Biography
A native of Pittsburgh and a graduate of Ohio University, Susan was hired by The Sun in 1979 as one of the first full-time women ...
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Susan Reimer
The seed from which an urban garden grew
May 20, 2013
Elisa Lane is not much bigger than the pigtails she wears when she gardens at the Whitelock Community Farm in Reservoir Hill. But she has a big impact.
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Breast cancer: Angelina Jolie starts the conversation
May 15, 2013
"Mom. Do you have that gene? Do I? Have you been tested? I thought Grandma had breast cancer. Why weren't you ever tested?"
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An Annapolis tradition, grounded
May 13, 2013
My town, Annapolis, is a special kind of college town.
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After bereavement, ready to love again
May 8, 2013
I suspect my children will want to see me throw myself on my husband's funeral pyre, the better to tie up all the loose ends.
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What's novel is not the story, but how it's told
May 6, 2013
When it comes to books, I guess you could call me a voracious listener.
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Two lattes and a cocktail: How to get your 20-something to save
May 1, 2013
For someone in their 20s, retirement is something their parents are talking about.
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Money and sex: It's hard to talk to kids about both
April 29, 2013
It's as hard to talk your 20-somethings about money as it is talk to them about sex. Maybe harder.
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Don't blame boomers for Social Security dilemma
April 22, 2013
We baby boomers get blamed for just about every economic hiccup, because there are so many of us.
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Boston Marathon bombing: Tomorrow, resilience; today, despair
April 16, 2013
It is hard not to give in to despair.
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Bill Clinton still turning on the charm
April 15, 2013
When Bill Clinton took the podium to address the country in January 1993, I was moved to tears. Here, then, was my first president.
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On Rutgers basketball, Princeton husband-hunting and Jimmy Kimmel
April 8, 2013
"What's the second paragraph?"
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Babies on a plane
April 3, 2013
You can have your women in combat. You can have your women who lean in. You can even have your woman secretary of state who visits 112 countries. But my new heroes are women on planes with babies.
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For unwed moms, 25 is the new 15
April 1, 2013
It is no longer teenagers stumbling into pregnancy and parenthood about whom we should be fretting. Those numbers continue to drop, because the kids are having less sex and using more contraception.
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Food news — eat it and weep
March 27, 2013
Like someone on a diet who can think about nothing but food, I feel bombarded by bad food news even as I try to clean up what is on my plate.
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Where everybody knows your name: Facebook
March 25, 2013
What if Facebook isn't the intrusive, all-seeing eye that we fear? What if it isn't just a place where workers waste time and young people post regrettable pictures of themselves?
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He's not an athlete, but he's a player
March 20, 2013
As parents, we like to think we can predict what our children will grow up to be based on what captures their attention as kids. Then they return to the nest as young adults and we realize how far wrong we were.
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'They don't want to go back'
March 18, 2013
March is Women's History Month, but the headlines give us little to celebrate.
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Work crept into her life, until life disappeared
March 13, 2013
Erin Callan was the face of Lehman Brothers in 2008 as it battled insolvency rumors. Fresh, pretty, smart and confidently articulate, she worked feverishly to try to talk nervous investors out of jumping ship.
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Snowquester, sequester both inspire a yawn
March 11, 2013
It is fitting that we referred to last week's storm-that-wasn't as a snowquestration. And not just because it was kind of embarrassing and shut the government down.
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Hey, Annapolis car owners: Lock it up!
March 6, 2013
Cash on the center console. GPS devices on the windshield. Laptops. Smart phones. iPads, iPods. Digital cameras. XBox 360 headphones. Bose iPhone speaker docks. Credit cards, lose change. Wallets, purses.
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City teen and country teen
March 4, 2013
We are pretty sure of our stereotypes in this country, and we hold them close.
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The pope as a retiree
February 27, 2013
Pope Benedict XVI retires Thursday, and he leaves the workplace the way many of us would like to — on his own terms.
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Next step for feminism: Go global
February 25, 2013
This month marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique," which revealed the mind-numbing ennui of the mid-20th century American housewife, and a great deal of ink has been spilled describing how far we still have to go, baby.
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Women's lacrosse: A blow to the elegant game
February 20, 2013
Women's lacrosse has been warning its people for years: Dial it back, or they will make us wear helmets.
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The smell test: another sense lost to aging
February 18, 2013
Just when we were getting our heads around the idea that many (if not most) of us will lose brain function as we age, there is news that another one of those physical gifts we take for granted is likely to leave us.
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Benedict leaves stage with dignity
February 13, 2013
You have to wonder what kind of fun Vatican mystery writer Dan Brown would have with the startling resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.
