Family Matters

For all their resilience, families are complex and complicated, and nowhere are the fault lines more visible than when family matters come into contact with the judicial system.Maryland courts rarely give judges and administrative personnel the time they need or allow them a chance to develop expertise in family law. Moreover, anyone who has gone through the thorny process of getting a divorce in Maryland, or contested custody of a child, or even watched the process of setting support payments knows that domestic cases get painfully short shrift in a court system clogged with criminal cases that must get priority.

The president of Calvert Hall College High School announced Friday that he will step down from the post on June 30. In a statement to the Calvert Hall community, the school's president of four years, Thomas Zoppo, said the decision came after "prayerful discernment," and said his resignation is for "personal and professional reasons. " "I am looking forward to an extended retreat and more time to actively attend to family matters," Zoppo wrote. "Know that you will continue to remain in my thoughts and prayers.

He's so unhip that now he's cool: Steve Urkel, a regular in-your-face kind of guy. When he laughs, he snorts. When he talks, he whines in a nasal, grating voice.When he arrives, he intrudes, with his pants riding up his skinny waist and his mouth working overtime, popping out sassy, if not annoying, rejoinders.Who, you may wonder, is Steve Urkel and why should anyone care? Played by the 14-year-old actor Jhaleel White, Steve Urkel is the geek-next-door who has grabbed the public fancy and catapulted "Family Matters," the ABC Friday night sitcom about a black police officer and his extended family, into a hit that ranks frequently among the top five shows in prime time.

Major League Baseball announced today that Joe Torre has stepped down as executive vice president of baseball operations to join a prospective ownership group that will be among those competing to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers. So there's a high-profile opening in the commissioner's office. And around here, that means one thing: Andy MacPhail's name will be floated as a candidate. In fact, within minutes of the official announcement, at least one writer mentioned MacPhail as a replacement possibility.

THERE IS NO parent-child scene more common than the one in which the child hotly declares that he wants to live under the more generous rule of a different mother. This demand is almost always followed by the mother bitterly granting her permission. "Fine," she will say. "Go ahead. I'll help you pack. Just see if life is so much better in that family." These trades are rarely consummated in real life, but television is not real life and it looks like some kids will get their wish on ABC. The network is currently shooting an adaptation of the hit British seriesWife Swap, though it will have the slightly less swingin' title of The Swap for American TV. Mothers of wildly different circumstances will trade families for 10 days or two weeks, including diets, child-rearing and housekeeping standards, and cameras will be there to record the fallout.

Elaine Cole, a single mother of four who lives in Baltimore, worries about her 8-year-old son, Sir'Dionte, because he doesn't like to read. But Cole works full time and can't help her youngest child with his homework as much as she would like. That's why she jumped at the chance to enroll Sir'Dionte, 10-year-old Sir'Mourtinay and 13-year-old Myeisha in the Maryland Humanities Council's "Family Matters" reading program. Every Tuesday through this week, the Coles and several other west-side families have gathered at the Walbrook branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library to discuss important themes.

What's the funniest thing that happened in school today?" My father considered this a foolproof conversational gambit and would spring it on my siblings and me every evening during dinner. It wasn't a rhetorical question, either. He expected all five of us to amuse my mother and him with a story and no mumbling, not to mention self-pity, was allowed. "Enunciate from the gut!" he'd command, if we didn't speak up with sufficient gusto. I thought about Dad, dining and declaiming, while reading a recent survey by The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA)

Patrick Wyatt enjoys being a bum. The 15-year-old loves to kick back on the couch, grab his trusty remote control and watch really bad television shows. It doesn't even matter what it is. A soap opera or "Sesame Street." Anything will do. Whenever he musters up the energy, he drags himself to his computer, where he plays video games the rest of the day. And by the time "The Three Stooges" signs off the air at 11 p.m., he's in bed. He emerges 11 or 12 hours later, and the whole routine starts over again.

The president of Calvert Hall College High School announced Friday that he will step down from the post on June 30. In a statement to the Calvert Hall community, the school's president of four years, Thomas Zoppo, said the decision came after "prayerful discernment," and said his resignation is for "personal and professional reasons. " "I am looking forward to an extended retreat and more time to actively attend to family matters," Zoppo wrote. "Know that you will continue to remain in my thoughts and prayers.

Major League Baseball announced today that Joe Torre has stepped down as executive vice president of baseball operations to join a prospective ownership group that will be among those competing to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers. So there's a high-profile opening in the commissioner's office. And around here, that means one thing: Andy MacPhail's name will be floated as a candidate. In fact, within minutes of the official announcement, at least one writer mentioned MacPhail as a replacement possibility.

