Xtc

NONSUCHXTC (Geffen 24474)Taken purely as a matter of craft, the songs on XTC's "Nonsuch" seem wonderfully ingenious, with clever, catchy choruses, artful arrangements and inventive, interlocking counter-melodies. Trouble is, ingenuity for its own sake isn't all that interesting, and the lads in XTC seem incapable of coming up with an alternative. Thus, the album alternates between hollow-but-pretty constructions like "Then She Appeared" or "My Bird Performs," and boorishly obvious message songs like "The Smartest Monkeys" or "War Dance," with little middle ground beyond the pointed and tuneful "Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead."

Ian Michael Wieprecht, who weighed just a bit more than a 12-ounce can of soda when he was born prematurely four months ago, is going home from the hospital today. He now weighs just under 4 pounds.Exactly four months ago yesterday, doctors delivered the grim news to Taneytown City Councilman James A. Wieprecht.The baby probably won't survive, they said, and your wife might not either.The joy of the couple's first baby -- a miracle in itself after two years of costly and emotionally taxing fertility treatments -- had turned into a nightmare.

XTC

With the holidays approaching, retailers are preparing for an onrush of shoppers -- and thieves.In Howard County, land of super stores and village center shopping malls, police and retailers are discussing ways to thwart shoplifters, robbers and burglars who cost Maryland businesses $375 million a year."

The building reflected in the windows of the Convention Center addition in Friday's Today section was misidentified. The building shown is Camden Station.The Sun regrets the errors.XTC Pub Date: 9/08/96

FireTaneytown: Firefighters from Harney and Union Bridge assisted Taneytown at 1: 57 p.m. Tuesday, responding to a chimney fire in the first block of W. Baltimore St. Units were out xTC 11 minutes.Pub Date: 12/27/96

FireLineboro: Firefighters responded at 5: 56 a.m. Monday to a xTC carbon monoxide alarm in the 4100 block of York Road. Units were out 45 minutes.Lineboro: Firefighters assisted York County, Pa., responding at 8: 07 a.m. Monday to a house fire on Fox Chase Drive. Units were out 10 minutes.Pub Date: 12/24/97

Norman J. Rondeau: An obituary for Norman J. Rondeau, a retired Baltimore police officer, in yesterday's editions of The xTC Sun, omitted the names of several survivors.He also is survived by his wife, the former Barbara Phillips of Elkridge; his mother, Loretta Dolbec; and a sister, Doris Rondeau, both of Fall River, Mass.The Sun regrets the error.

In nostalgia for the great age of American smokestack industry, nothing beats a railroad strike.Old Ross Perot had it easy. He is about to find out what hardball is.A war between Russia and Moldova the world can do without.XTC No matter what the Supreme Court says, it is against the law to burn a cross in your neighbor's yard. Or anything in your neighbor's yard. In your own yard, maybe it's OK, so go intimidate yourself.

Please send old photos of farmers at work, within the next week, to Way Back When, Sun Magazine, 501 N. Calvert St., Baltimore, Md. 21278. You must include caption information and your daytime phone number. Also, enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope if you'd like your photo returned. If your xTC photo is your only copy, please send a good-quality duplicate, not the original.

Harford County's C. Milton Wright could vie with Montgomery County's Class 4A football power Sherwood. In Class 3A, Randallstown and Annapolis could challenge Seneca Valley. And Hereford, City and Baltimore's Dunbar could compete for Class 2A titles.These are the possibilities if reclassification proposals at yesterday's state association meeting are upheld at the Board of Control session in early December.Based on the enrollment of ninth-through-11th graders at each of the state association's members, schools were reclassified for all sports competition during the 1999-2000 school year.

In a move intended to spur local telephone competition in Maryland, the Public Service Commission has ordered Bell Atlantic Corp. to give its rivals easier access to the company's local telephone network.Long-distance companies such as AT&T Corp. and MCI WorldCom Inc. are among the firms trying to enter the local market that Bell Atlantic dominates. However, it would be prohibitively expensive for any company to duplicate an entrenched local phone network such as Bell Atlantic's.Therefore, would-be rivals of Bell Atlantic generally have to buy access to Bell Atlantic's network in order to provide local service.

MOSCOW -- Wynton Marsalis was here to play his trumpet and talk about jazz yesterday, but let's just take that as a starting point because there's always a wider sense of things -- particularly in a country like Russia that lives by suggestion and improvisation."

WHAT HAS happened to four families evacuated from new houses saturated with explosive methane gas in Howard County's Elkridge seems unreal. It is not as if methane is a rarity in central Maryland. Older houses have to be inspected for the odorless, colorless, flammable gas before they can be sold.Developers should know before they drive the first nail whether the land on which they are building might have a methane problem.In this case, the builder says it was unaware of illegal dumping that some old-timers contend occurred in a gravel pit on the property.

HORRIFIC, deliberate slaughter of protected migratory birds is challenging the nation's wildlife laws and its ethics of conservation.Recently, an Arkansas subdivision builder leveled a woodlands containing hundreds of egret nests and a Texas town bulldozed a large nesting ground of herons and egrets. Hundreds of legally protected birds were wantonly killed.The most heinous act of destruction occurred on a private island in eastern Lake Ontario, when more than 900 cormorants were systematically exterminated by a shotgun killer.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- At the time, it made little sense: Why would the Ravens trade for Jim Harbaugh, relegating Eric Zeier to the bench, and then sign Zeier to a two-year contract worth $2.6 million?Why would they spend precious salary cap money on a guy they had just layered over?Well, now we know why. Zeier played in the Ravens' season opener against the Steelers last week, and he might play again today against the Jets at the Meadowlands, depending on Harbaugh's sore elbow and injured finger.

United Airlines to lay off 2,800United Airlines said yesterday that it would lay off 2,800 employees, cut executive salaries by 5 percent and seek union concessions in the latest round of cutbacks in the money-losing airline industry.United also announced a hiring freeze and said it would reduce its schedule of domestic flights and cancel plans for some new XTC international routes.@

"Louisville," by Baltimore filmmakers Joy Lusco and Scott Kecken, will have its world premiere at the Charles Theatre on Saturday. The short film features Andre Braugher as a man who comes to understand his difficult father (Mets Suber) through his xTC own young son (Brandon Troy McMickens).The premiere will take place Saturday at noon at the Charles, 1711 N. Charles St. Tickets at the door will be $12. Tickets can be purchased in advance for $10 at Abbey Camera, 320 N. Charles St., or call 800-931-3083.

More than four months after Baltimore County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger vowed to strengthen the county's historic preservation laws, the rules on historic structures remain as confusing as ever, frustrating developers and preservationists alike.Despite a $25,000 state grant and $100,000 in local money, the county is no closer to compiling a list of historic properties, as ordered by Ruppersberger.And a new review policy aimed at saving historic buildings has preservationists complaining about their continued destruction and builders chafing at increased paperwork and delays.

THE PRODUCTIVITY of U.S. workers -- or output per worker hour -- shrank for the first time in more than three years during the second quarter, prompting a sharp pickup in labor costs. The 0.2 percent decline in this closely watched indicator of the economy's health surprised analysts, who had been expecting a 0.5 percent increase, and pushed unit-labor costs up 4.1 percent, the strongest rise since the first quarter of 1994.Why is productivity so important?What's behind this unexpected drop?