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Giving up the body: a sweet sacrifice
February 11, 2013
Oh, the physical sacrifices I make for my job as a journalist.
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Rage and resignation at the gun control town hall
February 6, 2013
A recent poll showed that 62 percent of Marylanders favor a ban on assault weapons, and 71 percent favor a limit on the number of bullets in a gun magazine.
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Seed catalogs are the new robins
February 4, 2013
If the Super Bowl is over, can spring and the gardening season be far away?
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Baltimore Raven Ed Reed, Obama warn of dangers of football
January 29, 2013
President Barack Obama and Baltimore Ravens safety Ed Reed have something in common.
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Women in combat: a bittersweet victory
January 28, 2013
It is hard for me to celebrate the news that women will now be permitted to serve in combat roles.
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Sportswriters, and elephants, never forget
January 23, 2013
Anna Burns Welker added her name to the list of Patriot Wives Pouting (see Gisele Bundchen) when she went after Ray Lewis' reputation on Facebook after the AFC Championship game Sunday.
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A 'work party' for Baltimore's glass house
January 21, 2013
Kate Blom's glamorous old house is 125 years old this year and, not surprisingly, it is badly in need of repairs.
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Armstrong's turn on Oprah's couch
January 16, 2013
When Lance Armstrong met last month with his own personal Javert, Travis Tygart of the anti-doping agency, he said after the frustrating meeting, "You don't hold the keys to my redemption.
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Tracking them instead of talking to them
January 14, 2013
A Texas judge has ruled that a student's religious freedom is not violated by her high school's requirement that all students wear ID cards with embedded chips.
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Our special relationship with 'Downton Abbey'
January 9, 2013
America has a remarkably close relationship with its previous owner. It seems we no sooner threw off the yoke of George III than we started collecting mugs decorated with the images of royal wedding partners.
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Kim and Kanye, the latest to put marriage last
January 7, 2013
It wasn't a surprise to learn that famous-for-being-famous Kim Kardashian was pregnant by boyfriend of five months Kanye West. Celebs regularly put the baby carriage before marriage, and she is just the latest.
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Hillary Clinton and the 'clot plot'
January 2, 2013
Apparently, if the secretary of state needs to take a sick day, she had better get a note from her doctor. A very "transparent" note, a very detailed note. With enough copies to send to her most vociferous critics.
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Be resolute!
December 31, 2012
Faithful readers, it is that time of year again! The day when we make promises to ourselves that we would actually keep if we made them to anyone else.
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The forgotten victim: Nancy Lanza
December 26, 2012
The philosopher Kahlil Gibran's meditation on children is a touching favorite among parents who have read "The Prophet."
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When the clock strikes 'done shopping'
December 24, 2012
There is a most magical hour every Christmas season, and it is not the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve, when the darkened church glows with candles in anticipation of a child's birth.
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A point-and-click Christmas
December 19, 2012
Nothing says Christmas to me like the words "free shipping."
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Why there won't be real gun reform in the wake of Sandy Hook
December 17, 2012
I have no expectation that the tragedy of Sandy Hook Elementary School will move this nation and its leaders toward any kind of meaningful gun control.
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Two women who brought down a traitor
December 17, 2012
Jeanne Vertefeuille and Sandra Grimes could be George Smiley's people.
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Building a pre-retirement nest
December 10, 2012
My husband and I paid our annual visit to the financial adviser who watches over our undoubtedly inadequate retirement savings, an appointment that is not unlike those with the dentist: necessary but never fun.
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Yes, Virginia, there's an app for that
December 5, 2012
Santa Claus came to town in a military helicopter — which makes perfect sense for my grandson, considering who his father works for — and while Mikey was all fired up about Santa's form of transportation, he wanted no part of the big guy in red who disembarked.
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Kate and Will are pregnant
December 3, 2012
I was giving a speech once to a group of career women who had decided to be stay-at-home moms, and I was waiting to be introduced when I overheard an animated conversation between two of them.
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Be a Santa to a senior
December 3, 2012
This is a tender-hearted time of year, and it is easy to reach into our wallets for the children of the poor, or the homeless and the hungry.
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'Just text me'
November 28, 2012
I woke Thanksgiving morning to text messages from my sisters. Happy Thanksgiving, they said.
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Hall of Fame moments from the toy box
November 22, 2012
Two classics have been elected to the National Toy Hall of Fame, just in time for your post-Thanksgiving shopping.
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It isn't easy to be good
November 19, 2012
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says he was planning this even before the recent scandals in the top ranks of the Pentagon and CIA, but he's ordered the military to double down on ethics training for its senior officers.
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Surprising reaction to L'affaire Petraeus
November 14, 2012
People magazine has named its "Sexiest Man Alive," and the nation was surprised to learn he was not a general.
