April 9, 1995

LAST month's gruesome deaths of three young children, allegedly murdered by relatives or family friends, sent shock waves through the state. Social workers from the Department of Children and Families had visited all three families, but two of the cases had been closed for more than six months, officials said.

OVERLOOKING the Sheepscot River near Wiscasset, Me., Cabin 11 sits at the bottom of a hill, a Lilliputian barn-red bungalow with a miniature screened-in porch, well-worn outdoor wicker furniture and, inside, an immaculate, much-vacuumed gold-colored shag rug. There is a small bedroom, no kitchen, and a window box on the side that, in the summer, will be filled with geraniums. The cabin, at the Edgecomb Inn in North Edgecomb, rents for $69 a night in high season. Take it for a whole week, and the price drops to $59 a night.

BLUES in the night? "Not in my backyard," I sing to all who will listen, predicting noise, cars, milling drunkards in the dark and empty bottles in the morning. Carl Jensen listens. From his stall at the Union Square Park Greenmarket, he can see the grand old American Savings Bank building on East 15th Street, soon to become a fast-fun franchise, a 1,500-seat restaurant-nightclub called the House of Blues.

Robert S. McNamara, once a champion of the escalation of the Vietnam War, says in a memoir to be published in the coming week that he has now concluded that the United States "could and should have withdrawn from South Vietnam" in late 1963 after the assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem or a year or so later. In November 1963, 78 Americans had died in the war in Vietnam. In late 1964, the total stood at 225. By the war's end in 1975, it had passed 58,000.

IN its first decision on Lilco rates since George E. Pataki became Governor, the Public Service Commission has ordered no increases in customer bills until at least December. The P.S.C. added that years of rate freezes or reductions could follow. The decision shows that the legacy of the Shoreham controversy adds layers of complication to rate making for Lilco that are absent in cases involving other utilities.