Zuckerman

Sara Zuckerman set up junior Erin Shaklee with 5: 42 left in the first half and the latter's county-leading 15th goal of the season stood up as No. 2-ranked Severna Park nipped Annapolis, 1-0, to win the Class 4A East region championship.Julie Shank, Erin Hancock and Kelly Adlam anchored the Falcons defense, which limited the Panthers to one shot."It was a tough game," said Zuckerman, who leads the county in assists (11). "Our skills weren't clean, but our attitude was great, and we played the whole game."

Exit Ghost By Philip Roth Houghton Mifflin / 294 pages / $26 The process of dying is long, lonely and arduous, which goes a long way toward explaining why we don't like to discuss it much in literary fiction. The failure of the body - incontinence, impotence, jagged scars and missing hair - it's grim stuff, nightmare material. There's the dramatic dying, of course - the opening pages of Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead certainly exploit the harrowing nature of sudden, youthful death.

They called her Gidget -- as in girl midget. Like Barbie, the name found its way into our vocabulary. And, in 1959, "Gidget" the movie set off a tsunami of surf-themed films with wide beaches and thin plots. Well, she's back. Berkley Books has reissued "Gidget" the novel, 44 years after it first inspired the movie. And, if you happened to have hit the beach at Malibu on a Monday, you might have run into Gidget herself sizing up the surf. "For a long time I retreated and didn't talk about this," says the real Gidget, Kathy Kohner Zuckerman, an animated 60-year-old part-time restaurant hostess who grew up in Brentwood and now lives in Pacific Palisades, a beach community on the west side of Los Angeles with her husband of 36 years.

Expectant parents who are navigating baby-naming books and Web sites may want to take a closer look at the boys' list. Overall, the birth of a young Justin, Thomas or Scott is more likely than the birth of a girl, although the odds aren't as great as in past years. A recent report compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics found that for the 63rd year in a row, more boys were born in the United States than girls. For every 1,000 girls, there were 1,048 boys born in 2002, the most recent year for which figures were available.

At Ron Jon Surf Shop in Cocoa Beach, Fla., amid the buzz from fans waiting for the "real Gidget" to autograph their books, a girl of about 6 has a question. She faces the honey-haired woman sitting on the stage and asks, "Are you a surfer?" Kathy Kohner Zuckerman stops signing in mid-sentence and peers at the girl through thick-framed glasses. "She asked if I'm a surfer," Zuckerman repeats loudly. Then she smiles at the child and answers, "I am the legend. I was the first girl surfer."

We all know that music initiates intense changes of mood. But how?How did Franz Schubert craft the desolation felt by young Gretchen, who spins out her sad tale of lost love as her spinning wheel turns so incessantly in "Gretchen am Spinnrade"?What is there in Schubert's music that evokes that ever-present sense of running water in his song cycle "Die schone Mullerin" ("The Fair Maid of the Hill"), or the numbing loneliness of the organ grinder who appears in the final song of "Die Winterreise" ("Winter Journey")

At St. John's College, they know from Renaissance men. But even among the classically trained tutors of that venerable institution who spend their lives reading and teaching the likes of Machiavelli, Bocaccio and Shakespeare, Elliott Zuckerman is more of a "uomo universale"- a true "Renaissance man" - than most. Over the years, Annapolitans have come to know Zuckerman as the poet, scholar, musician, pianist and cultural sage whose poetry readings, preconcert talks and lecture-demonstrations on the piano music of Frederic Chopin have helped bring high culture alive for the general public.

The notion that babies exposed to cocaine in the womb are born emotional cripples, sentenced to life in a permanent "biological underclass," is just flat wrong, a leading pediatrician said yesterday."

Expectant parents who are navigating baby-naming books and Web sites may want to take a closer look at the boys' list. Overall, the birth of a young Justin, Thomas or Scott is more likely than the birth of a girl, although the odds aren't as great as in past years. A recent report compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics found that for the 63rd year in a row, more boys were born in the United States than girls. For every 1,000 girls, there were 1,048 boys born in 2002, the most recent year for which figures were available.

AT&T gains foothold in CanadaAmerican Telephone & Telegraph Co. agreed to buy 20 percent of an upstart Canadian long-distance company, intensifying its competition with MCI for north-of-the-border business.Under the agreement announced yesterday, AT&T would provide Unitel Communications Inc. access to its intelligent network software, which provides services such as toll-free 800 numbers and credit card verifications. Unitel also would use AT&T transmission equipment and switches in its Canadian network.

At Ron Jon Surf Shop in Cocoa Beach, Fla., amid the buzz from fans waiting for the "real Gidget" to autograph their books, a girl of about 6 has a question. She faces the honey-haired woman sitting on the stage and asks, "Are you a surfer?" Kathy Kohner Zuckerman stops signing in mid-sentence and peers at the girl through thick-framed glasses. "She asked if I'm a surfer," Zuckerman repeats loudly. Then she smiles at the child and answers, "I am the legend. I was the first girl surfer."