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Sheila Dixon — making women look bad all over again
November 12, 2012
Sheila, Sheila, Sheila ...
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Why did David Petraeus have to step down from the CIA?
November 11, 2012
We need to learn to get past these bimbo eruptions.
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Women flex muscle at the polls
November 7, 2012
Congratulations, ladies. You kept the barbarians from the gate.
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Ban Charlie Brown over bullying? Good grief!
October 31, 2012
A daddy blogger wrote this month that the Halloween video "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" should be retired from viewing by this generation of kids because its title character is bullied and harassed throughout.
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Rape and the mind of God
October 29, 2012
Indiana's Richard Mourdock, Illinois' Joe Walsh and Missouri's Todd Akin aren't doctors. They are Republicans running for the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. But they appear to have special knowledge of how a woman's body works, not to mention the mind of God.
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On vacation with Lance Armstrong
October 24, 2012
For a while there, we vacationed with Lance Armstrong every summer.
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What is the right number of blows to the head?
October 22, 2012
Baltimore Ravens fans are loving the new NFL concussion awareness commercial.
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There's no debate
October 17, 2012
Considering my line of work, I bet you think I am watching the presidential debates.
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Romney for president! (Governor Romney, that is)
October 15, 2012
He is referred to everywhere as Gov. Mitt Romney, even though he hasn't been a governor for six years. It's a practice I have never understood. "Former" or "ex" is more accurate but apparently not as polite.
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'Eat, goats. Eat!'
October 10, 2012
In an age when there are "baby apps" for the iPad and HBO is reissuing classic children's books as made-for-TV musicals, it's nice just to take the kids to visit some goats. Some hard-working, big-eating goats.
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From the land of Rick Perry, the proud paddlers
October 8, 2012
You've got to love Texas.
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This is what 40 looks like
October 3, 2012
One of the first names they considered was Sisters, but they worried everybody would think it was a magazine about nuns.
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The recycling bin and the voting booth
October 1, 2012
This is a story about recycling, and how everything is politically charged this election season.
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Breaking the breast cancer code
September 26, 2012
How many children have you had, and did you wait until after 30 to have the first one? Do you have more than one drink a day? Did you get your period before you were 12? Do you exercise? Have a low-fat, high-fiber diet? Did you breast-feed?
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At home with the Jesuses
September 24, 2012
OMG! Jesus had a wife?
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From Annapolis to Afghanistan
September 19, 2012
They were walking to class on that bright blue September morning when the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon were hit and when a plane destined for Washington crashed into a Pennsylvania field.
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The board game that launched a lifetime of errand running
September 17, 2012
Connie and Nancy and I have been best friends since the seventh grade, and when the three of us get together, it is middle school all over again.
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Who's winning the war on women?
September 10, 2012
Things are looking up for the female sex.
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A letter from the president — or the auto-pen?
September 5, 2012
During the Republican National Convention in Tampa, a website called Gateway Pundit posted photographs of letters of condolence sent by President Barack Obama to the families of Navy SEALs killed in a horrendous combat crash last year as proof that an auto-pen was used to reproduce the president's signature on form letters of sympathy.
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Are we ready for myalmamater.com?
September 3, 2012
The conveyance of knowledge from one wise man to a gathering of eager young people has been the model for education since Ancient Greece, and it has survived largely unchanged in the face of every kind of technology — from the printing press to the personal computer.
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Presidential politics and abortion
September 2, 2012
Susan Reimer's column abut the Republican platform on abortion again shows her expertise in setting up a straw man and then knocking him down ("Presidential election or abortion referendum?" Aug. 27).
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Grown-ups failed accused Perry Hall shooter
August 29, 2012
Meet the parents.
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Presidential election or abortion referendum?
August 27, 2012
The platforms that the two political parties publish every four years are a lot like the warranties that come with washers or refrigerators: Nobody ever reads them, but if you do, you find that nothing in them actually applies.
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Presidential campaign 'legitimately' toxic?
August 23, 2012
I am so relieved that I don't live in a swing state.
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Women finally fitted for green jackets at Augusta
August 20, 2012
What you need to understand about Augusta National Golf Course's decision to admit women for the first time is this: It was never about golf.
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Controversy, too, is harvest of White House garden
May 30, 2012
It was while she was serving dinner to her kids in 2008 and their dad was out campaigning for president, that Michelle Obama hatched a modest daydream: a vegetable garden on the White House grounds.
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Commencement speakers: the rude, the unfunny and the insightful
May 28, 2012
Commencement season is the college equivalent of the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
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Both sides now: Judy Collins on life after alcoholism
May 24, 2012
It was April 1978, and singer Judy Collins hadn't had an inspirational thought in four years.
