Fresh Poulp

There’s no finer experience than taking your family on a crisp, sunny, fall adventure along the Centennial Trail. Stretching from Snohomish to Arlington and framed by the resplendent Cascades and quiet Machias, the red and yellow trees and clean air remind us why we endure the gray skies and light rain of Puget Sound’s winter.

Now we have an opportunity to continue that trail into the heart of suburban King County and simultaneously provide an Eastside rail-transit line that scores of Snohomish County commuters could utilize for years to come, helping limit highway congestion as growth continues.

But if Snohomish County leaders don’t act quickly, King County and the Port of Seattle may consummate a pending deal with Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway, resulting in King County control of a crucial rail-and-trail corridor, and the possible ripping out of the corridor’s 41-mile rail line from Woodinville to Renton. This would leave Snohomish County commuters with a dead end.

Instead, let’s keep the tracks and initiate a demonstration project using a new self-propelled rail car called a “diesel multiple unit” (DMU). It’s far cheaper to purchase and operate than typical commuter rail (like the Sounder train that connects Everett and Seattle). The DMU also burns biofuels, carries bikes and can be maintained by community-college diesel mechanics.

In the United States, DMUs are made by Colorado Rail Car and Siemens. They’ve been generating revenue for six years in the West Palm Beach area, and are planned for suburban Portland, Oceanside-Escondido in California, Alaska and Amtrak’s Vermonter service.

A single double-deck car can carry 188 passengers and costs around $4 million. Its lower weight requires less investment in track and the bi-level feature allows shorter platforms. The DMU can operate on separate tracks with freight trains or on tracks embedded in concrete like a streetcar, allowing them to divert from the corridor to downtown areas.

The Cascadia Center is working with a group of community leaders in the North Sound region to bring a DMU train to the Bellingham-Everett corridor in the next few years, to supplement Seattle-Vancouver, B.C., Amtrak service and connect with Sounder in Everett.

Why not piggyback on these efforts and share equipment and maintenance between the Eastside and North Sound? We could even run a DMU connector service between Snohomish and Everett.

Snohomish City Councilman Larry Countryman, Snohomish airfield owner Kandace Harvey and business leaders support the rail-and-trail idea, as does Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon.

How do we pay for it?

Private developers and cities can enter partnerships to develop train stations, fix the tracks and build mixed-use development with private capital, as with the South Lake Union streetcar in Seattle.

Currently, there is no direct bus service between the fast-growing east Snohomish County communities of Snohomish and Monroe to jobs-rich Bellevue in East King County - only one early morning bus with a connection from the Highway 520 corridor. Surely, Community Transit, Sound Transit and Metro can team up to share the relatively inexpensive operating costs for the train.

Proponents of the trail-only approach had early on argued that the tracks were in poor shape and conversion to high-capacity transit would cost billions. Cascadia has independently hired a team of respected, retired rail executives led by Read Fay to walk the tracks and provide an estimate of what it would cost to have the DMU units travel at a top speed of 40 mph. The likely estimate is in the range of $20 million to $40 million. The rail/trail corridor could serve as an important emergency transportation lifeline for first responders and citizens in case a major earthquake destroys our critical bridge infrastructure.

So don’t let your King County neighbors prematurely cut a vital transit link along the congested Interstate 405/Highway 9 corridor. A commuter rail line connecting eastern Snohomish County to Redmond, Kirkland, Bellevue and Renton needs to be on the map of our region’s transportation future.

Bruce Agnew is a former Snohomish County Council member and now serves as director of Discovery Institute’s Cascadia Center for Regional Development, www.cascadiaproject.org

RealNetworks reported an unexpected third-quarter profit after its expansion into mobile-phone products spurred sales.

The Seattle company, owner of the Rhapsody online-music service, said its profit dropped nearly 90 percent to $4.3 million, or 3 cents a share, from $42.2 million, or 24 cents a share, a year ago, when its results were boosted by a $61.9 million payment from Microsoft in an antitrust settlement. Third-quarter sales rose 55 percent to $145.1 million.

Analysts in a Bloomberg survey had projected a 1-cent loss.

RealNetworks shares fell 2 cents to $6.56 Tuesday, before the results were released. In after-hours trading, the stock fell 26 cents more, to $6.30. The stock is down about 40 percent this year.

