CHRISTMAS SHOPPING begins, the wags tell us, the day after Thanksgiving. Now that thanks have been given, what better time to come up with my Christmas list for 2002? My list is a short one.

These are the gifts I want Homeboy Claus, that great African-American counterpart to Santa Claus, to bring me.

1. I want some legitimate outrage among conservatives. You know, the kind that conservatives were supposed to show when John Ashcroft butted his nose into Maryland affairs and decided sniper suspects John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo would be tried in Virginia?

Have you heard, yet, one conservative - yes, those same folks who rant about an intrusive federal government and state's rights and yadda, yadda, yadda - utter even a mumble about the feds whisking the suspects away during interrogation by local cops and holding them in federal custody?

Muhammad and Malvo were caught in Maryland and here is where they should be tried.

Ashcroft wanted them tried in Virginia, where both would be eligible for the death penalty.

So Ashcroft, who some critics identified - inaccurately, it's now obvious- as a neo-Confederate, whisked them off to Virginia and flagrantly violated the 10th Amendment of the Constitution. (Where are George Wallace and Ross Barnett when they're really needed?)

Don't get me wrong. I'm as much for executing convicted murderers as the next heartless conservative.

But the fact that Maryland has a death penalty moratorium and a law preventing the execution of juveniles falls under the category of tough luck.

Muhammad and Malvo should be tried here, and let the death penalty chips fall where they may. Or, may not.

2. I want a better sense of priority, perspective and proportion, from all of us.

Return with me to those thrilling times 12 days ago when Baltimore police raided a North Baltimore home. Lewis Cauthorne has been charged with wounding four police officers in an operation that netted a staggering six bags of marijuana, an ounce of cocaine, a scale and a stolen handgun.

While some were cheering and others were disparaging this milestone in law enforcement, a debate arose as to whether Cauthorne thought he was shooting at burglars or at cops.

Residents of the house said police never identified themselves. The officers say that they did.

Anybody want to jump in here and say, "You put the lives of four officers in jeopardy for six lousy bags of marijuana, an ounce of cocaine, a scale and a stolen handgun?"

Cops could recover more dope on an impromptu walk-through of any college campus in the region.

And when I say "you," let's make it clear whom I'm talking about. It's not Baltimore Police Commissioner Ed Norris. It's not Mayor Martin O'Malley. "You" means you, me, all of us who insist on waging a drug war that has private homes being raided while college kids get stoned out of their minds on the drug of their choice.

The drug wars will never hit the nation's campuses. We'll always take the easy way out and send cops to East Baltimore or Norfolk Avenue or Pimlico or West Baltimore.

We'll grab the small-time punks off the street corners and never ask where and how those college kids are getting all that dope. Then we'll dust off our hands, poke out our chests and say, "Look what we did."

Absolutely nothing, is what we did. Baltimore faces a major public health crisis of heroin addiction and HIV infection, and we're wasting our resources chasing down six bags of marijuana. Quite a set of priorities, no?

3. I want a change in the culture of this city.

Norris put it best when, after canning several top police commanders last year, he said a "culture of vengeance" was extant in the department.

He could have added the same culture runs rampant through the city and may be the reason why it's so hard to keep the number of homicides down.

Last Saturday, Detective Thomas Newman was shot to death outside Joe's in Dundalk. Police say revenge was the motive. Newman testified last year against some hoodlums who shot him in Cherry Hill.

The story goes that, in the Cherry Hill incident, thugs were looking to pay back Newman for an earlier altercation.

It seems Newman's murder was yet more payback. The notion that someone would wait a year to shoot a cop for revenge should inspire incredulity, but it's the unlikelihood of the motive that makes it ring so true.

This is Baltimore, after all, where vengeance is our culture.