They called her Gidget -- as in girl midget. Like Barbie, the name found its way into our vocabulary. And, in 1959, "Gidget" the movie set off a tsunami of surf-themed films with wide beaches and thin plots. Well, she's back. Berkley Books has reissued "Gidget" the novel, 44 years after it first inspired the movie. And, if you happened to have hit the beach at Malibu on a Monday, you might have run into Gidget herself sizing up the surf. "For a long time I retreated and didn't talk about this," says the real Gidget, Kathy Kohner Zuckerman, an animated 60-year-old part-time restaurant hostess who grew up in Brentwood and now lives in Pacific Palisades, a beach community on the west side of Los Angeles with her husband of 36 years.

At St. John's College, they know from Renaissance men. But even among the classically trained tutors of that venerable institution who spend their lives reading and teaching the likes of Machiavelli, Bocaccio and Shakespeare, Elliott Zuckerman is more of a "uomo universale"- a true "Renaissance man" - than most. Over the years, Annapolitans have come to know Zuckerman as the poet, scholar, musician, pianist and cultural sage whose poetry readings, preconcert talks and lecture-demonstrations on the piano music of Frederic Chopin have helped bring high culture alive for the general public.

The St. Paul Cos. Inc. said yesterday that its current round of job cuts will result in the firings of 1,250 employees worldwide, including 200 at the insurer's Mount Washington and Owings Mills offices.The notices went out to employees starting last week, and will be sent throughout this week. The fired workers will generally stay on for 60 days after receiving notice, and receive severance packages and placement assistance.The terminations, which cut across several departments, account for about 9 percent of the Minnesota company's work force.

Player of the YearSara Zuckerman, Severna Park, senior, midfield: The Anne Arundel County Player of the Year completed a stellar three-year career by leading the No. 2-ranked Falcons (18-1) to their second straight Class 4A state championship and their 11th overall. A complete player with dazzling stickwork, Zuckerman was a second-team All-America pick last year and is a two-time first-team All-State pick. A three-year veteran of the U.S. Field Hockey Association's Futures Program, Zuckerman was selected this year to B Camp, just one step below the nation's elite field hockey players.

Sara Zuckerman set up junior Erin Shaklee with 5: 42 left in the first half and the latter's county-leading 15th goal of the season stood up as No. 2-ranked Severna Park nipped Annapolis, 1-0, to win the Class 4A East region championship.Julie Shank, Erin Hancock and Kelly Adlam anchored the Falcons defense, which limited the Panthers to one shot."It was a tough game," said Zuckerman, who leads the county in assists (11). "Our skills weren't clean, but our attitude was great, and we played the whole game."

The St. Paul Cos. Inc. said yesterday that its current round of job cuts will result in the firings of 1,250 employees worldwide, including 200 at the insurer's Mount Washington and Owings Mills offices.The notices went out to employees starting last week, and will be sent throughout this week. The fired workers will generally stay on for 60 days after receiving notice, and receive severance packages and placement assistance.The terminations, which cut across several departments, account for about 9 percent of the Minnesota company's work force.

"Making History," by Stephen Fry. Random House. 382 pages. $23.No one who has read "The Liar," Stephen Fry's 1991 novel, would accuse Fry of being a sloppy stylist. The book is one long word game, exhausting if somewhat hollow."Making History," Fry's new novel, has all the strengths of this earlier work, with a significant addition: substance. Without sacrificing his lightness of touch, Fry takes on weighty issues - guilt, destiny and the problem of evil. He even rewards the reader with something truly unexpected: a sweet, romantic ending.

"I Married a Communist," by Philip Roth. Houghton Mifflin. 336 pages. $26.Philip Roth's stature in American letters is so great, and one is reminded of it so often (a new publication every 18 months, on average, for the last 30-something years, for a total of 23 books) and so insistently (two National Book Awards, two National Book Critics Circle Awards) that it begins to seem almost un-American not to read him.Roth's primary narrator in "I Married a Communist" is again his alter-ego Nathan Zuckerman, in his 60s and living alone in a small house in the woods when he encounters his beloved and inspirational high school English teacher Murray Ringold, now 90 years old.Murray unfolds (over six nights on the back porch of Zuckerman's cabin)

After every season, Severna Park field hockey coach Lil Shelton hands out individual awards that best describe that particular player. Following the Falcons' Class 4A state title -- a state record 10th -- last fall, it was only fitting midfielder Sara Zuckerman walked off with the Spark Plug Award. "She's just that, our spark plug. She keeps us going. Without a spark plug, you don't have an engine," said Shelton. The top-ranked Falcons have it revved up once again this season, having outscored opponents 21-0 in a 3-0 start.