Umbrella

The public appetite for trivial distraction has always extended to our chief executives. I remember the minor uproar when Lyndon Johnson lifted a beagle by the ears. There was extensive commentary on Richard Nixon's taste for cottage cheese and ketchup.* And now there is some kind of disturbance in the Force because of a photograph of a Marine holding an umbrella above President Barack Obama. A friend and colleague commented on Facebook: " He couldn't find an intern to hold an umbrella?

The public appetite for trivial distraction has always extended to our chief executives. I remember the minor uproar when Lyndon Johnson lifted a beagle by the ears. There was extensive commentary on Richard Nixon's taste for cottage cheese and ketchup.* And now there is some kind of disturbance in the Force because of a photograph of a Marine holding an umbrella above President Barack Obama. A friend and colleague commented on Facebook: " He couldn't find an intern to hold an umbrella?

Riddle: When is a patio umbrella not an umbrella?Answer: When it's a satellite dish.You don't get the joke? Neither did some residents of Anne Arundel County's Crofton community who were upset that a neighbor put up a satellite dish on his property in spite of covenants prohibiting them. The resident, Jeff Rimer, a well-known sports announcer on WBAL radio, erected a dish specially designed so it's partly hidden beneath an umbrella.Hardly a month goes by that you don't see a story about a community up in arms over a resident's placement of a basketball hoop, a dog house or some other seemingly innocuous embellishment.

Sam Darcangelo learned about lacrosse at a young age from her father, national Hall of Famer Jim Darcangelo, a two-time All-American at Towson and a U.S. national team player. She took to the sport quickly and turned into an All-Metro second-team player at Maryvale. A versatile midfielder, Darcangelo had scored 44 goals and added nine assists entering Wednesday for the No. 5 Lions this spring. She also plays for the ROME lacrosse club and for the Lions' field hockey team. She has signed to play at Florida next season.

In the middle of a soggy Washington spectacle, there stood Kurt Schmoke, steady legal hand and umbrella-holder. The former Baltimore mayor and current Howard University Law School dean is part of the legal team representing Roland Burris, the man who claims to be Illinois' junior senator but has so far failed to convince the secretary of the Senate, who rejected his credentials yesterday. Having not been seated, Burris opted to stand - in front of reporters, outside the Capitol, in the rain.

A 40-year-old Columbia woman, armed with an umbrella, defended her 1990 Lexus on Monday evening against a handgun-toting would-be carjacker -- and won.The victim, Mary Taylor Zick of the 9700 block of Polished Stone, was getting into her car in the 9700 block of Patuxent Woods Drive in Columbia about 5: 20 p.m. when she was approached by a man wearing a stocking mask and displaying a revolver.The man demanded her keys, but Zick refused and beat the man with her umbrella. The man retaliated, striking her in the head with the handgun.

A would-be robber brandishing an umbrella at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Parkville was shot four times yesterday by the restaurant's owner, Baltimore County police said.Police said the shooting occurred about 1:30 p.m., minutes after a man walked into the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in the 7300 block of McLean Boulevard and demanded money from a cashier.The man was threatening employees with what appeared to be a sawed-off rifle or shotgun that was covered with a towel, police said.

Anne Arundel County officials explained plans yesterday to build a $5 million umbrella over the tons of trash buried at the county's Sudley Landfill and shut off the flow of pollutants into the ground water below.The umbrella -- which will be made of 24-foot-wide, 60 millimeter-thick polythylene sheets -- is necessary to stop rain from washing through the garbage and carrying pollutants into the ground water, said John Zohlen, deputy director of the county Department of Public Works.Mr. Zohlen and other officials described for neighbors of the landfill, which already is closed to commercial haulers and is to shut down completely by Oct. 1, how the umbrella, or cap, is to be constructed.

As president of Polan Katz & Co., once one of the nation's largest manufacturers of umbrellas, Lawrence R. Katz cheerfully looked forward to rainy days.Mr. Katz, whose company once produced more than 1.5 million umbrellas a year, died Wednesday of complications from emphysema at his Stevenson residence.He was 87."When we got up in the morning and I'd look out and say, Oh God, it's raining, Larry would perk up and say, 'Oh no, it's a lovely day,' " said his wife of 55 years, the former Nancy Brager.

