Spit

Janet Dodd was impressed yesterday with the elegant decor of the National Museum of Dentistry. Then she found the saliva room. On a pedestal in the center of the room stood a beaker filled with a murky gel. It was meant to simulate the 600 milliliters of saliva a person produces in a single day - enough to fill a soda bottle from a vending machine. Dodd winced in disgust at the sight of the beaker's contents. "I have no interest in this," she said, exiting the room quickly. The display is part of an exhibit titled Saliva: A Remarkable Fluid.

Dinner is about to be served in the kitchen in the William Paca House and Garden, apparently arrested in time. Set up as the busy workshop for the family's lavish dinner between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., it is not cluttered with kitschy cheer. It now looks like a period Dutch artwork. The "clockjack" spit -- certainly a showpiece for the mistress of the house -- is no longer spinning on the hearth. Faux seabass are dressed on platters, a rabbit is stretched out ready for carving, a boar's head stares blankly at the mincemeat pies, peas, boiled onions and, yes, a pheasant, too. The newly created 18th-century still-life dinner scene is the central element of the transformation at the national historic landmark house in Annapolis, stressing authenticity, artisanship and domesticity in presenting the Pacas' lives as they were lived.

The only office Kweisi really wants is U.S. senator, same as Kurt, only Paul won't give it up.Governor Glen wants to open the racetrack biz to free-market competition. That's un-American!China's nuclear espionage coup during the Reagan administration was obviously that scoundrel Clinton's doing.RJR Nabisco will spit out its tobacco rather than toss its cookies.Pub Date: 3/12/99

The start of the Sept. 5 game between the Orioles and Cleveland Indians was delayed 89 minutes by rain. Denise Hirschbeck and her three children rode down an elevator to the sub-concourse level at Camden Yards, in search of her husband, John, and a new family friend, Indians second baseman Roberto Alomar.John Hirschbeck was in the umpires' room, waiting out the delay. His wife and children were visiting from Poland, Ohio. He led them to a hallway outside the visitors' clubhouse, and asked an Indians player to summon Alomar.

SAN ANTONIO -- For a player who had so little impact in his team's 65-59 defeat to Utah in Saturday's NCAA semifinals, North Carolina center Makhtar Ndiaye found himself in the middle of a significant controversy yesterday.And, much like his performance in the game, Ndiaye was nowhere to be found here, having flown back to Chapel Hill, N.C., with the Tar Heels.After the game, Ndiaye told a San Antonio newspaper that Utah's Britton Johnsen directed a racial slur at him and denied Johnsen's charge that he spit in the freshman forward's face.

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- The baseball umpires have achieved the nearly impossible trick of turning themselves into villains over an incident in which one of their own was spit upon by a player.With their threats, grandstanding and general boorishness in the aftermath of the Roberto Alomar spitting incident, they have managed to crumble a plot of moral high ground that should have been indestructible.Their threat to shut down the playoffs last year hardly endeared themselves to the baseball public; it was as if they were the last people in America who didn't understand that the fans were weary of such shenanigans -- and that mattered now, after the debilitating strike of 1994.

You step on someone's foot. I'm sorry. Hear that a friend's pet has died. I'm so sorry. Spill a drink at a party. Sorry! Spit on a man in front of millions, then suggest it's his fault, because his son's death has made him bitter and mean.No comment.Welcome to the sorry state of the apology, when regrets seem to come most readily when they matter the least.The apology has become the peso of modern rhetoric, a sentiment devalued by virtue of being offered so automatically and unfeelingly. "The apology too prompt," John Milton called it in "Paradise Lost."

Peter Angelos wants the world to hear Roberto Alomar's side of the story.It is understandable.But it is a mistake.Angelos would be wiser just to drop the whole matter instead of keeping it alive.To the rest of the world, Alomar will always be the second baseman who spat in an umpire's face.No after-the-fact explanation is going to change that perception.Angelos can go ahead and issue a proclamation claiming that umpire John Hirschbeck cursed Alomar, insulted his manhood or did something mean before Alomar spit in Hirschbeck's face.

TORONTO -- He lost his cool, which happens.He said he was just responding to an insult, which also happens.But that doesn't mean he was right.Roberto Alomar couldn't have been more wrong to spit in umpire John Hirschbeck's face after being ejected from last night's game at SkyDome for arguing a called third strike in the first inning.How could such a smart player do such a dumb thing?How could a player who does so many things right do something so incredibly wrong?Alomar was wrong because he was unable to play in a critically important game, hurting the Orioles' cause in the wild-card race.

With one powerful swing, Roberto Alomar went from spit to shine.Thousands of O's fans descended on Camden Yard last night to put aside Alomar's vulgar act against an umpire and praise him for a 12th-inning home run that delivered the Orioles into the American League Championship Series."

Ravens coach John Harbaugh strongly defended cornerback Frank Walker, who was accused by Steelers punter Mitch Berger of spitting in Berger's face toward the end of the Ravens' 13-9 loss to Pittsburgh on Sunday. "That's the first I heard that. I don't believe it for one second," Harbaugh said yesterday during his weekly news conference at the team's training facility in Owings Mills. "Frank Walker wouldn't do it; none of our players would do it. I don't believe it for one second." With 43 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Steelers kicker Jeff Reed converted an extra point after quarterback Ben Roethlisberger's 4-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Santonio Holmes.

