Dignified

A commander in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department says he was instructed by Sheriff Sherman Block to solicit an endorsement for the sheriff's reelection campaign, then threatened with retaliation because Block believed that he had not complied with the order. If true, the allegations--which are contained in a two-page letter from Cmdr.

Sporting fur during this spring luncheon was no fashion faux pas. The canine guests at the L'Hirondelle Restaurant charmed everyone with their genteel table manners Saturday, when a bevy of dogs and their owners took over the restaurant's patio area for a luncheon benefiting the Animal Rescue Foundation (ARF) of Dana Point. The unusual event held across from the Mission San Juan Capistrano drew about 32 people and 19 dogs.

If you have forgotten how intensely a child can feel emotion, or how much children take in as they observe and react to the adults in their lives, tune in to "About Us: The Dignity of Children," tonight's out-of-the-ordinary ABC special, hosted by Oprah Winfrey and produced by Fred Berner Films and the Children's Dignity Project.

Wearing only a leather loincloth and a headband adorned with beads made from ostrich eggs, Buks squats beneath a rock cliff and patiently strings a hunting bow. Half-naked men, women and children, all slightly built with dark yellow skin and heart-shaped faces, huddle around in the easy intimacy of an extended hunter-gatherer family. The scene is little changed from the Stone Age.

John Doe, an anonymous AIDS patient who has joined with Jack Kevorkian to challenge California's ban on assisted suicide, wants help in dying "when the time comes." But he doesn't want help from Kevorkian. In his first interview since he agreed to represent the interests of Californians "who seek a peaceful, dignified, physician-assisted death," the 36-year-old film editor says Kevorkian's style is not for him.

Viki Wilson, a 37-year-old nurse from Fresno, was looking forward to the birth of her third child, a baby girl who was due on Mother's Day, 1994. But in the eighth month of her pregnancy, a final ultrasound test portrayed a tragedy. "About two-thirds of Abigail's brain had grown outside her skull. And what I had thought were strong baby movements were actually seizures," Wilson said. "It wasn't a question of whether our baby would die. It was only a question of when and how."

The wind may be blowing off the North Sea this week for the British Open at the Old Course, the most famous 18 golf holes in the world. Or it may be still. Chances are, it's going to be as hot as shortbread and as dry as the sand in Hell Bunker. Or it's going to be as wet as a bottle of Scotch whiskey.

More than four months after their tiny bodies were discovered, two babies who died in March after being abandoned, still tethered to their umbilical cords, will finally be laid to rest after a funeral service this week. The bodies of a baby girl who washed up on shore at Sunset Beach and an infant boy found two days later in a cardboard box outside the Meadowlark West apartments in San Clemente will lie in state Thursday at Emanuel Lutheran Church in La Habra.

Could the Los Angeles Times please, please adopt a blanket editorial policy forbidding any writer from using the term "graffiti artist?" This term is a first-class oxymoron. Using this definition raises the stature of these scofflaws and tacitly validates their vandalism. By the same token, the phrase is a put-down to people who are motivated to bring beauty to the world. Graffiti vandals are egomaniacal lawbreakers who deface private and public property with their ugly scrawls, which cause public outrage and require thousands of dollars of cleanup costs.