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Maurice Sendak lit up dark corners of childhood
May 9, 2012
Not everything in childhood is bowls of mush and little old ladies whispering "Hush," and Maurice Sendak understood that.
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Student loan debt traps parents, too
April 25, 2012
Just as parents and their high school seniors are about to sign those college acceptance letters, there is news that unless Congress acts by July 1, the interest rate on federal student loans will double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent.
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With Mega win, life would be a beach
March 29, 2012
I had the money spent before I bought the tickets. That's how sure I was that my friends and I were going to win the Mega Millions lottery Tuesday night.
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Dads and diaper makers hug it out
March 14, 2012
A stay-at-home dad, offended by a television commercial that made dads look like dummies, has used social media — the same cudgel that forced Bank of America to back off last year from plans to hike fees — to get the makers of Huggies disposable diapers to take the ad off the air.
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Some memory changes in aging brain are normal
March 1, 2012
Dementia and its evil twin, Alzheimer's, may have moved ahead of cancer on the list of most feared diseases, especially among baby boomers, who have begun to believe it is their inescapable fate if they have the bad luck to live too long.
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Warmer winter wakes up the garden
February 22, 2012
If this warm winter weather has you confused, think of the poor plants.
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Women need to speak up about birth control
February 16, 2012
Where are the women?
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Broken ankle fractures life as you know it
February 1, 2012
Forgive my absence from these pages, but I recently suffered a dislocated fracture of my ankle while saving a kitten from a speeding car.
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Baggage and blessings
September 11, 2011
It was the song "Greensleeves" that drew Shirley Dempsey-Kahn into the Goodwill store that December morning. It reminded her of her first trip to London as a child, with her father, a naval officer, and her mother.
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A hard week for Michael Phelps – and for Mom
February 9, 2009
Last week was a tough one for Michael Phelps. I am betting it was equally tough for his mom.
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Videos of beatings a lesson for kids
April 15, 2008
The harassment of teachers and the intimidation of students by classroom bullies is nothing new.
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The deconstruction of Harriet Miers is filled with sexism
October 11, 2005
When the first news stories about Harriet Miers' nomination to the Supreme Court all used the same quote from President Bush describing her as "a pit bull in size 6 shoes," I decided I would listen carefully to this debate.
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Clinton redux revives that sense of betrayal
June 22, 2004
SEEING BILL CLINTON in the spotlight again is like - forgive the analogy - seeing an old lover after not enough time has passed.
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Stewart's attitude was on trial, too
March 9, 2004
MARTHA STEWART's conviction in federal court last week must stand as a warning to all future Marthas.
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No reason to recant support for Arnold
October 7, 2003
ACOUPLE OF weeks ago, I wrote a column saying that if I were a Californian, I would vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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Schwarzenegger's zest for American dream counterbalances past of sex, drugs
September 16, 2003
IT MIGHT COST me my feminist membership card, but if I were a California resident, I'd vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger for governor - even if I'd have to wait a few more months to do so.
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Word war: `Marital' becomes `martial'
December 10, 2002
MY HUSBAND and I lead the split-shift, tag-team, crisis-du-jour lives so common among couples with teen-age children, and our paths are guaranteed to cross at only one moment: Sunday night at 9 o'clock for the latest installment of The Sopranos.
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Sniper is wrecking the games students play
October 22, 2002
The killings by the sniper in the white van have thrown the athletic lives of children and families into a holy mess of official overreaction and bureaucratic indecision.
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With everyone a target, fear is hard to avoid
October 9, 2002
IT IS DIFFERENT this time.
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Parents feel high school angst again, through teens
October 6, 2002
IT APPEARS THAT I am not popular in high school. Again.
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Lindh rage gives way to sadness
July 23, 2002
THE CASE OF John Walker Lindh has been resolved to the apparent satisfaction of both parties.
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Mourning loss of son's competitor
March 19, 2002
KEVAN Fletcher, a top-notch wrestler for Patterson High School, was found shot to death inside his East Baltimore rowhouse earlier this month, and a pair of teen-age acquaintances have been arrested and charged with his murder.
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All we can do for safety is embrace each other
September 30, 2001
IN THE IMMEDIATE aftermath of the World Trade Center and Pentagon explosions, I had one thought, and I bet it was almost universal.
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Our routines will keep us busy, but the sadness will stay with us
September 14, 2001
IN THE AFTERMATH of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, we are being told that we must recognize that life in this country will never be the same.
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And now, for a -- of local flavor, we bring you a taste of Art Donovan
January 31, 1993
Hey, Jim Kelly! Try some warm olive oil on top of your head, ya big crybaby.