RealNetworks, which makes video players and music services for personal computers, is extending its products into the mobile-phone market. Chief Executive Officer Rob Glaser acquired three companies in that area in the past year, including WiderThan, a provider of ringtones and music for phones.

Third-quarter games revenue rose 28 percent, while music revenue increased 24 percent, and technology-products-and-solutions revenue soared 377 percent largely because of the WiderThan acquisition. Media-software-and-services revenue fell 14 percent from a year earlier.

Excluding costs such as stock-based compensation, fourth-quarter profit will be 6 cents to 7 cents a share on revenue of as much as $157 million, the company said. Analysts had estimated 7 cents in profit and $159 million in revenue.

Reuters provided the breakdown by sector of RealNetworks’ revenue.

RealNetworks’ results

Dollar figures in thousands, except per share; parentheses denote losses

Sept 30

%

3rd QTR

2007

2006

CHG

Profit

$4,342

$42,153

-89.7

Per share

0.03

0.24

-87.5

Revenue

145,095

93,676

+54.9

9 MOS

2007

2006

CHG

Profit

$45,630

$105,914

-56.9

Per share

0.27

0.59

-54.2

Revenue

410,738

269,687

+52.3

Teatro ZinZanni

reopens its tent

Voila! The Seattle dinner cabaret attraction Teatro ZinZanni will have a grand reopening Nov. 28.

The One Reel production incorporating circus acts, comedy, music and fine dining lost its Belltown quarters this summer, and is returning to its original Seattle location at 222 Mercer St., across the road from the Seattle Center.

“Hearts on Fire,” the latest edition of the long-running entertainment, will feature disco singer Thelma Houston, El Vez (Robert Lopez, the Latino Elvis), acrobats Les Petits Frères and other acts, with music provided by Norm Durkee and band. Seattle chef Tom Douglas designed the five-course dinner for the show.

Teatro ZinZanni debuted at the Mercer Street site in 1998, and later spun off a San Francisco version that is still running. The show unfolds in an antique Belgian cabaret tent, and the talent lineup and dinner offerings change several times a year.

Tickets are $104-$160, depending on dates and seating. The open-ended run has performances Wednesdays-Sundays (information and reservations, 206-802-0015 or http://dreams.zinzanni.org)

Cirque du Soleil

dates announced

Many Teatro ZinZanni performers have worked with Cirque du Soleil, which is slated to return to Redmond next spring with a show new to here.

The dates for the run of Cirque du Soleil’s “Corteo,” at Marymoor Park in Redmond, have been finalized: April 24-May 23, 2008, with possible extensions.

Tickets are now available at a cost of $38.50 to $90 with VIP packages offered at higher cost. Details: 800-678-5440 or www.cirquedusoleil.com.

Misha Berson,

Seattle Times theater critic

Youth-arts grants

announced

The Mayor’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs has announced $201,000 in grants to 25 youth arts programs. The grants will fund programs that provide arts training outside of school hours for Seattle’s middle- and high-school youth next year.

The funding program, Youth Arts, provides up to $10,000 annually to multidisciplinary programs, from traditional to cutting-edge art forms, led by experienced teachers. It predominantly serves youth and communities with limited or no access to the arts. The average award is $8,300; the awards will engage about 168 teaching artists, reaching approximately 4,357 youngsters in neighborhoods including Beacon Hill, West Seattle, Central District, Capitol Hill, Rainier Valley, University District, Wallingford and Greenwood. The awards were recommended by a peer review panel and approved by the Seattle Arts Commission.

Among the awards: $5,820 to Seattle Scenic Studios for technical internships in scene and prop design; $7,869 to Seattle Center for Book Arts for sessions in bookmaking and bookbinding techniques culminating in library exhibitions citywide; $10,000 to Pacific Northwest Blues in the Schools for music/literary workshops incorporating the poetry of Langston Hughes and African-American history and culture; and $10,000 to fund Gage Academy of Art’s Teen Art Studio, a free, Friday-night drop-in program offering hundreds of youth mixed-media instruction in a safe, creative art-studio environment culminating in an exhibition of the teens’ work.

For a complete list of the grants, visit www.seattle.gov/arts and click on “2008 Youth Arts Award recipients announced.”

