Baby Sitting

Three or four times a week, Blake Stephens drops by the Elks Lodge, a rambling building on a hill near downtown Fullerton. He and his buddies have a few drinks and play some games -- as guys have done here for nearly half a century. Sometimes, he also does his homework. Along with his parents, 13-year-old Blake is a regular at the Elks Lodge -- an injection of youth into the aging veins of a venerable institution.

A 19-year-old Lancaster man pleaded no contest Thursday and was sentenced to 10 years in state prison in connection with the death of his girlfriend's son. Rondel Myers was baby-sitting 1-year-old Demajae Davis when the baby died of blunt force trauma. Myers was arrested shortly afterward, on Oct. 25, 2002.

AS a member of the motion picture academy, I read with interest Patrick Goldstein's column about the decision to not send out screening copies of the movies this year ("Screeners: Behind the Ban," Oct. 7). I was fully prepared to chalk this up to "Things that I hate, over which I will silently fume," until I came to the quote that Jack Valenti thinks that we academy members are lazy. I have taken voting very seriously since I was old enough to see R-rated movies. Every year, I have sat in theaters, watching everything that is even remotely viable.

The boys' first question for their lawyer was this: When can we go home? Cincinnati public defender Terry Weber had to tell them it could be a very long time. The 11-year-old sobbed. He stands accused of beating his little sister to death. The 13-year-old reeled. He too is charged in the girl's murder. He also is accused of raping her repeatedly. She was his cousin. He was baby-sitting her when she died.

For more than three decades, Masako Shimano has been the perfect wife, dutiful daughter-in-law, self-sacrificing mother and tireless nurse. Now she works to spare other Japanese women the same fate. In this farming exurb about an hour's train ride northwest of Tokyo, women like Shimano, a 58-year-old grandmother, are still referred to as yome, or brides. But these brides are not wrinkled women in wedding kimonos. In rural Japan, "bride" is a job description for the wife of the eldest son.

Spend a day with Sachie and Shoji Takamori and it's easy to see why they have not had the second child they yearn for. When Sachie, a 29-year-old piano teacher, scrambles out of bed at 7:30 a.m., steam is already rising from their preprogrammed rice cooker. She runs for the kitchen to fry up fish and vegetables for her husband's lunch box. Shoji, 28, a used car salesman for troubled Mitsubishi Motors, sleeps until the last moment before squirming into his gray uniform.

Nearly 18 months after announcing that they would create the most ambitious after-school child-care system in the nation, Los Angeles County officials said Wednesday that about half the programs are up and running. The progress drew praise from some educators and parents, but also criticism from some child-care advocates who said that it is taking too long to bring all of the 225 targeted elementary schools on board.

Normally, when teenagers start hunting for work during the summer break, they have to settle for such occupations as executive chef ("You want fries with that?"), landscape architect ("Mowing the side yard is extra") or film director ("You'll be in theater No. 5, to the left of the popcorn stand"). But this summer, their options are expanding a bit. The high-tech tilt of the adult job world has trickled down to the youth market. Well, sort of.

Jane Swift gave birth to a baby girl three weeks before her election as Massachusetts' lieutenant governor in 1998, rankling conservatives who said a woman shouldn't combine career and family. Now she's giving them plenty of reason to say, "I told you so." After a weeklong furor, the state's most prominent working mom apologized Wednesday for using aides to baby-sit and for taking a state police helicopter to get home because 14-month-old Elizabeth Ruth had pneumonia.

Here are some safety tips for baby-sitting: * Have the following information written down and readily accessible in the event of an emergency: family name; children's names; house address with nearest cross street; instructions on how to contact the parents; phone numbers of close relatives and neighbors; doctor's name and phone number along with a medical release. * In the event of an emergency, call 911. Identify yourself by name, tell them you are baby-sitting and state the problem.