Unthinkable

Three minutes at Oriole Park at Camden Yards Monday night remains a blur, "a fuzz," to Columbia resident Donna M. $l Greenwald, who attracted 45,990 pairs of eyes -- and ears.After doing the unthinkable -- drinking a soft drink before singing -- and battling a case of strep throat, Mrs. Greenwald belted out the national anthem a cappella before the masses at the new ballpark. The Orioles defeated the Chicago White Sox 4-3, in 14 innings.Six months ago, she sent the Orioles public affairs department an audition audio cassette.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Make no mistake, John Oates has a double standard when it comes to handling his pitching staff.And he isn't hesitant to admit it."This is not a knock at our young pitchers," the Orioles manager said after last night's 2-1 win over the Kansas City Royals, "but if it had been anybody else, [Gregg] Olson would've pitched the ninth inning."Instead, Rick Sutcliffe was allowed to do the unthinkable -- pitch his third complete game in four starts. With one more appearance remaining before the first month of the season is completed, the veteran righthander already has as many complete games as anybody on the staff had in either of the last two years.

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.

The first Japanese-American War ended in 1945. Since then it has been an axiom of international relations that another such war is unthinkable. As happens so often and tragically in history, we are again approaching a point when imagining the unimaginable is necessary.For the past 45 years, U.S. power was so overwhelming that Japan could not possibly challenge American hegemony in the Pacific. More important, war between the United States and Japan was unthinkable because neither nation feared the other as much as each feared the Soviet Union.

CHICAGO -- America's giant insurance companies are abandoning their cherished tradition of paternalism, cutting jobs a scale almost unthinkable a few years ago.The cutbacks come after insurers have failed to improve results through more tentative means like dropping poorly performing insurance lines and brokers who yield the companies no profits.Several major companies have begun cutting back.USF&G Corp. of Baltimore, with major losses in its real estate and "junk bond" portfolios, said this month that it would reduce its work force by 2,800 people, or 25 percent, in 1991.

GAITHERSBURG -- He tries not to dwell on it. But sometimes Ken McDowell finds himself thinking the unthinkable -- where would he live, what would he do, how would he manage if his wife, Navy nurse Lt. Denise McDowell, didn't come back from the Persian Gulf?And while every bomb blast that he heard Wednesday night, sitting on the edge of his bed transfixed by the television and the chilling sounds of war, made him a little more fearful, it also made him a little relieved."I'm viewing this as the beginning of the end of this whole nightmare," says Mr. McDowell, a 41-year-old banker whose wife left him and their then-year-old daughter last August to board the USNS Comfort hospital ship.

People are using phones in their cars, commercial airliners, golf carts, their back yards and every room of their homes. They are using them to say "I love you," shop for clothing, summon paramedics, get the latest ball scores, sell insurance and dissuade the suicidal. How many there are is difficult to say. We know there are about 120 million telephone lines in the United States, and about 425 million in the world, but one line can have many extensions, so no one knows for sure how many phones there are right now.But at a time when many Americans say they don't have enough time to devote to their careers and children, they are spending more time on the telephone -- about 25 percent more time as in 1980, according to the Federal Communications Commission.

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.