Wings

Editor's note: An ancient Greek myth receives an urban update. "Look at that strange boy!" Everyone from the neighborhood is pointing fingers and watching the sky. "How's he doing that?" They stretch their necks and shake their heads. Ikarus Jackson, a new boy on my block, is flying about the rooftops. He is swooping and diving, looping past people's windows and over the crowd. I don't think he's strange. Ikarus Jackson, the fly boy, came to my school last Thursday. His long, strong, proud wings followed wherever he went.

Editor's note: Each week, InsideMdSports.com provides this blog with a Maryland recruiting feature that previously appeared as premium content on its site. Following his reclassification last year, Norristown (Pa.) Westtown School wing Jared Nickens has seen his recruitment take off, and is in the narrowing stages of deciding where he will play his college ball. Nickens, who scored 13 points during the underclassmen game at the Mary Kline Classic earlier this month, provided some insight into taking the extra year.

If Josh Hawkins were to pull up his shirt, you might notice a pair of wings tattooed on his upper body. It's a fitting mark for the junior short-stick defensive midfielder who may be the fastest player for Loyola. An example of that burst of speed was provided when Hawkins scored a goal in the top-seeded Greyhounds' 7-5 victory over No. 4 seed Notre Dame in Saturday's NCAA tournament semifinal at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. The Fighting Irish had scored twice in a span of six seconds to trim a three-goal deficit to just one with 2:04 left in the second quarter, but Hawkins went end-to-end and bounced a shot over junior goalkeeper John Kemp and under the crossbar to give Loyola a 5-3 lead at halftime.

I cannot write this the way I want. Doing so would invade the privacy of too many people. But I can't be silent, either. Last week, you see, President Barack Obama spoke before a conference of mental health advocates at the White House. It is necessary, he said, to remove the stigma of mental illness and make sure "people aren't suffering in silence," that they know they are not alone but are supported by the rest of us as they face this challenge. It would seem a plain vanilla thing to say. But in this endless era of smash-mouth politics, nothing is plain vanilla anymore.

Robo Raven is making aviation history - again. The robotic bird's maiden flights in December were a first in the history of flying machines, but lasted only seconds inside the Reckord Armory at the University of Maryland, College Park. Now the mylar and carbon fiber contraption is back, soaring higher, longer and more accurately - the first machine ever built that flies on wings that can move independently of each other, as real birds' do. "Nobody has flown anything with independent wing control," before, said S.K. Gupta, a professor of mechanical engineering in the A. James Clark School of Engineering at College Park.

The Baltimore Thunder will open its preseason schedule Dec. 7 with a game against the defending Major Indoor Lacrosse League champion Philadelphia Wings at the Hershey Park Arena in Hershey, Pa. For ticket information, call (717) 534-9311.

With the hottest Buffalo wings, it's tough to balance spice and taste. The scent alone should tingle your nose at arm's length, but the sauce can't overpower the chicken's flavor. Here's a roundup of four local restaurants' most fiery wings. All the orders came with celery sticks and blue-cheese dressing, but a couple of restaurants added extra side vegetables. Kisling's Tavern 2100 Fleet St. -- 410-327-5477 Hours --11:30 a.m. to 2 a.m. daily Kisling's hot wings had a slow, rolling burn that set in after two or three drumsticks and took a handful of celery to cool down.

REMEMBER when Tip O'Neill said that "all politics is local"? Today, the Republicans have built their majority on the opposite idea: that politics should be national.2 James P. Pinkerton is a columnist for Newsday.

Peter Kirk confirmed last night that if all attempts fail to get a new stadium for the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings, he "would love to be the one to try to buy the franchise."The chairman of Maryland Baseball Limited Partnership, Inc., which owns the Bowie Baysox and Frederick Keys, Kirk said he is working with Red Wings officials to try to keep the team in western New York."I'm very close to the people up there and have offered any assistance we can give to help them get a new ballpark," he said.

WICHITA, Kan. -- Spirit goalkeeper Joe Mallia and a hustling defense shut down Paul Wright and sparked a 13-7 win over the Wichita Wings last night.And it wasn't as close as the score might indicate. A three-pointer by John Garvey closed the scoring, and it came with just 1:43 to play.Mallia set the tone early with some spectacular saves and an inspired defense took it from there in the first meeting between the teams this season.The Wings went to a sixth attacker with eight minutes left, but for long periods of time could not get the ball inside the yellow line.