While Emily Krause, 11, of Ellicott City painted a picture of the Earth at the Columbia Art Center's summer art camp, her biggest problem was getting her artwork to stand still. She, 11-year-old Emma Heck of Kensington and 12-year-old Brie Thompson of Randallstown were trying to decorate different sides of a big green golf umbrella - which had a tendency to tilt and slide - in preparation for the annual Umbrella Exhibition at Columbia International Day. "It's a little challenging getting all the details," Emma said.

Apparently Brazil has enough umbrellas or maybe it just doesn't like outsiders sending pointy items in the mail. The international mail company DHL has sent along a list of items that aren't allowed to be shipped to certain countries. If you send one of the forbidden items, you could find it back on your doorstep. DHL, which delivers to more than 220 countries and territories, says these items are verboten: Mexico - computers, liquids and minerals France - imitation pearls containing lead salts (Mon Dieu, if you're sending a mademoiselle jewelry, make sure it's the real thing!

Rats are brazen neighbors in many a Baltimore neighborhood. A city police officer discovered just how brazen they are when one furry scavenger turned criminal and broke into a squad car. The rodent apparently gnawed on some wires and waited. It chose a less-than-perfect moment to emerge from hiding early Wednesday and climb up the back of a sergeant as his partner drove to a robbery call in South Baltimore. Thinking his colleague was playing a joke by tickling his neck, Sgt. Marc J. Camarote took a swipe with his arm. The angry rodent bit the officer on the palm and thumb of his right hand, according to a police spokesman.

Baltimore County Council member Joseph Bartenfelder's campaign for county executive got a lift Thursday night as members of the Metropolitan Baltimore Council AFL-CIO, representing thousands of workers in more than 184 locals, voted to support and make working for him a "priority" in his race for the Democratic nomination against chief opponent and fellow council member Kevin Kamenetz. Baltimore City State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy also got the nod as she tries to hold off a Democratic primary challenge from former federal prosecutor Gregg Bernstein.

Name: : Davek Traveler Umbrella What it is: : Compact umbrella How it works: : Pretty much like any other collapsible pocket umbrella - until a gust of wind turns it inside out. Then you push a button and the umbrella closes, fixing its inside-out ribs. Pushing the button one more time redeploys the once-again-perfect umbrella. The good: : The mechanism on this sturdy umbrella works, which means no more hunting for a trash can to chuck your latest wind-ruined umbrella. It's attractive and comes in a range of colors.

In the middle of a soggy Washington spectacle, there stood Kurt Schmoke, steady legal hand and umbrella-holder. The former Baltimore mayor and current Howard University Law School dean is part of the legal team representing Roland Burris, the man who claims to be Illinois' junior senator but has so far failed to convince the secretary of the Senate, who rejected his credentials yesterday. Having not been seated, Burris opted to stand - in front of reporters, outside the Capitol, in the rain.

On a hot, humid day, Caron Dale, lead singer of Lox & Vodka, danced in a circle to klezmer music with residents who came to the Columbia Town Center lakefront by the hundreds to celebrate diverse cultures. After the band finished its performance, she noted that "the people who were here were diehards ... exactly the audience we were looking for." She described klezmer as "upbeat" and "happy" dance music typically sung in Yiddish. It was the band's first appearance at the Columbia Association's annual International Day festival.

Even in an increasingly noisy world, you'd figure you could count on your umbrella to just shut up and do the job. A "click," the slide of steel ribs, then "whoomp" -- you'd think that would be all the fanfare necessary to herald the opening of a bumbershoot. Hammacher Schlemmer has another idea. It figures what the world needs is one more inanimate object that can't keep still. Its position is that talking vending machines, chatty ATMs and cars that natter "Your lights are on" are hardly enough.

While Emily Krause, 11, of Ellicott City painted a picture of the Earth at the Columbia Art Center's summer art camp, her biggest problem was getting her artwork to stand still. She, 11-year-old Emma Heck of Kensington and 12-year-old Brie Thompson of Randallstown were trying to decorate different sides of a big green golf umbrella - which had a tendency to tilt and slide - in preparation for the annual Umbrella Exhibition at Columbia International Day. "It's a little challenging getting all the details," Emma said.

It was to be the first baseball game that I had photographed in several years, and I was looking forward to shooting the Kansas City Royals game until wind-driven rain swept in to dampen my spirits and much of the East Coast earlier this month. The game was rained out, so my baseball mission was suddenly replaced with a need to get what we call "weather art" - an all-inclusive term, covering the sunniest to the dreariest of days. The images can be most interesting in bad weather. But wind-blown rain has a way of getting onto the lenses and into the electronics of our cameras, and darker skies give us less latitude for exposure.