Wales

Traveling to New York could be ho-hum for Duke Goldberg and his wife, Marlene, who jet around the world for his business, International Eyewear Inc. But that was hardly the case when the Baltimore couple went to the Big Apple to attend a luncheon at the Union Club with their 14-year-old daughter Shawn, who was asked to be the Down Syndrome representative.Shawn, an eighth grader at Old Court Middle School, presented the National Down Syndrome Society Professional Women's Humanitarian Award to Eunice Kennedy Shriver for her achievements in the field of mental health, as founder of Special Olympics and executive vice president of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation.

CARDIFF, Wales -- In a smoke-filled hotel ballroom, jammed with union activists, British socialism is alive and well. Arthur Scargill, president of the National Union of Mineworkers, is preaching the old-time gospel.Industry? Nationalize it. Workers? Employ them all."We are committed to the overthrow of the capitalist view of society," Mr. Scargill says, bringing the crowd to its feet.Mr. Scargill is bounding around Britain trying to ignite support for his new political vehicle, the Socialist Labor Party, an organization that is far-left and, some would say, far-out.

CRICCIETH, Wales -- Could you imagine a better traveling companion than Jan Morris, author, historian and trailblazer? She has been to Mount Everest and Venice, Oxford and Hong Kong. She has charted the British Empire's rise and fall and written evocatively on Manhattan in 1945. Now, Morris fixes her gaze and intellect on a hard-scrabble slice of America, from Kentucky's backwoods to Washington's steamy streets, from the Illinois prairie to a Gettysburg graveyard. She's in the land of Abraham Lincoln, trying to come to terms with a president -- and his myth -- that she often associated with the sickly sweet grape jelly she encountered during a mid-century American journey.

The BBC National Orchestra of Wales and its music director, Tadaaki Otaka, played at the Meyerhoff Tuesday night in the first of two concerts by visiting orchestras while the Baltimore Symphony is on its East Asia tour. Although this orchestra is no match for the BSO, it is a fine ensemble and it was a shame the hall was barely half-filled.The opening number was Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture," which was given a routine reading. There was was none of the passion or longing that can be brought to the music when one plays more than just notes.

Feast or famine seems to be the message being sent by Wal-Mart to Howard countians.Not only is the nation's most successful retailer continuing its fight over land on which it wants to build in Howard, it is also eyeing property just over the county line on U.S. 40 in Catonsville. The two locations are six miles apart.More than likely this is a case of the aggressive discounter from Arkansas hedging its bet by creating two options in general proximity to one another. That's simple, good business sense.

Have you ever shopped for cars and heard this pitch: "Oh, and this one's got a water bed"?You must have been in the wrong showroom, because at the Howard County Fairgrounds, at yesterday's auction of exotic cars and limousines, you could buy the ultimate vehicle for your driving -- or partying -- pleasure.This 1991 Lincoln stretch limousine -- make that streeeeetch -- features a wrap-around leather couch, two TV sets, a CD player, a tape player, a karaoke machine, a VCR, four champagne sinks, a couple of dozen champagne glasses, a moon (not sun)

MIAMI -- As the final seconds ticked off the clock, Miami players Ray Lewis, Dwayne Johnson and A. C. Tellison buried their faces in their hands while sitting on the bench. Then they joined hands and cried."This is a sick, sick feeling, and unless you've been a part of this, you don't have any idea of how it feels," said Lewis, a senior linebacker. "Through eight or nine years, through a lot of graduating classes, we have won a lot of games in this stadium. And to have this happen, and get kicked around like we did, well . . ."

Remember the first time you saw a picture of her, the blue eyes dancing downward, a shy smile on her youthful face. It was all a fairy tale back then, the story of a girl marrying her prince, and the next chapter was to be that they lived happily ever after.The reality was different, of course. The marriage was troubled, and then it ended. Her fame soared and then became a nearly unsupportable burden, creating expectations that probably no one could have met.But people still believed in the fairy tale and saw something desperately alluring in this brittle, beautiful woman.

Kwame Kwei-Armah is turning up the floodlights on Center Stage . It's been not quite two years since the British-born playwright became artistic director of Maryland's largest regional theater. With his production of two button-pushing dramas nicknamed "The Raisin Cycle," the beams emanating from 700 N. Calvert St. are strong enough to be spotted in distant places, from the Big Apple to the Badger State. Articles about the cycle, in which both plays run in repertoire and have the same casts, have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Very few rappers get second chances, but Wale did when he signed with Rick Ross' Maybach Music Group earlier this year. "Ambition" - the D.C. rapper's sophomore album released last Tuesday - proves, at least from a numbers perspective, Wale deserved another shot at stardom. "Ambition" will debut on the Billboard 200 at No. 2 after selling 164,000 copies in its first week. Justin Bieber's Christmas album, the icky-titled "Under the Mistletoe," will be the only record above Wale's, with 210,000 copies sold.