Story

With the death of reality TV star Anna Nicole Smith yesterday, a ferocious barrage of Marilyn Monroe-like images and scattershot speculation was instantly loosed across the on-air and online landscape of 24-hour news. From a former flame describing on MSNBC how she kissed, to Fox and CNN hosts stressing the "mysterious" circumstances of her death as they queried medical experts, the story lines driving the wall-to-wall coverage yesterday careened from tragic-death-of-sex-goddess to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Brandi Carlile doesn't mind that Columbia, her record label, isn't making a big fuss over her. Her latest album, The Story, is her second for the mighty company, and it isn't the center of a splashy, expensive promotional campaign. No glitzy videos on MTV or high-profile appearances on TRL. Besides, none of that would suit Carlile's profile, anyway. Sure, she's 26 with camera-friendly looks. But her ponderous lyrics, roots-rock sound and hold-back-nothing vocal delivery don't exactly fit into pop's current climate of beat-driven vapidity.

Mount Hebron senior Katie Jeschke couldn't believe the look on Kate Story's face. "She had no color. It looked as if she was lifeless," said Jeschke about her senior teammate."

Early in the 1990s, when Monalisa DeGross first saw photographer Roland Freeman's chronicle of Baltimore's a-rabs, the fading breed of men who sell produce and seafood from horse-drawn wagons, she thought to herself, "Children are not even going to know about this."For DeGross, the notion was difficult to accept. Born in 1950, she vividly recollected how a-rabs drawn by festooned horses plied their wares in her east side neighborhood.On Wednesdays, the a-rab who sold produce announced his arrival with a musical catalog of watermelons, cantaloupes, celery and potatoes.

Russell Crowe delivers a quietly mind-blowing performance in "The Insider," in which he portrays real-life tobacco whistle-blower Jeffrey S. Wigand with uncanny verisimilitude.With his upper lip covered in sweat and his oddly impassive bespectacled gaze, Crowe makes a fascinating focus for this era's closest story to Watergate in its depiction of greed, power and the fragility of the press.Unfortunately, Crowe's presence is all but obliterated by Al Pacino, who as the crusading "60 Minutes" producer Lowell Bergman has commandeered the story as a vanity piece for both him and his character.

Deserved applause for illustratorsI have been enjoying the "Parent and Child" section of The Sun, especially the featured stories. But consistently, the "Story Time" feature only notes the author and only below in the copyright corner is the illustrator mentioned.As an illustrator, I find it a shame that the illustrator always takes a back seat to the author, when it is the illustrator who makes the words of the author spring to life.It is the illustrations which get children (and parents)

FROSTBURG -- This town is so small the alleys have their own street signs ("Alley 2, Alley 3" etc.). This town is so small when you ask for the chamber of commerce, a local nudges you and says, "What commerce?"Frostburg is so small the mayor, being the mayor, was entitled to P.O. Box 1. Even Ralph Race, a 91-year-old native, didn't rate in the top five. He's P.O. Box 6. Race is amused by this fact. He might even tell you about the post office situation over the phone, provided you don't call around dinner.

I have a necktie with a Christmas legend - the same words, over and over: "BAH HUMBUG." I have worn it, seasonally, off and on for perhaps 20 years. Many people don't notice. But those who do have always recognized the quote - its origin, who spoke it, and what it portended.Is there a more widely known pair of words in all of literature? Or a better known declaration of the spirit of Christmas? The immortality of the ultimately good Ebenezer Scrooge rests, of course, on the fact that he, like billions of others, found his spirits uplifted, his heart nourished, his faith kindled, by Christmas.

After 14 years with the Baltimore County Public Library, Eileen M. Kuhl is a veteran of at least 100 story hours for children -- but that doesn't keep her from reading to youngsters in her own family."

Getting information on the air fast has always been something to brag about in television news. But how fast is too fast?That is one of the questions being asked in the wake of allegations of a sexual relationship between President Clinton and a former White House intern.In the new world of competing all-news cable channels and the Internet, information on the Clinton story has been moving at a dizzying speed, obliterating traditional news cycles and raising concerns that television might be adding a false sense of urgency to the story.