Melinda Bargreen,

Seattle Times music critic

Q: I planted several staghorn sumacs on my back rockery a few years ago. They’re really beautiful this fall but are sending up suckers everywhere. I’m afraid they’ll swamp the smaller plants. I chose them because I’m trying to grow all natives in my backyard. How can I make the sumacs behave?

A: Beautiful as they are, I’ve never known a staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) that came close to behaving in a garden. These big deciduous shrubs have finely dissected leaves, furry brown stems and cones, and brilliant red fall color.

Unfortunately, they’re aggressive plants, ideal for the tough conditions in your rockery. They aren’t, however, native to the Northwest, but hail from eastern North America.

It’s the natural tendency of staghorn sumacs to form colonies by sending out rhizomes. Of course you can cut off and rip out the brittle rhizomes regularly to keep them (somewhat) under control.

Because it sounds like you admire your sumacs, it might be best just to let them colonize and take over your rockery. If this idea doesn’t appeal, or if you want to try for a true native-plant palette, you should remove the sumacs before they really take over.

You can replace them with, perhaps, red flowering currant (Ribes sanguineum) and vine maples mixed with mahonia for winter interest.

To learn more about native-plant choices for difficult conditions, take a look at King County’s native-plant guide (dnr.metrokc.gov) or visit the Washington Native Plant Society’s Web site, www.wnps.org. If you prefer a book, there’s Art Kruckeberg’s classic “Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest.”

Q: Last summer I used a spray called TerraCycle on my container flowers, and they’re still blooming in October. The guy at the Home Depot recommended it so highly that even though it was expensive I bought some. Do you think it really helps, or maybe it was the packaged soil I used? I hope to repeat this success next summer.

A: Wouldn’t it be great if Home Depot and other big-box stores carried more organic products like TerraCycle so we could shop in their gardening aisles without feeling overwhelmed by poisonous fumes? It seems so wrong for gardening supplies to smell like chemical death, don’t you think?

To answer your question, worm castings - or, as TerraCycle says, “worm poop” - is the secret ingredient in this new product. Packaged in recycled soda bottles, TerraCycle claims to have a negative environmental footprint.

It sure sounds easier to spray on some “black gold” than to take care of a worm bin in order to harvest your own.

That said, you might also want to repeat the watering regime you used this summer, as well as refresh your containers with more of the same kind of packaged soil. Fertilizer can bulk up annuals and keep them blooming, but they’ll only look their best planted in good soil and watered regularly.

Valerie Easton also writes about Plant Life in Sunday’s Pacific Northwest Magazine. Write to her at P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111 or e-mail planttalk@seattletimes.com with your questions. Sorry, no personal replies.

My mother was big on Halloween. And by that, I don’t mean she spent that hallowed day baking ghoulish cupcakes with teensy candy pumpkins, or admiring the costumes she’d handcrafted for her four kids.

Mom was in it for the costumes and the candy, all right: her costumes - and our candy.

On a particularly memorable Halloween, she arrived to pick me up from a Girl Scout bonfire-fueled jamboree. Jumping out of her ‘69 VW Bug, she made her way through the crisp autumn leaves to find me. I can’t recall how - or even if - I was costumed that night, but I’ll never forget how I felt when I lifted my bobbing head from a vat full of tooth-bitten apples:

Wiping cold water from my eyes, I focused on a 5-foot-2-inch figure dressed like Bozo the Clown - complete with white-face makeup, Joker lips and a spiky Halloween-orange bathing cap that looked suspiciously like the one my mother wore that summer at our local swim club. “Surprise!” yelled Bozo. Having earned my Girl Scout Mortification Badge then and there, I slunk to the car and promptly burst into tears.

Ah, golden memories of Halloween! I’ve got a million of them. And not a single one involves “snack-size” candy bars, “Harvest Festivals” or trick-or-treating in a Costco-bought costume under the fluorescent lights of an indoor shopping mall.

Celebrating Halloween as a kid in Philadelphia - where decorating for the holiday remains a citywide imperative - I had the great fortune of living in a 500-tract subdivision where kids ruled, candy was king and our rallying cry was, “Trick or treat! Smell my feet! Give me something good to eat!”

Back then, we actually did get something good to eat. Trudging up and down the streets and cul-de-sacs with pillow cases and UNICEF boxes in hand - devoid of flashlights, reflective gear or, God forbid, our parents - we’d score big on Hershey Bars, Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews and the occasional caramel-coated apple that we’d scarf on the spot, never considering the need to X-ray that special treat for razor blades.