* Wow. To hear some people's reaction, you would think Daniel Cabrera drove drunk, shot steroids or spit on an umpire, instead of just developing too slowly. * Some fair-weather fans the Chicago Cubs have. One measly century of failure and they jump off the bandwagon. * Isiah Thomas, Wes Unseld, now Elgin Baylor - how old do you have to be to remember how great they were as players, instead of how bad they were as team executives? * Maybe more attention would be paid to the twists and turns of Matt Jones' cocaine-possession case if he had a catchy nickname like "Pacman."

Dinner is about to be served in the kitchen in the William Paca House and Garden, apparently arrested in time. Set up as the busy workshop for the family's lavish dinner between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., it is not cluttered with kitschy cheer. It now looks like a period Dutch artwork. The "clockjack" spit -- certainly a showpiece for the mistress of the house -- is no longer spinning on the hearth. Faux seabass are dressed on platters, a rabbit is stretched out ready for carving, a boar's head stares blankly at the mincemeat pies, peas, boiled onions and, yes, a pheasant, too. The newly created 18th-century still-life dinner scene is the central element of the transformation at the national historic landmark house in Annapolis, stressing authenticity, artisanship and domesticity in presenting the Pacas' lives as they were lived.

Dinner is about to be served in the kitchen in the William Paca House and Garden, apparently arrested in time. Set up as the busy workshop for the family's lavish dinner between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., it is not cluttered with kitschy cheer. It now looks like a period Dutch artwork. The "clockjack" spit - certainly a showpiece for the mistress of the house - is no longer spinning on the hearth. Faux sea bass are dressed on platters, a rabbit is stretched out ready for carving, a boar's head stares blankly at the mincemeat pies, peas, boiled onions and, yes, a pheasant, too. The new 18th-century still-life dinner scene is the central element of the transformation at the national historic landmark house in Annapolis, stressing authenticity, artisanship and domesticity in presenting the Pacas' lives as they were lived.

I would like to purchase a roaster pan for doing turkey, chicken and beef. What kind do you suggest? To make an intelligent decision, you should first understand what roasting is about. It is a method that involves dry heat to cook a fairly large piece of meat, be it beef, lamb, pork, game or poultry, which includes turkey and duck. While spit-roasting over an open flame was once the preferred way, the term "roasting" now generally is understood as being done in the oven. Ideally, the radiant oven heat should envelope the meat from all sides, even from underneath, and be intense enough initially to sear the outside and seal the juices in. The meat should not rest on the pan, which is placed merely to catch the drippings, so that it does not cook in its own juices.

The simmering feud between a pair of Columbia neighbors -- which has resulted in 13 criminal cases and more than 100 calls to police -- reached a milestone yesterday: a jail sentence. One of the participants received a sentence of two days in the Howard County Detention Center for spitting at the other in a disagreement over grass clippings. Noting the judicial system's exhaustion at the "back and forth of who is going to win today" that has spanned eight years, Howard County District Court Judge Neil E. Axel imposed the jail sentence on Timothy Cerny, 47, of the 6100 block of Swift Current Way in Columbia's River Hill village.

Janet Dodd was impressed yesterday with the elegant decor of the National Museum of Dentistry. Then she found the saliva room. On a pedestal in the center of the room stood a beaker filled with a murky gel. It was meant to simulate the 600 milliliters of saliva a person produces in a single day - enough to fill a soda bottle from a vending machine. Dodd winced in disgust at the sight of the beaker's contents. "I have no interest in this," she said, exiting the room quickly. The display is part of an exhibit titled Saliva: A Remarkable Fluid.

A Darlington woman accused of criminal negligence in the death of a 16-month-old who overdosed on methadone in 2004, told police that she did not seek help because she believed the boy had spit out enough of the substance to avoid harm, a detective testified yesterday. The defense attorney for Elaine Marie Butler is seeking to show that the 53-year-old committed a "tragic accident" when she unwittingly gave Ashton Timothy Preston some of his mother's methadone that had been poured into a Mickey Mouse cup and placed in a cupboard.

An internal investigator did not discard any crucial evidence in the case of an inmate at a Western Maryland prison who died after a violent confrontation with correctional officers, attorneys for the state argued in legal briefs filed this week. The state's lawyers disputed claims that an attorney representing the family of Ifeanyi A. Iko made recently in a $28 million lawsuit over Iko's death in April 2004. The family contends that officers at Western Correctional Institution in Cresaptown used "unreasonable and illegal" force to subdue him. The family's attorney, Gary Adler, recently filed papers in court claiming that the prison system's lead internal investigator, Lt. Joseph Mercer II, had "destroyed evidence and willfully impeded the investigation."

Within two years, you may be able to go for a regular dental visit, spit into a cup and before your appointment is over, find out from an analysis of your saliva whether you're at risk for oral cancer. Currently, dentists have to do a thorough mouth exam to probe for oral cancer, which will strike more than 28,000 Americans a year and kill more than 7,000. Within a few more years, a fancier spit test may determine whether you're at risk for a number of other diseases as well, including breast cancer, Type 2 diabetes, ovarian cancer, Alzheimer's disease and rheumatoid arthritis.