Murder and mayhem were Matt Jablow's bread and butter as a WBAL newsman, Baltimore police spokesman and America's Most Wanted producer. Now he's offering more life-affirming fare as a "Webumentarian." Jablow left America's Most Wanted in July to start a video production company, Frodo Productions, named for a Hobbit. Baltimore's Ronald McDonald House has hired him to make a documentary for its Web site - a "Webumentary," as Jablow put it - on a family it serves. It tells the story of Kevin and Melissa Buckles of Northern Virginia.

He was an unlikely media star, a rumpled, Columbo-like character out of The Front Page. That appearance made him a throwback in the unsettling transition from print to electronic to cyber communication. In an earlier time, the stereotype demanded a fedora with a "PRESS" card tucked under the band. But he was a hack with a TV profile. He was more than a dogged reporter. He was an exemplar of media power. His face and his Sunday morning presence sold his books with Oprah-like power. The Tim Russert story - the story of his life and of his sudden passing - commanded headlines the way presidents and their passing do. The continuing accounts of his life are reminiscent of the Princess Diana story and its painful grip on the world's attention.

Last week's New York Times expos? on Sen. John McCain's alleged relationship with a telecommunications lobbyist nearly a decade ago was a shabby piece of journalism. The carefully planned and superbly executed riposte by the top-flight lobbyists with whom the Republican presidential nominee currently surrounds himself was a brilliant bit of politics. The article was posted online Wednesday evening, and by Thursday night, the Times and not Mr. McCain had become the only story anybody wanted to discuss.

Last week's Middle East summit meeting in Annapolis was major front-page news in The Sun, which offered significant coverage for much of the week. While serious gains from the daylong talks appeared unlikely even before they began, The Sun's coverage was, in my view, appropriate for two reasons. First, finding a path to peace in the Middle East is vitally important to the stability of not just that region, but the United States and the rest of the world. Secondly, it was a reminder for readers of the importance of world news.

Brandi Carlile doesn't mind that Columbia, her record label, isn't making a big fuss over her. Her latest album, The Story, is her second for the mighty company, and it isn't the center of a splashy, expensive promotional campaign. No glitzy videos on MTV or high-profile appearances on TRL. Besides, none of that would suit Carlile's profile, anyway. Sure, she's 26 with camera-friendly looks. But her ponderous lyrics, roots-rock sound and hold-back-nothing vocal delivery don't exactly fit into pop's current climate of beat-driven vapidity.

Varieties of Disturbance Lydia Davis Farrar, Straus and Giroux / 240 pages / $13 What is the correct way to refer to the dead? What would Kafka serve with dinner - beets or potato salad? How do you spell Nietzsche? In forms ranging from the wry one-liner to a lengthy study of get-well letters by schoolchildren, the latest story collection from Lydia Davis, Varieties of Disturbance, poses a series of word problems for the existentially challenged. This is a description that would also fit two of her previous collections, Break It Down and Almost No Memory, the former containing a story that begins, "X is with Y, but living on money from Z."

Good morning -- Orioles -- Is there some kind of rule that every steroids story has to mention this team?

BOSTON -- I would have bet big money that we'd have a female president of the United States before we had a female president of Harvard University. It's not just that Harvard predates the United States by more than a century and a half. There's a higher percentage of women in the Bush Cabinet than in the tenured faculty ranks of Harvard. But now comes Drew Gilpin Faust. The dean of the Radcliffe Institute has been chosen to take over the helm of what is often referred to - fondly, arrogantly and sarcastically - as the "world's greatest university."

With the death of reality TV star Anna Nicole Smith yesterday, a ferocious barrage of Marilyn Monroe-like images and scattershot speculation was instantly loosed across the on-air and online landscape of 24-hour news. From a former flame describing on MSNBC how she kissed, to Fox and CNN hosts stressing the "mysterious" circumstances of her death as they queried medical experts, the story lines driving the wall-to-wall coverage yesterday careened from tragic-death-of-sex-goddess to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Commercial construction in Howard County is booming - at 1999-2000 levels - according to Richard W. Story, chief executive officer of the county's Economic Development Authority. In concrete terms, that means 1.5 million square feet of office, warehouse and retail space under construction, with another 2.9 million square feet being planned. In addition, Story said, the county is likely to gain a corporate headquarters moving from another county, though he would not identify the company.