October 30, 2005

Rarely since the mid-19th century has the Gothic aesthetic gained such a throttlehold on the collective imagination.

ON Monday morning, news networks were breathlessly covering two entirely different hurricanes. The first blew off the screen in all its fury, droplets speeding by, stop signs spinning, palm fronds flying and strands of soaked hair clinging to correspondents' foreheads. Debris clattered down deserted streets, and the wind screamed from a growl to a whistle and back again. The second storm was much tamer: palm trees swayed, but with something that looked more like stop-motion animation than deadly natural force. Mostly it looked like a foggy, soundless gray blur. Both hurricanes were Wilma, but one was the large-screen, plasma version; the other belonged to a mobile phone with a screen about one-twentieth the size of the first. One was affixed to a wall; the other could roam all over New York, on the subway, at a playground, in a coffee shop.

VINDICATION is always sweet. But it must have been especially so last week for Jay M. Meier. Mr. Meier is a technology stock analyst at Miller Johnson Steichen Kinnard, a small investment firm in Minneapolis. Earlier this year, after he downgraded his rating on Digital River, a provider of electronic commerce services, the company retaliated, demanding that his firm drop its research coverage.

Every preseason for 30 years, Coach Bobby Bowden has taken his Florida State football players to a church in a white community and a church in a black community in the Tallahassee area in an effort, he said, to build camaraderie. He writes to their parents in advance, explaining that the trips are voluntary, and that if they object, their sons can stay home without fear of retaliation. He remembers only one or two players ever skipping the outing. Since becoming the football coach at Georgia in 2001, Mark Richt, too, has taken his team to churches in the preseason. A devotional service is conducted the night before each game, and a prayer service on game day. Both are voluntary, and Mr. Richt said he does not attend them.

SITTING the other day in front of Picasso's rapturous ''Girl Before a Mirror'' at the Museum of Modern Art, Rueben Rosen wore the dyspeptic look of a man with little love for modern art. But the reason he gave for disliking the painting was not one you might expect to hear from an 88-year-old former real estate broker. ''It's like he's trying to tell a story using words that don't exist,'' Mr. Rosen said finally of Picasso, fixing the painter's work with a critic's stare. ''He knows what he means, but we don't.''

Ann Morrison travel article on weekend road trip through France's Burgundy wine region during autumn grape harvest; describes stays at bed-and-breakfasts run by winemakers or winemaking families; photos; map (L)

They paid their final respects to a man who had helped make their success possible. The owners of 21 N.F.L. teams attended the Friday funeral for Wellington Mara, a co-owner of the Giants and one of the last links to the league's transition from start-up to front-runner. As the N.F.L. has expanded to 32 teams, its connection to its origins is diminishing. The owners of 14 franchises entered the league in the past 12 years. Only eight franchises that date to 1960 or earlier are still owned by their founders or their founder's descendants.

It had been a typical Breeders' Cup afternoon when the 13 horses pulled into the starting gate for the day's capper, the $4.7 million Classic. An old trainer, D. Wayne Lukas, visited the winners' circle at a Breeders' Cup race for a record 18th time. A new star emerged as a Triple Crown contender when Stevie Wonderboy captured the Juvenile. And enough long shots had romped home to keep bettors unbalanced, none bigger than Pleasant Home, who came flying down the stretch at 30-1 to win the Distaff. But there was a larger question looming: Which thoroughbred had distinguished himself enough throughout the season to be named horse of the year?

IN many ways, Larry Page and Sergey Brin seem an unlikely pair to lead an advertising revolution. As Stanford graduate students sketching out the idea that became Google, the two software engineers sniffed in an academic paper that ''advertising-funded search engines will inherently be biased toward the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers.'' They softened that line a bit by the time they got around to pitching their business to venture capitalists, allowing that selling ads would be a handy safety net if their other, less distasteful ideas for generating revenue didn't pan out.

It was on the plane from Shanghai to Beijing last year that Dorothy Lipson of Delray Beach, Fla., suddenly began to cough up blood: first in streaks, then in frightening, tissue-soaking spoonfuls. But Mrs. Lipson, who was in China visiting an expatriate daughter, was lucky on two counts. First, her daughter happens to run a corporation that builds gleaming Western-style hospitals in China; Ms. Lipson was rushed to the Beijing hospital on landing. And second, Mrs. Lipson's internist back home in Florida is Dr. Bernard Kaminetsky, one of a new breed of ''concierge'' or ''boutique'' doctors who, in exchange for a yearly cash retainer, lavish time, phone calls and attention on patients, using the latest in electronic communications to streamline their care.

THE lanky 15-year-old with the velvety skin flashed a deceptive grin at the man in combat fatigues standing near the curb. ''You ain't no good!'' she shouted at the soldier. ''You stealing these young people!'' Staff Sgt. Richard Guzman looked up from the crowd of black and Hispanic students clustered near the entrance to the Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics, a high school in East Harlem. Sidling over to the girl, he held out his hand. ''Hey,'' he said, his voice a sleepy mix of fine Long Island sand and honey.

U.S. and Japan Agree to Strengthen Military Ties The United States and Japan will reshape their military alliance, reducing by 7,000 the number of marines on Okinawa and building a new generation of radar equipment in Japan as part of a missile defense system. The changes are part of a plan for Japan to take a greater role in its own defense. PAGE 6 Opening Kashmir to Aid India and Pakistan have agreed to open the border dividing Kashmir, called the Line of Control, to permit earthquake survivors and relief aid to pass through. PAGE 21 Conservative Expectations Prominent conservatives say they are confident that President Bush will abandon his ''stealth strategy'' and choose a known quantity for the Supreme Court this time. PAGE 24 Saint Liam Takes the Classic Saint Liam, the favorite and a contender for Horse of the Year, held off Flower Alley and won the Breeders' Cup Classic. SPORTSSUNDAY