Unspeakable

Get Folked" reads the billboard for Showtime's Queer as Folk. "I'm so effing hungry," sighs the busy job hunter on NBC's Starting Over. "Imagine," says the movie poster for 50 First Dates, "having to win over the girl of your dreams ... every friggin' day." With cable television liberally salting shows with the four-letter word that starts with F and government regulators effectively banning the same word from broadcast airwaves, a new middle ground has opened where euphemistic substitutes for the term flourish.

We should expect a horrific human toll from any exchange of hostilities between Iran and Israel ("Nuclear saber-rattling," Jan. 6). Steps toward avoiding that, such as your editorial call for an intricate U.S.-Tehran agreement, are morally well-intentioned. But it wouldn't disturb our rest if these were Buddhist monks developing nuclear power for Nepal. Why not? Because common sense says their benign intentions are trustworthy and they respect human life. The Tehran mullahs have rebuffed (to say the least)

LITTLETON, Col. -- That first night, after surviving the bloody four-hour siege of her school, Lisa Cosgrove took refuge in the place a frightened child instinctively turns to -- mom's bed.But there was no haven, not that night or perhaps ever."

By all accounts, Lewin C. Powell III had been a model private-school student, an affable fellow with a sterling academic record and a bright future at a prestigious college, the pride of his teachers and relatives. At some point last year, though, something went wrong. He felt pressured and overwhelmed but kept it from everyone, even his best friend. When his mother scolded him about his deteriorating grades at McDonogh School, prosecutors said, he went after her with a baseball bat. On Friday, Powell, who turned 17 last month, was sentenced in Baltimore County Circuit Court to life in prison in the bludgeoning death of Donna Rosemarie Campbell-Powell in the family's Towson home.

Over time, he and his brother,Sole survivors of unspeakable trauma,Replaced closeness, support, laughterWith anger, envy, bitterness.Unforgotten, unforgiven sibling sinsKept them distant, aloneUntil the elder died.His grown sons witnessed as childrenThis relentless brotherly erosion, andNow appear incapable of haltingA pride-driven repetition.

By all accounts, Lewin C. Powell III had been a model private-school student, an affable fellow with a sterling academic record and a bright future at a prestigious college, the pride of his teachers and relatives. At some point last year, though, something went wrong. He felt pressured and overwhelmed but kept it from everyone, even his best friend. When his mother scolded him about his deteriorating grades at McDonogh School, prosecutors said, he went after her with a baseball bat. On Friday, Powell, who turned 17 last month, was sentenced in Baltimore County Circuit Court to life in prison in the bludgeoning death of Donna Rosemarie Campbell-Powell in the family's Towson home.

There's no news that could ever be good news when it comes to the Chris Benoit double murder-suicide. But for those looking for answers as to how someone who was so well-liked and respected by his peers could commit such unspeakable crimes, yesterday's developments might shed some light. Doctors who examined Benoit's brain suggested that repeated concussions could have contributed to the killings. One of the doctors stressed that there is no way to know for sure if the concussions played a role, but the level of brain damage Benoit sustained can cause depression and irrational behavior, he said.

Randall Terry, founder of the anti-abortion organization that blockaded a Wichita, Kan., clinic amid controversy last summer, told a Columbia audience last night the United States America is "engaged in a life-and-death life and death struggle of countercultures." counter-cultures.""We want to define for you the nature of the battle," he said. "And the nature of the battle is this: whose God god and whose God's god's laws will dominate the culture? It's good vs. evil, good guys against bad guys.

It's the unspeakable dog problem, if the calls I get are any indication."My dog eats his own . . . er . . . I mean, I need to know how to keep him from . . . um . . . you know what I mean? It's disgusting!"Dog experts such as trainers, behaviorists and veterinarians don't seem able to speak plainly about this either. They call it "coprophagia."No matter what it's called, the experts agree stool-eating is a common complaint. But it's more than an aesthetic problem: It's a perfect way to transmit parasites and disease.

In Sight Unseen, Donald Margulies' 1991 play about a superstar painter, the artist admits that his paintings deal with "unspeakable things." Many unspeakable things get spoken - hostilities, jealousies, heartbreak - in the course of Margulies' examination of modern art, modern life and modern angst, which is receiving an intense production at Fell's Point Corner Theatre. Director Barry Feinstein stages the play with the eye of an artist. The first image could be called "Still Life with Four Figures."