And when, our sacks full-up to nearly bursting, we’d arrive home to empty our loot onto the dining-room table and trade candy (”I’ll give you two Butterfingers for a Necco Wafer”), justice had to be served. Her name was Mom. We paid her in dividends of Nestle Crunch and 3 Muskeeters, which she’d stash in a cookie tin kept out of our reach - or so she thought - atop our “side-by-side refrigerator-freezer.”

These days I spend All Hallow’s Eve in the company of a Sweet-Tarted-up grade-schooler, whose dad - bless him - lovingly makes the boy’s costumes. Tonight, in the company of a woman whose “costume” involves an Eddie Bauer jacket and mom-jeans, my son will traipse through downtown Edmonds in a small-town scene straight out of “Hocus Pocus.”

Eschewing last year’s costume (Count Dracula) for this year’s (an M&M), we’ll join 5,000 merrymakers who hit-up the local merchants, amassing umpteen miniversions of the same six candies (enough already with the Tootsie Rolls!). We’ll stop at the movie theater for a bag of popcorn and Just Say No to the line that snakes down the block from the local bake shop, where fresh doughnuts are free for those who can stand the wait.

Meanwhile, my husband will be sitting home with a cocktail and the dogs, waiting for the next wave of local urchins who know where to knock for full-size Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Starburst candies and (if they’re very lucky and I haven’t been entirely too busy) a homemade caramel apple - hold the shaving implements.

If they’re smart, they’ll go across the street to our neighbors, the Smiths, who one-up us by a mile with their movie- theater-size candy boxes. And they’ll stay away from “Spooky Dave’s” - the neighborhood electrician who’s known to scare the yell out of the little ones when they ring his doorbell and he jumps out from behind a porch pillar dressed as a ghoul.

When we return home from our town’s communal festivities, cold, tired and hungry for the pizza that awaits us, we make certain to first pay a visit to the Smiths, and Spooky Dave, and the many neighbors who beg us to take an extra helping of candy - lest they’re forced to eat the leftovers themselves.

Back in the day - my day - there weren’t any “leftovers”: only lights turned out, doorbells unanswered and, occasionally, nickels and dimes doled out in lieu of sweets. But these days, with kids heading out to private parties, shopping malls and other clean, well-lighted places on Halloween, neighborhoods don’t see the kind of action they saw when I was growing up.

It’s enough to make my mother melancholic.

Mom recently moved from South Jersey to a fancy-pants retirement community in sunny South Carolina where, in the spirit of the season, I sent her a box of Nestle Crunch. I did it just so I can imagine her sitting poolside, soaking up some sun, sharing her Halloween candy with her gal-pals and clowning around in that spiky orange bathing cap. It’s a vision that still brings tears to my eyes.

Nancy Leson: Nancy Leson: 206-464-8838 or nleson@seattletimes.com.

More columns available at seattletimes.com/nancyleson.

Q: I’ve looked at the WIAA Class 3A football brackets. Barring an upset in the “play-in” round-of-32 this week, No. 1 Lakes is going to play KingCo champion Skyline in the round-of-16. Why is a matchup of this magnitude - No. 1 vs. No. 2 (Seattle Times rankings) - occurring in the round-of-16?

A: The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association draws the bracket in two-year cycles without regard for team or league reputations.

It isn’t anything like the NCAA basketball committee locking itself in a hotel and seeding the field. If the WIAA did that, it would invite criticism and allegations of favoritism.

A headache with 3A is that there are teams from eight leagues west of the Cascades plus teams from two leagues on the dry side of the state. That makes for an occasional “have-they-lost-their-minds?” pairing. This is the all-time wildest.

Skyline has some experience with tough draws. In 2005, when Skyline won the 4A title, the Spartans had to beat No. 3 Pasco in the round-of-16.

There is an element of luck involved in the draws. KingCo 3A and Metro are from District 2 and alternate years being the district’s No. 1 seed. This year, Metro champ O’Dea is No. 2. In other words, it could have been O’Dea playing Lakes.

With all that said, I wish the WIAA had a tournament czar who would study all the teams and have authority to adjust pairings. It never will happen.

Q: A student was seriously injured last football season at Snohomish when a cannon that had been a tradition at games exploded. Has Snohomish abandoned use of the cannon?

