Unthinkable

A FEW YEARS AGO, the West would have panicked at the prospect of nine Communists among 20 ministers in Italy's government.So much has the world changed that Italy's new leader, Romano Prodi, has included representatives of the Democratic Party of the Left -- the old Communist Party under a new name -- in his Cabinet without evoking alarums among his allies.He has put meritocrats like himself in key positions. He has brought the hero of the war against corruption, former magistrate Antonio Di Pietro, into the cabinet in hopes of restoring credibility to public works.

For about 18 months, I have been exercising regularly -- walking fast, variously called "aerobic walking" or "speed walking." When I started I could barely manage 1.25 miles at 14.5 minutes per mile; I did this about four times a week. Today I average five miles at 11.25 minutes, six or seven times a week. The latter numbers reflect a breakthrough that occurred during a recent vacation in the French Alps; examining its origins provides lessons for managers.I arrived in France determined not to let my walking habit slip; but I was panicky because our rented house was up about 5,500 feet.

TOKYO -- When environmentalists in southern Japan started worrying that the chemical runoff from a proposed golf course would pollute an unspoiled island, they asked local officials for a copy of the environmental impact report on the envisioned development -- and were told that it was none of their business."

For Rubin Sztajer, "forgiveness" and "Holocaust" don't belong in the same sentence.In fact, the question of forgiveness for the people who imprisoned him hasn't entered the 66-year-old concentration camp survivor's mind in the nearly 50 years since his liberation from Bergen-Belsen."

FROM MICHELANGELO to Mapplethorpe, artists have been accused of taking nudity too far. But an art show opening today in Columbia has generated a debate about underexposure.At the center of the controversy is a multi-media exhibition in the Columbia Mall that has upset some local artists and art experts because of a ban of the nude human form.There is nothing shocking about the First Annual Visual Arts Competition of the Columbia Festival of the Arts -- except, perhaps, the idea of what was excluded.

Residents of Carroll County's most densely populated area besieged officials last night with questions, comments and criticisms on the latest growth plan proposed for Eldersburg and Sykesville.About 400 people attended the hearing at Liberty High School, many bringing neighborhood petitions opposing the plan.Ted Cusick collected 425 signatures from his neighbors in the Linton Springs area protesting a proposed development that would add about 250 homes.Many offered statistics on roads, schools and public utilities, burdened by the nearly 30,000 residents -- more than double the number since the last growth plan was written 22 years ago for the county's southern end, known as the Freedom area.

NEW YORK - The New York Police Department, working with city health officials, federal authorities and other agencies, has been preparing for a possible attack with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, perhaps the most daunting threat facing municipalities in a post-9/11 world. Meeting in secret and conducting complex drills, the department has brought together government agencies in a broad effort for much of the past year. In doing so, it has put together a program that national security and law enforcement officials describe as unrivaled among American cities.

IF YOU ARE fortunate to have a comfortable, if not lavish, life, it is easy to become encased in a cocoon, even in this age of information. You read bad news in the papers or watch it on TV -- the street killings, the drug culture, family abuse -- and feel like a voyeur looking in on values foreign to yours. You feel no more connection to the torrent of crime news than you do to the freakish relationships laid bare on Geraldo and Sally Jessy.Then, you read an account like the one last week by Sun staff writer Alan Craver about John and Johanna Gladden, the Columbia couple whose teen-age daughter was murdered by her adult boyfriend, and you are, for a moment, breathless.

DAMASCUS, Syria -- A peace agreement with Israel is seen by Syrians as a question of "when," not "if," despite the sniping rhetoric between the two countries.Conversations with diplomats, academics and random Syrians in two cities indicate that a pact between the mutually suspicious nations is widely seen as a certainty here. The only unresolved matter is how soon."Everyone is preoccupied with a timetable," said one diplomat. "Will it be before the end of the year? Everybody's guessing."Reviled IsraelSuch public sentiment is extraordinary in a state that has reviled Israel for 45 years and among a people whose paranoia about Jews and Israeli expansionism cannot be overestimated.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Here in the heart of tobacco country, where farmers have nurtured fields of rich burley leaf since the 1700s, Lexington has done the unthinkable: Banned smoking. Karl Evans sat on a stool at Nicholson's Cigar Bar and stared at the clock, grimacing as the minute hand ticked toward 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. Teeth clamped down on a Marlboro cigarette, he took a deep, determined draw. In just under an hour, he would have to stub it out or be in violation of a new local ordinance banning smoking.