections from tongue splitting -- you heard that right -- that the group sought to outlaw the procedure. The proposed ban had tongues wagging, from civil libertarians to oral surgeons to tattoo artists with forked tongues. State Rep. William J. Callahan focused on the potential risks: "Your tongue swells up to the point where it closes your airway.

They're just like any other first-time authors: anxious to see how their new book is received, thrilled at the prospect of people picking up their Washington mystery and reading it. "It's amazing to see people on airplanes carrying our book," one of them says in the hotel room, and there is wonder in her voice.Typical rookie writers, Marilyn Quayle and her sister Nancy Northcott are -- except for those two grim-looking Secret Service agents with walkie-talkies who are standing in the hall.

PEOPLE ALWAYS ASK me: "Is it hard to be a professional writer like you and Joyce Carol Oates?" Yes. Very hard. Here is a true example of the kind of difficulties we face: The other day I was in sitting at my desk in my home office, doing what I do all day, which is frown at my computer screen and wrestle with professional writing issues, such as: "Do I have anything to say about this topic?" And: "What, exactly, IS this topic?" This is tiring work, so roughly 35,000 times a day I have to take a break to eat something or drink something or scratch something.

IN MICHIGAN, the latest fad in body modification has had dentists gritting their teeth. Members of the state dental association had seen enough injuries and infections from tongue splitting -- you heard that right -- that the group sought to outlaw the procedure. The proposed ban had tongues wagging, from civil libertarians to oral surgeons to tattoo artists with forked tongues. State Rep. William J. Callahan focused on the potential risks: "Your tongue swells up to the point where it closes your airway.

Opera for kids? It may sound unlikely, but Towson University's Music for the Stage class seems to have pulled it off. The students present two operas for children, Sid the Serpent Who Wanted to Sing and Gertrude McFuzz tomorrow and Saturday at Towson University's Center for the Arts Rehearsal Hall. Sid the Serpent Who Wanted to Sing is the story of a circus reptile who decides to travel around the globe in search of learning how to sing in tune. Sid, as well as the audience, learns about music and harmony, as well as about appreciating everyone's individual talents.

"Legends of the Plumed Serpent: Biography of a Mexican God," Public Affairs. 240 pages. $35.Mexico has long been a favorite playground for tourists seeking sun-drenched beaches, discos where the music pumps until dawn, and smooth tequila that makes their heads spin. However, there are also tourists who go to Mexico with their brain turned on.For them, biographer Neil Baldwin has written a book about Mexico that aims to be a mix between travel guide and history text. It traces the creation and the enduring power of a mythological symbol older than the nation itself: the plumed serpent god known as Quetzalcoatl.

George Kalwa hadn't been fishing in a month, which for him borders on prolonged hiatus. It seemed like each time Kalwa had a craving to take his boat out on the bay and chase rockfish, something came up or the weather turned ugly. The weather was ugly again Sunday morning, but this time it didn't stop him. Kalwa took his 17-foot Starcraft out of Dundee Creek in eastern Baltimore County. His neighbor, a city police officer named Gary Starkey, was with him. It was raining. The wind was up from the northwest, between 10 and 15 knots.

A 6-foot-tall, 10-foot-long serpent is on its way to the Children's National Medical Center today, courtesy of the 45-member Columbia United Christian Church in East Columbia's Oakland Mills village.It's a "Peace Sculpture," crafted from toy weapons collected from 300 Howard County children as part of a project to encourage youngsters to seek more peaceful ways to play.The sculpture, made by James and Mary Opasik of Catonsville, includes water guns, toy swords and small action figures. They all were pieced together into the shape of a giant serpent.

Washington They're just like any other first-time authors: anxious to see how their new book is received, thrilled at the prospect of people picking up their Washington mystery and reading it. "It's amazing to see people on airplanes carrying our book," one of them says in the hotel room, and there is wonder in her voice.Typical rookie writers, Marilyn Quayle and her sister Nancy Northcott are -- except for those two grim-looking Secret Service agents with walkie-talkies who are standing in the hall.

The world's second largest river begins in Iquitos, high in the Peruvian Andes. It curls across the belly of South America and decants at Belem on Brazil's Atlantic coast. Coursing a whopping 4,000 miles, it is longer than the continental United States is wide.The Amazon is more than big, though. It has a thousand tributaries and carries one-quarter of the planet's free-flowing water, more than any other river in the world. One-third of our oxygen supply is hooked up to the dense, fragile rain forest that flanks it.Like some colossal continental vascular system, the Amazon snakes through the densest jungle landscapes.

The world's second largest river begins in Iquitos, high in the Peruvian Andes. It curls across the belly of South America and decants at Belem on Brazil's Atlantic coast. Coursing a whopping 4,000 miles, it is longer than the continental United States is wide.The Amazon is more than big, though. It has a thousand tributaries and carries one-quarter of the planet's free-flowing water, more than any other river in the world. One-third of our oxygen supply is hooked up to the dense, fragile rain forest that flanks it.Like some colossal continental vascular system, the Amazon snakes through the densest jungle landscapes.

Q: The dish in this photo has been in my family for many years. It is about 5 inches in diameter and 4 inches deep. On the bottom it is marked with a twisted serpent and the words "Willets -- Belleek."Is my bowl Belleek china? Could you tell me something about the manufacturer, its vintage and value?A: Your bowl, quite possibly a soup bowl, is an example of American Belleek. It was made by Willets Manufacturing Co., in Trenton, N.J. This mark was used from 1879 to 1912. The value of this bowl would probably be about $275 to $325 in good condition.