A: Yes, the cannon has been retired. And that’s fine with me.

I’ve never understood how a blast from a gun enhanced any athletic event. That was reinforced last Friday when I was in Pullman and stupidly kept forgetting to plug my ears when Pullman kept scoring against Clarkston.

The Snohomish boy who was injured was hospitalized for weeks but is in school and walking. And, yes, his family has a lawyer.

I’m not a “I-hate-guns” guy even though I favor gun-control of non-hunting weapons. I own a rifle and a shotgun, and I think Northwest parents should teach their children how to shoot. That way, unless the parent has Spam for brains, kids will learn to be careful with guns.

Q: Roosevelt beat Lake Washington 55-14 last Friday. Is that the most lopsided win ever by a city school over a suburban member of KingCo 4A?

A: It certainly is.

City schools, including playoff-bound Ballard, which joined the league in 2002, were a combined 6-14 against the suburban league members this season. That’s the best year yet. The only year that comes close is 1997, when Roosevelt, Franklin and Garfield were a combined 6-15.

The overall record of city schools against the league’s suburban schools is 33-228.

Lake Washington went 0-9 this season. Kangaroo problems started after the 2005 season when Tim Tramp, the third-winningest coach in school history, was fired by a principal who later was reassigned for a variety of reasons and ultimately resigned.

Tramp sued and got a settlement of $60,000. The veteran coach, who had guided the Kangs to the 2004 KingCo title, moved on to Arlington, where he has the 3A Eagles in the round-of-32 playoffs.

LW hired Mike Merrill from Mount Rainier High School last season and he did a credible job, going 5-5 and making the state round-of-32. However, Merrill lost his teaching job in cutbacks and didn’t return. One of Merrill’s assistants, Michael Utschinski, was the LW head coach this season.

Have a question about high-school sports? Craig Smith will find the answer every Tuesday in The Times. Ask your question in one of the following ways: Voice mail (206-464-8279), snail mail (Craig Smith, Seattle Times Sports, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111) or e-mail csmith@seattletimes.com

NEW YORK - Thanksgiving is always one of the busiest travel times of the year. But not everybody is heading home to mom. Some folks go skiing, some head to Orlando or Vegas. And some far-flung families gather at a hotel instead of grandma’s house.

“We literally have generations of families that come for Thanksgiving. It’s our busiest weekend of the year,” said Clark Albright, director of marketing at Camelback Inn in Scottsdale, Ariz., where guests get a whole bird carved at their table rather than going through a buffet.

In Massachusetts, more than 70,000 people visit Plimoth Plantation each November to learn about life among Colonial settlers and the native Wampanoags - more commonly known as Pilgrims and Indians. You’ll find costumed interpreters plucking the feathers off real turkeys and chatting about a harvest celebration that took place in 1621. Plimoth also hosts a variety of Thanksgiving celebrations, including a Victorian-style dinner where President Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation declaring Thanksgiving to be a national holiday is read aloud.

In New York, the balloons and floats of Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade attract streets full of of thousands of spectators. Denver shows up in top 10 lists for both Orbitz and Travelocity for Thanksgiving travel bookings, and skiing is undoubtedly part of the reason. Slopes scheduled to open Nov. 22 or earlier include Aspen Mountain, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, Crested Butte, Snowmass, The glitz and glam of Vegas may not remind you of hearth and home, but you’ll have plenty of distractions to keep you from pining for mom’s apple pie. Restaurants offering Thanksgiving meals include Top of the World at the Stratosphere; Spago at Caesars Palace; David Burke at the Venetian; the Eiffel Tower Restaurant at the Paris; and MIX at THEhotel at Mandalay Bay. Tony Bennett and Wayne Newton are both in town for shows, and the Bellagio Conservatory has a spectacular autumn-themed scene on display through Nov. 24, complete with a 35-foot-tall cider mill, babbling brook, a bed of pumpkins and 1,000 red and green apples.

With kids off from school and families getting together, Thanksgiving is naturally a busy time at Disneyland and Florida’s Walt Disney World. . Among the more unusual Thanksgiving traditions at Walt Disney World Resort is a gathering of some 20 families at the park’s Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground. For more than 30 years, they’ve been erecting a village of tepees there and cooking several dozen turkeys in big open pits. “Our kids look forward to it more than Christmas,” said Karen Butler, who drives with her husband from Georgia to take part in the event. “It’s real family time.”