Robo Raven is making aviation history - again. The robotic bird's maiden flights in December were a first in the history of flying machines, but lasted only seconds inside the Reckord Armory at the University of Maryland, College Park. Now the mylar and carbon fiber contraption is back, soaring higher, longer and more accurately - the first machine ever built that flies on wings that can move independently of each other, as real birds' do. "Nobody has flown anything with independent wing control," before, said S.K. Gupta, a professor of mechanical engineering in the A. James Clark School of Engineering at College Park.

Running Holt victorious in Half Marathon in Columbia Bridget Holt , 34, of Gambrills won the second annual Athleta Iron Girl Columbia Half Marathon in Columbia in 1 hour, 21 minutes, 22 seconds. Tyler Brannen , 41, of New Hampshire took the 5K in 19:43. More than 2,000 runners competed in the event, which raised more than $25,000 for the Claudia Mayer Cancer Resource Center at Howard County General Hospital. Nike Women Half Marathon: Samia Akbar , a Washington-area native and resident and 2003 All-American at American, won the Washington race in 1:19:32.

"If history were to repeat itself," warned President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his 1944 State of the Union address, "and we were to return to the so-called normalcy of the 1920s, then it is certain that even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of fascism here at home. " The "normalcy" of the 1920s that Roosevelt referred to was a time of peace and prosperity. The decade began with Republican President Warren Harding commuting the sentences of political prisoners jailed by the Wilson administration, including the socialist leader Eugene Debs.

Forward John Grant Jr. finished with three goals and two assists as the visiting Colorado Mammoth defeated the Minnesota Swarm, 16-14, on Saturday night before a season-high announced 12,243 at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn. The Mammoth (7-9), which led 8-7 at the half, clinched a National Lacrosse League playoff berth earlier in the evening when the Rochester Knighthawks defeated the Bandits in Buffalo. As the No. 4 seed, Colorado will visit the top-seeded Calgary Roughnecks in a semifinal next Saturday at Scotiabank Saddledome.

National Lacrosse League Westervelt helps Wings beat Swarm to end skid Drew Westervelt (UMBC, John Carroll) tied for the game high with four goals and four assists as the host Philadelphia Wings rallied past the Minnesota Swarm, 15-13, before an announced 6,861 at Wells Fargo Center on Sunday afternoon. Paul Rabil (Johns Hopkins) added two goals and three assists for the Wings (6-8), who ended a five-game losing streak. Brendan Mundorf (UMBC, Mount St. Joseph)

There's a meme going around the Internet that compares “Game of Thrones” with “The Walking Dead.” The zombie show, the meme says, makes you hate its characters before killing them. “Thrones,” however, makes you like them. And that is, I think, objectively true. Even this show's vilest characters (the Lannisters, for instance) all have redeeming qualities. After spending enough time with them, you being to surprise yourself by gravitating toward characters you once reviled.

The Thunder has almost three weeks to stew over its latest defeat.After Saturday night's 23-9 mauling by the Philadelphia Wings before 11,408 at the Baltimore Arena, the Thunder is idle until Feb. 20, when it will entertain the Buffalo Bandits.The Bandits lead the Major Indoor Lacrosse League's National Division, and the Thunder is last in the American with four straight losses since its opening victory."Buffalo is every bit as good as Philadelphia," Thunder coach John Stewart said. "They throw 16 quality players at you, a lot of them Canadians with long experience in the indoor game."

Broken Wings is a skillful Israeli family drama about a mother and four children at the start of a new school year, trying to repair themselves nine months after the death of the husband and father who was and still is at their household's center. The movie has a primal mother-daughter hook that never loses its point. Orli Zilberschatz-Banai is a midwife too depressed and overworked to mind her own offspring and Maya Maron is the 17-year-old daughter and would-be rock singer who for most of a year has brought up the youngest children (Daniel and Eliana Magon)

For about 20 years, I have been teaching a course at Towson University called "Media Criticism," which deals largely with alleged ideological media bias. The claims of liberal bias in the mainstream media go back at least as far as Barry Goldwater's campaign for the presidential nomination in 1964. Perceiving repeated negative interpretations contained in "news reports" on his candidacy, he pleaded with major newspapers to put at least one reporter on his campaign who would just report what he said.

A juvenile Cooper's hawk with a broken wing was running along the fences backing to Windstream Drive on March 5. I made several unsuccessful attempts to rescue the youngster with the help of some neighbors I had never met and a close friend. It was very cold and getting dark but I was determined to save this beautiful bird from certain death. In desperation I hesitantly called 911, fearful of being accused of (and possibly fined for) inappropriately calling. I was surprised and elated when the woman who answered kindly offered to call Animal Control directly since they were closed.