American Life

THREE PLAYS.August Wilson.University of Pittsburgh.318 pages. $24.95.The word "breakfast" got him started.August Wilson has been in love with words ever since he discovered that "breakfast" was two words. "I thought, 'This could go on forever,' " he once explained.Forever is a long time. But Mr. Wilson thinks in broad terms. He is halfway through a cycle of plays chronicling the black experience in 20th century America decade by decade.So far, the plays have fared just fine. The first four to be produced all made it to Broadway and the most recent of those, "The Piano Lesson," won the Pulitzer Prize.

Decisions, decisions.Variable annuities sold by insurance companies offer investment return, tax deferral of your gains and death benefits in one easy package. But that doesn't make them simple. Average investors must keep in mind that variable annuities are not all alike, that some portfolios can be rather volatile and that one's investment horizon should be long-term.Even within a single insurance firm's variable annuity offerings are a number of stock or fixed-rate choices. Doing homework is crucial.

TWENTY TEEN-AGERS visiting Glen Burnie are finding communication a breeze -- despite the fact that English is not their native tongue, and they live an ocean away. The students are from Germany and arrived last week for an exchange program that will give them an up-close look at American life. They are staying with the families of students enrolled in the German language program at Glen Burnie High School. The German students, most of whom have been studying English since fourth grade, are getting plenty of practice here.

Is there another sport that can compare to bowling?Age, sex, weight, height -- none of them make any difference to anyone who wants to enjoy the game. It's a sport that you can enjoy any time of the year.A single team in a single summer league proves the point at the Fair Lanes Southwest duckpin lanes.With August drawing to a close,the summer leagues have just about run their course. The Thursday Night Mix and Match League is bowling its final week tonight.It's not a big league, only six teams.

ONE exchange, at least, in the debate between Ross Perot and Vice President Al Gore on the North American Free Trade Agreement should have brought a smile to the lips of the television audience. It came shortly after Mr. Gore seemed to accuse Mr. Perot of being in a position to profit personally from a defeat of the agreement. Mr. Perot snapped, "Now, do you guys ever do anything but propaganda?" To which the vice president replied, "Isn't that your business, also?"The notion that Ross Perot, who has spent tens of millions of dollars of his own money advertising his opinions on public issues, would accuse someone of engaging in propaganda was certainly laughable.

Rush Limbaugh, one of the most popular and polarizing radio personalities of recent years, has been sacked in Baltimore. WBAL-AM Radio has canceled Limbaugh's syndicated call-in talk show, saying it wants to focus on local news and hosts. It is the first station to cancel the show, which is heard in nearly 600 markets, according to Limbaugh's syndicate, Premiere Radio Networks. "In this market at this time, we just think we can perform better without him," said Jeff Beauchamp, station manager and vice president at WBAL.

The moviemakers behind "Crooked Arrows" take square aim at making a "Mighty Ducks with lacrosse. " Is it fair to say a film hits the bull's-eye when the target is so easy? You wish this movie had focused on its fresh material about lacrosse's Native American roots and ditched its dark-horse cliches. Screenwriters Todd Baird and Brad Riddell bank that familiarity will breed affection rather than contempt. They adhere so strictly to the teen-sports genre that audiences can predict every turn as the struggling team from the Sunaquot reservation in upstate New York (a fictional seventh part of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois, Nations)

Talk about a TV series keeping current with the news. Thirty seconds into the Season 2 opener of Showtime's “Homeland,” viewers see the first image of an American embassy under attack in the Middle East. At just over two minutes into the episode, American and Israeli flags are burned as U.S. officials are threatened by an angry mob surrounding the embassy compound. It's our embassy in Beirut, not the consulate in Benghazi, that's under attack. And the reason for the mob in “Homeland” is an Israeli bombing of Iranian nuclear reactors - not a film that offended Muslims or a targeted attack, depending on which administration official you are listening to at any given moment.

President Barack Obama is expected to soon nominate a new head of the Social Security Administration, replacing an incumbent appointed by his predecessor, George W. Bush, but the White House is mum on who should take the helm at the agency, which faces voluminous backlogs, potential insolvency and a raft of critics. Social Security Commissioner Michael J. Astrue's six-year term expires Jan. 19. His successor must be confirmed by the Senate, in a process that Sen. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, expects will take a couple of months from the hearings to a vote.

Quilting may have its historical roots in a practical need for warm bedcovers, but the vibrant and creative quilts that will be on display next weekend at Friends School are a tribute to the imagination of the modern-day artists who made them.When the sixth biennial show of the Baltimore Heritage Quilt Guild opens its doors Saturday, more than 100 quilts crafted by members of the organization will transform the school gymnasium into a museum."These are beautiful works of art," said Vicki Balzano, a co-chair of the show.