In San Diego, the annual Thanksgiving Dixieland Jazz Festivale, featuring two dozen Dixie Land bands, takes place Nov. 21-25. And wine-lovers can spend Thanksgiving Day aboard the Napa Valley wine train in Northern California, which offers lunch and dinner excursions.

NAIROBI, Kenya - Somalia’s embattled Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi resigned Monday after weeks of mounting tensions inside the Horn of Africa’s transitional government and a power struggle with the president.

Gedi’s departure could open the door for a political breakthrough among Somalia’s warring clans, but some experts worried it might also lead to an unraveling of the fragile U.N.-recognized government.

A somber Gedi announced his decision before a hastily convened session of parliament Monday in the city of Baidoa. During his three-year tenure, Gedi survived numerous assassination attempts and a no-confidence vote by parliament, where critics have been vowing in recent weeks to unseat him.

President Abduallahi Yusuf, who has clashed repeatedly with Gedi, did not immediately name a replacement. Analysts say much of Somalia’s future is riding on his choice.

Given Somalia’s clan-divided politics, it is widely expected that Yusuf will name someone from Gedi’s same Abgal subclan. The large, influential clan has been one of the government’s most outspoken critics, and it never accepted Gedi, a former veterinarian plucked from relative political obscurity, as its leader.

If Yusuf’s choice is unpopular, it might drive the clan into the arms of Mogadishu’s growing Islamic insurgency.

Among the candidates reportedly under consideration is Mogadishu Mayor Mohammed Dheere, whose harsh tactics in attempting to pacify the capital have come under fire. Yusuf also is considering political outsiders who fled the nation’s violence and now live in the United States or the United Kingdom, according to some close to him.

Yusuf’s candidate also will likely need approval from the Ethiopian government, which exerts considerable influence on Somalia’s government and maintains an estimated 20,000 troops in the country. Gedi spent much of the past week in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, where Ethiopian officials attempted to mediate the dispute with Yusuf.

In Mogadishu, hundreds of demonstrators marched through the streets in a second day of protests against the presence of the Ethiopian troops in the country.

Protesters, mainly women, children and young men, were burning tires, blocking roads with stones and logs, and shouting anti-Ethiopian slogans in parts of south and north of the conflict-wracked city, witnesses said.

Sporadic gunfire was heard in the city, and several shells could be seen flying through the air. It was unclear where they landed, or who fired them. At least one person was reported dead.

Witnesses said thousands of civilians have fled the city in the past three days, adding to an estimated 325,000 people who have been displaced by violence this year.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when rival warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other. A transitional government, formed in 2004 in Nairobi, seized control of Mogadishu in December with help from Ethiopian troops, ousting the Islamic Courts Union, an alliance of religious leaders. Now Islamic fighters, some of whom the United States accuses of having links to terrorism, have shifted underground, attacking government and Ethiopian troops with roadside bombs, mortars and other guerrilla tactics.

The U.S. military assisted in ousting the Islamic courts, launching airstrikes against suspected terrorists and sharing intelligence with Ethiopian soldiers.

The lawlessness has extended off Somalia’s coast, where pirates have attacked more than two dozen vessels this year, including a Japanese chemical tanker and its 23 crew seized late Sunday in the Gulf of Eden, a global maritime watchdog said Monday.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.

SAN FRANCISCO - After shooing away Oracle’s $6.7 billion takeover bid, business-software maker BEA Systems dug in its heels for a potentially disruptive battle with its largest shareholder, activist investor Carl Icahn.

In a letter sent to Icahn on Monday, BEA’s board reiterated its willingness to sell the San Jose, Calif.-based company for $21 a share - about $1.5 billion more than Oracle offered before retracting the bid late Sunday.

BEA’s board hinted at talks with other suitors, assuring Icahn “we are currently exploring ways to maximize shareholder value, including the possible sale of the company.”

Other possible suitors

Analysts have listed IBM and Hewlett-Packard as the two candidates besides Oracle most likely to try to buy BEA and its line of “middleware” - coding that helps business-software applications interact with databases.

Both IBM and HP have declined to comment on the speculation.