Jewel Williams witnessed a crime of unspeakable brutality - the murder of her mother. As a 7-year-old, she was the key witness against the man charged with killing her mother, testimony that led to his conviction in 2001. But now, because of an apparent mistake by Baltimore prosecutors back then, Jewel will have to testify again about the night her mother was shot to death. Reliving that moment would be difficult for someone older than this brave 14-year-old, but justice requires her presence in court and a new trial.

There's no news that could ever be good news when it comes to the Chris Benoit double murder-suicide. But for those looking for answers as to how someone who was so well-liked and respected by his peers could commit such unspeakable crimes, yesterday's developments might shed some light. Doctors who examined Benoit's brain suggested that repeated concussions could have contributed to the killings. One of the doctors stressed that there is no way to know for sure if the concussions played a role, but the level of brain damage Benoit sustained can cause depression and irrational behavior, he said.

It is one of those stories, so seemingly senseless and sad that I think it would break my heart a little even if I had never met her. Dacia Dunson, a loved and respected copy editor at The Sun, died at 33 of colon cancer. She was diagnosed with a late stage of the disease one month before her wedding day and she died almost exactly two years later. She will be gone a year this Saturday. It is hard not to think she - and we - were cheated. Like Dacia said herself in one of her very few moments of outward frustration, who gets colon cancer in their 30s anyway?

In Sight Unseen, Donald Margulies' 1991 play about a superstar painter, the artist admits that his paintings deal with "unspeakable things." Many unspeakable things get spoken - hostilities, jealousies, heartbreak - in the course of Margulies' examination of modern art, modern life and modern angst, which is receiving an intense production at Fell's Point Corner Theatre. Director Barry Feinstein stages the play with the eye of an artist. The first image could be called "Still Life with Four Figures."

WASHINGTON - In the space of a few horrific days of storm-induced panic and suffering on the Gulf Coast, George W. Bush has seen his presidency transformed. Instead of watching the confirmation hearings of his first Supreme Court nominee this week, Bush and his administration are focused on daunting new challenges posed by what some are calling the worst natural disaster ever to strike the United States. Bush, who had hoped to make overhaul of Social Security the centerpiece of his second term, will instead be holding meetings on the breathtaking task of rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina, an unprecedented domestic relief effort that even the president has acknowledges has been inadequate.

Get Folked" reads the billboard for Showtime's Queer as Folk. "I'm so effing hungry," sighs the busy job hunter on NBC's Starting Over. "Imagine," says the movie poster for 50 First Dates, "having to win over the girl of your dreams ... every friggin' day." With cable television liberally salting shows with the four-letter word that starts with F and government regulators effectively banning the same word from broadcast airwaves, a new middle ground has opened where euphemistic substitutes for the term flourish.

Give Ole Bornedal credit for having his finger firmly on the pulse of American pop culture. The Danish director could not have chosen a more opportune time to adapt his bloody 1995 thriller "Nightwatch" ("Nattevagten") for young audiences, who seem to be happiest when awash in gore, guts and other Gothic pleasures.Having picked up on the success of such neo-Gothic pictures as "The Silence of the Lambs," "Seven" and "Kiss the Girls," Bornedal has carved out his own niche that, while visually arresting, hasn't enough style, ingenuity or irony to raise it above the pack.

Jewel Williams witnessed a crime of unspeakable brutality - the murder of her mother. As a 7-year-old, she was the key witness against the man charged with killing her mother, testimony that led to his conviction in 2001. But now, because of an apparent mistake by Baltimore prosecutors back then, Jewel will have to testify again about the night her mother was shot to death. Reliving that moment would be difficult for someone older than this brave 14-year-old, but justice requires her presence in court and a new trial.

Hellish, hated, fiendish from birth, sending small children screaming on sight. Evil should have but one loathsome face, and then perhaps we could recognize it, and contain it, and obliterate it. We could warn our children off. We could jail it and bomb it and revile it, because all of us would see it, and know its essence. Evil, however, proves to be clever. It is charming, and sometimes handsome and even eager to please. It loves opera and literature. Small children are happily dandled on its knee.

ON THE MORNING OF June 20, 2001, shortly after her husband, Rusty, left for his job at NASA in Houston, Andrea Yates drew a tub full of water in the guest bathroom and, one by one, held her five children face down in the water until they stopped struggling and drowned. She carefully placed the bodies of John, Paul, Luke and 6-month-old Mary on a bed and covered them with a sheet. The oldest, 7-year-old Noah, was the last to die. He put up a fight, and his body was left floating in the tub. Calmly, Andrea Yates called 911 and asked for a policeman to come to the house.