Unplugged

Dr. Rick D'Alli is always amused when parents come to the Children's Center at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine convinced that their child's habit of staying up until 2 a.m. is a sign of manic depression and beg him to prescribe medicine.The child psychiatrist usually recommends something else first: remove the television in the child's bedroom.He was delighted this week when the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended the very same thing, citing known ill effects of television: It interferes with normal social and mental development and may be a cause of the growing problem of childhood obesity, poor school performance and violence by younger and younger kids.

It's one of the oldest, subtlest, even sexiest of instruments. It has endured periods of public disinterest and has maintained its dignity while an electric version of it has hogged the spotlight. And, unlike that plugged-in model, no one ever cavorts crazily all over a stage while playing it, or smashes it after a performance. It's the classical guitar. And it's quite a survivor. "Some of the first truly great composers wrote for it," says Ray Chester, coordinator of the guitar department at Peabody Conservatory.

Lynn Shepard is ready to force her six children - ranging in age from 1 to 15 - into labor just to pay for the amount of electricity they waste every day. It's a joke, but lately, the office manager says, she and her husband have become tyrants about saving energy. They constantly chase after the kids in their five-bedroom home in Aberdeen with an assortment of pleas that sound like a skipping CD player: Please turn the lights off in empty rooms. Don't leave the video game running if no one's using it. Please shut the TV off if no one's watching.

For the last dozen years or so, Neil Young albums have come in basically two versions. The most common is Electric Young, the sound that powered the likes of "Ragged Glory," "Mirror Ball" and "Sleeps with Angels." Although its raging guitars and sledgehammer drumming suggest the sonic fury of hard rock, Young's wan voice and mournful melodies keep things from ever seeming too heavy or aggressive. Then there's Acoustic Young. This is a sound that was first introduced with "Harvest" in 1972, and which Young revives about every seven years.

The death of the Constellation merger and the savings it was supposed to provide will cost Baltimore Gas and Electric customers - but not much. A Sun analysis shows that average consumers, already facing a 72 percent increase in rates, will lose monthly credits to their electricity bills of at least $1.62 and as much as $4.54. The savings, which were set to begin in January and vary by electricity use, would have come over 10 years from a total of $600 million in rate relief that Constellation says it tied to the merger with FPL Group Inc. But the state legislature says all but $214 million of those credits are not merger related and still must be applied to BGE bills.

Some paint it black and others use a rainbow of colors. Some are originals and others do covers of the classics.When rock stars put down a guitar and pick up a paintbrush, they're not just rock stars anymore. They're rock stars with a paintbrush."Image Makers Rock 'N' Roll Art Expo" is a collection of original artwork by musicians including John Lennon, Jerry Garcia and Bob Dylan. The exhibit is at White Marsh Mall through Sunday, after shows in more than 50 Canadian and U.S. cities since it started touring with curator Colm Rowan in 1989.

When Melvin Cureton's kidneys failed 10 months ago, he started on dialysis, visiting a Baltimore clinic three times a week for several hours at a stretch. But the procedure didn't fit with his schedule; Cureton, a truck driver, spends his days driving between Florida and Massachusetts. So Cureton's doctor, Johns Hopkins kidney specialist Bernard Jaar, suggested he try an alternative treatment that he could perform himself - peritoneal dialysis, which allows patients to purify their own blood by injecting a mineral solution into their abdomen.

Randy Johnson has another winter to figure out how to pitch to the Orioles, and another harsh memory to take home with him from Camden Yards.Maybe by next season, Johnson will become to the Orioles what he has been to the rest of the American League. He might be a perennial Cy Young Award candidate and potential Hall of Famer, but he's just a goofy-looking 6-foot-10 guy giving up gopher balls against the Orioles.In eliminating the Seattle Mariners with a 3-1 victory in Game 4 of their American League Division Series, the Orioles continued their long-standing dominance of the usually dominant 34-year-old left-hander.

It was finally time to let go. So Emily Stuart posted an ad on Craig's List: "Overzealous bride registers for too much kitchen [junk] and as a result has a BRAND NEW, never opened Oster Breadmaker for sale to a more ambitious bride who will actually make her family hot, fresh, homemade bread!" Stuart explained that the three-year-old wedding gift just didn't work out the way she'd planned. "I thought I was going to be Martha Stewart every day in my kitchen. But here I am heating up Amy's organic pizzas for dinner," said the Pasadena resident, adding that it was difficult to finally get rid of the appliance.

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra played softly, softer, then fell silent for the soloist, and the rich, velvety notes of a single cello soared from the stage and seemed to hover in the air. Yo-Yo Ma was playing Tchaikovsky's Andante cantabile from the String Quartet No. 1; as the music swelled, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. I very nearly did the same thing. Ma's playing was doing what music does at its most sublime. Like a magic carpet, it was lifting me and presumably, those around me, out of real life and transporting us gently to another place.