Warts

WHENEVER THERE was a plane crash in the 1980s, or an airline bankruptcy or a report on airport chaos, people would often call Alfred E. Kahn in upstate New York and ask, "How do you like deregulation NOW?" More than anybody else, economist Kahn was responsible in the late 1970s for dismantling the price and route controls that had made airlines expensive but stable public utilities. With each new gust of post-regulatory turbulence, journalists and policymakers wanted to know whether he had changed his mind.

At least once per day, without fail, my computer, like every computer I have ever owned, has some kind of emotional breakdown. It simply stops working, often when I'm not touching it, and it puts a message on the screen informing me that an error has occurred. It does not say what the error is nor where it occurred. For all I know, it occurred in New Zealand, and my computer found out about it via the Internet, and became so upset that it could not go on. When this happens, I have to turn my computer off and start it up again.

I have heard that duct tape works to get rid of warts. How do you use it, and how long does it take? Research on duct tape was published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine in October. Parents were told to cover their children's warts with a piece of duct tape for six days. If it fell off, they were to replace it. At the end of the six days, they removed the tape, soaked the wart in warm water and then filed it down with an emery board. The duct tape was replaced the next day, and the process was repeated for two months or until the wart disappeared.

Scientists have discovered the workings of a virus that causes genital warts, and largely because of these discoveries the virus has emerged as the primary suspect in nearly all cervical cancer.Researchers say they have found after several years of study that thevirus invades healthy cells, chemically manipulates them into dividing and then steals the substances the cells make in division to make copies of itself.Most of the time, researchers have learned, the virus merely steals enough of the substances, proteins and enzymes to make a few copies of itself.

If your capacity for disillusionment is infinite, be informed -- and saddened -- that Walt Disney was not a happy-go-lucky, selfless, whimsical, contented soul.The May Los Angeles magazine contains an excerpt from "Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince," Marc Eliot's new biography. This excerpt opens by asserting that Disney and older brother Roy were victims of brutal physical punishments at the hands of their father.In quick fashion, it then informs us that Disney liked to secretly wear his mother's clothes and makeup, and that he was furious to learn that Roy was getting married, seeing it as an act of betrayal.

Teachers of American history often are the most memorable and the least memorable of any student's middle school and high school years.The good ones make an impression that lasts decades. Instead PTC of sticking to middle-of-the-road textbooks, they encourage students to explore detours. Instead of asking for definitions of manifest destiny and reconstruction, they expect students to form an opinion about those subjects.The forgettable teachers go by the book, asking students to spit back dates and names and events.

The recently issued annual report of the Maryland Stadium Authority is a laudatory document, peppered with newspaper quotations praising the design of the Camden Yards stadium. And rightfully so: Baltimore's old-fashioned ballpark is without question the best building under construction in the city atpresent, and a national model for a new, more sensitive approach to stadium design in urban areas.But even as they were releasing their report, representatives of the stadium authority have been considering a plan that could result in the first real blemish on the stadium since construction began in 1989.

The Baltimore Zoo plans to put on a new face this weekend, wart hogs and all. Tomorrow, zoo officials are slated to unveil a new wart hog exhibit for the first time in nearly 50 years. Brother wart hogs Frasier and Niles will make themselves at home under the trees and in the dry riverbed near the antelopes and gazelles. Far from their natural home south of the Sahara Desert, they'll be on display with a white baby camel named Lucky, born at the zoo May 2. Since the wart hogs arrived last month, horticulture and maintenance workers have been building a lush 1-acre habitat to resemble an African jungle.

Not all pitching news came as a downer yesterday. Mike Mussina threw from a bullpen mound for about 10 minutes yesterday and reported no further irritation of the wart on the right index finger that landed him on the disabled list April 17.Mussina threw only fastballs and changeups, staying away from the breaking pitches that caused a recurring wart on the finger to split and bleed during his April 16 start against the Chicago White Sox. The injury necessitated...

He chooses ties with whimsical medical symbols, hoping that the colorful tongue depressors, surgical scissors and pills will make a patient smile. In a recent meeting with Carroll County officials, he offered "back adjustments." His most recent public health assignment involved inspection of a befouled community pond to determine its suitability for human visitors. Dr. Murray R. Berkowitz, 52, said his four-month stint at the Carroll County Health Department "is involving me in everything.