A Baltimore woman has obtained a temporary restraining order against Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs after filing a domestic violence complaint, according to online court records. On Friday, a court commissioner ordered Suggs to stay away from the woman and her home, pending a hearing this Friday. The order was granted after the woman, identified as Candace Williams, 26, filed a domestic violence complaint in Baltimore District Court. "I won't have anything to say," Suggs, 27, told The Baltimore Sun on Saturday.

Night of Thunder by Stephen Hunter Simon & Schuster / 304 pages / $26 With his white hair and unsteady gait, 63-year-old Bob Lee Swagger seems like a bumbling old man, certainly no match for the armed robbers and murderers he finds in NASCAR country. But in Stephen Hunter's latest thriller, Night of Thunder (in stores Sept. 23), nothing is what it seems. Known for his cinematic language, action-packed suspense and multifaceted characters, Hunter delivers all three in his latest. Formerly of The Baltimore Sun, Hunter, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post film critic and best-selling author, writes page-turners pumped with muscular verbs as in "It was Iron Mountain, and 421 slashed crookedly up its angry hump."

Michelle Stone worries about her two children once they leave school even though they are enrolled in an after-school program. Working parents like Stone should not be the only ones concerned about what their children are doing after school. A new study calls on employers to care, and to implement programs and policies to alleviate such parental anxiety among workers. Catalyst, a nonprofit research organization that works to expand opportunities for women at work, and the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, examined what they have coined PCAST, or parental concern about after-school time.

Pity the poor florist. Amend that. Pity the poor father-to-be on a budget. These days, giving a mere bouquet to the mother of your child just won't cut it. No sirree. Hang outside many maternity wards and you'll see a high-end trend in action. Many new moms are going home with two bundles of joy -- one in a blanket, one in a little velvet box. Given traditionally after the baby is born, so-called push presents -- stacked 18K gold rings studded with birthstones; baby shoe charms drizzled with diamonds; gem-encrusted timepieces mounted on pink or blue croc-skin bands -- are increasingly the yuppie rage.

You know there is something different about this children's entertainer -- something besides the fact that he is pushing 70 -- when the Kinderman opens the act he's been perfecting for more than two decades. "We're gonna have a good time. We're gonna disturb the peace," he sings to the bright tones of a Casio keyboard as toddlers, preschoolers and parents sway before him. "And if we have too much fun, they're going to call the po-lice!" No matter how many times John "Kinderman" Taylor intones his signature line with its unique Baltimore pronunciation -- at birthday parties and malls, in senior centers and classrooms -- it never fails to draw a laugh.

Many young girls feel self-conscious and awkward about their developing bodies and aren't quite sure how to dress. For some, though, finding clothes has been particularly complicated in the last few years as America's retailers copied the trashier-than-thou fashions worn by celebrities such as Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera and produced sexy styles of low-rise pants, shrunken T-shirts and flimsy camisoles. Claire Maisel, 15, a sophomore at Liberty High School in Eldersburg, groaned in exasperation when asked what types of clothing are popular among her female classmates.

Michelle Stone worries about her two children once they leave school even though they are enrolled in an after-school program. Working parents like Stone should not be the only ones concerned about what their children are doing after school. A new study calls on employers to care, and to implement programs and policies to alleviate such parental anxiety among workers. Catalyst, a nonprofit research organization that works to expand opportunities for women at work, and the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University, examined what they have coined PCAST, or parental concern about after-school time.

Shirley is back minus Laverne. And comedian Doug E. Doug makes it to prime time.ABC has a couple of new sitcoms for its kids-and-teens Friday-night lineup debuting tonight. Neither is going to seem side-splittingly funny or even all that interesting to most adult eyes.But ABC's hit Friday-night shows, like "Step By Step" and "Family Matters," are not made for adult eyes. They're made for kids who watch and wish by the millions that they had families like those portrayed in the shows."Getting By," at 9 tonight on WJZ (Channel 13)

Decorating for back to college used to be a no-brainer. All you had to do was buy a new bedspread, sheets, pillows and a plastic bucket in which to carry your toiletries to the communal bathroom. Not anymore. Everyone is competing for your back-to-dorm dollar -- from Ty Pennington's TYU Back to Campus Collection at Sears to Room Solutions at design-savvy Target. Even Kmart is trying to generate hipster hype with the 0-60 Collection, a brand kicked off just in time for back to school. These collections join the offerings from typical spots you shop in for dorm decor, such as Linens 'N Things, Bed Bath & Beyond and the Container Store.

When teachers told Cosette Nickles a decade ago that her son didn't belong in gifted-and-talented math because he didn't do extra work, she didn't push it -- even though the Perry Hall mother suspected the school was wrong. But when her youngest child wasn't flagged for the program several years later, Nickles appealed the decision, and won. She had learned from her son's experience that if her daughter wasn't doing algebra in middle school with the higher-level students, she might not make it to advanced-placement calculus in high school.