But Monday’s letter didn’t respond to Icahn’s demands that the company hold a public auction, then allow shareholders to decide whether any of the bids should be accepted.

In a Friday letter, Icahn threatened to wield his 13.2 percent stake to lead a shareholder rebellion aimed at ousting BEA’s directors unless the board budges from its $21-a-share asking price. Icahn didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

The rebuff of Oracle has driven BEA’s stock down from a recent five-year high of $18.94 reached earlier this month. The shares finished Monday unchanged at $16.50.

By holding its ground, BEA finds itself at odds with two billionaires - Icahn and Oracle Chief Executive Larry Ellison.

Icahn began pushing for a sale last month, shortly after divulging he had accumulated a large stake in the slumping company.

Ellison, who has been on the takeover prowl for three years, pounced on BEA nearly three weeks ago with an offer that represented a 25 percent premium above BEA’s stock price of $13.62 before the bid was revealed.

BEA quickly rejected Oracle’s bid as inadequate, an opinion Icahn initially shared before lashing out at the board last week for not doing more to keep Oracle’s offer on the table.

With BEA refusing to discuss any offer below $21 a share, Oracle retracted its $6.7 billion bid Sunday and warned it might not be back.

Oracle strategy

But many analysts believe Oracle is just biding its time in hopes of bagging BEA as cheaply as possible. Analysts have estimated Oracle could pay $20 to $27 a share and still make money off the deal.

Ellison has argued BEA isn’t worth more than $6.7 billion because its sales have sagged and its books have been muddled by accounting problems caused by the mishandling of employee stock options.

For now, Oracle appears to be encouraging Icahn to try to remove BEA’s directors.

“If the BEA shareholders are unhappy with the behavior of the BEA board, it is up to those shareholders, not Oracle, to take the appropriate action,” Oracle said after ending its bid.

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. - Daniel Chopra was born in Sweden, raised in India by grandparents and had to fly overseas to buy golf balls. He seemingly spent time on every pro tour imaginable, and those stops flashed through his mind as he stood over the final putt.

“You never know how you’re going to react,” the 33-year-old Chopra said.

He reacted just fine - and posted his first PGA Tour victory.

Chopra reclaimed the outright lead with a birdie at the par-5 16th hole Monday morning and held on to capture the oft-delayed Ginn sur Mer Classic, edging Fredrik Jacobson and Shigeki Maruyama by one stroke at Tesoro Club.

“It’s amazing,” Chopra said. “It’s something that I’ve dreamed about for a long time.”

Chopra closed with a 2-under-par 71 and finished at 19-under 273, becoming the 12th first-time winner on Tour this season.

The victory came in Chopra’s 133rd career start, and the $810,000 winner’s check pushed his career earnings to just shy of $5 million.

He saw a four-shot lead over his nearest pursuers evaporate as darkness fell on the course Sunday night, but returned to compete in the morning and found a way to prevail.

It was hard to tell who was happier: Chopra in victory, or Maruyama in defeat.

The Japanese player left with a good consolation prize - a Tour card for next season. His tie for second earned him $396,000, vaulting him from 137th to 103rd on the money list with one tournament remaining, meaning he will finish among the top 125 and have full playing privileges next season.

Not bad, considering he was at No. 208 on the list earlier this year.

“This year was really hard, the most difficult year in eight years for myself,” said Maruyama, who had been in the top 80 on the money list in each of his first seven years on Tour. “I’m really happy.”

He might skip this week’s Children’s Miracle Network Classic at the Disney courses near Orlando, Fla. “Bye, bye, Disney,” Maruyama said.

Jacobson’s finish was his best in 96 starts on Tour.

Dicky Pride (64) was fourth at 16 under, earning $216,000 - the second-biggest check of his career, $9,000 shy of what he made for winning the 1994 St. Jude Classic.

Michael Putnam of University Place tied for 45th at 4 under and is 157th on the money list. Jeff Gove of Seattle tied for 55th at 2 under and is 153rd in earnings.

Chopra, Maruyama and Jacobson entered the morning at 18 under, with Chopra having three holes left and the others with two. That figured to give Chopra an edge, since his first hole Monday was the par-5 16th, the easiest on the course this week. He birdied it for the fourth time.

Note

• American Michelle Wie, who has yet to fully recover from wrist injuries, will not compete against men next month in the Japan Golf Tour’s Casio Open in Kochi.