Home Front

Although the two Georges -- Bush and Mitchell -- are loath to admit it, the Persian Gulf war puts their differing domestic agendas on indefinite hold. Just as they pushed predictable buttons in the State of the Union address and the opposition reply, the nation's top Republican and top Democrat will continue to debate and parry with little expectation of significant action on the home front.Taxes are a case in point. To placate the GOP right wing, President Bush trotted out his dog-eared call for cuts in the capital gains tax but quickly shuffled off the issue to a study commission.

The once-yellow ribbon outside Alison Malachowski's Westminster home is old and weathered. Even before her daughter was deployed to Iraq last spring, she had already sent her son to war three times. Malachowski has monitored the news reports since the beginning of the war, but lately, from the campaign trail to the cable news networks, talk of Iraq has been dwarfed by other issues. With the election less than a week away, campaign chatter has focused on everything from domestic terrorists to taxes, from an Ohio plumber named Joe to the cost of one candidate's wardrobe.

You can tell Bill Moyers came to political and social maturity in a different era, back in the 1960s, when pointing out a problem in American society caused all sorts of people to roll up their sleeves and get to work trying to correct it.Such is not the case these days. Frustrated by the fact that some problems can never be eliminated, influenced by a general decline of confidence in the nation's ability to cure its ills and tempered by a decade in which selfishness was elevated to an admirable trait, the America of today has a different response when confronted by a problem: "So, what do you want me to do about it?

The best-received jokes at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's annual conference this summer dealt, only partly in jest, with impeaching President Bush. The speakers, who included liberal Democratic Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, railed against controversial aspects of the administration's anti-terrorism campaign: racial profiling, warrantless wiretaps, harsh interrogation techniques, Abu Ghraib, the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and even separate search lines at airports.

My husband was on vacation, but I use the term loosely. There were no suitcases or plane tickets and no cruise wear. He simply took a week off to catch up with life.He worked in the yard, laying down mysterious granules and mowing the grass and weed-whacking around the edges of everything.He cleaned the garage and carted stuff to the sidewalk for bulk trash pickup and he got the oil changed in his car.But in addition to doing all those guy things, he took my daughter to the orthodontist and kept her vaccination appointment with the doctor and remembered to take her to her piano lesson.

NEW YORK -- Early in 2004, Richard Hankin, the producer and editor of the mesmerizing Capturing the Friedmans (2003), set out to examine a subject mainstream media had largely ignored: the psychological and physical readjustment of thousands of men and women who'd lost the use of limbs or senses during military duty in Iraq. He discovered the focus for the documentary Home Front when he looked up John Melia, who established the Wounded Warrior Project to support injured veterans and their families (and was himself a vet wounded during Marine action in Somalia)

The front of our single-story, ranch-style home faces north on a fairly busy suburban street. We want as much light as possible to enter the foyer and a guest bathroom that's also situated in the front of the house. Privacy and safety are concerns, however, so how do you suggest we proceed? Most of us have similar priorities in configuring the interiors of our homes. Some of these elements fall under the broad headings of safety, privacy, light and views. One or two of these categories might seem at least potentially contradictory.

Tomorrow's annual pause to reflect on the devastating impact of AIDS marks a bittersweet development. Despite signs that the global epidemic may be leveling off, the infection rate in the United States remains stubbornly constant. A visit to Maryland today by President Bush underscores, though, that the decades-long struggle against HIV-AIDS on the home front has lost its urgency as a public health issue. In honor of the World AIDS Day observation tomorrow, Mr. Bush plans to visit a Mount Airy church that helps finance an orphanage for children in Namibia who have lost their parents to the disease.

Refresh, Refresh By Benjamin Percy Graywolf Press / 250 pages / $15 paper Benjamin Percy proved he is a remarkable storyteller with his first collection, The Language of Elk. He breaks new ground with Refresh, Refresh, which includes half a dozen short stories that are among the first to measure the human repercussions in the ongoing narrative of the Iraq war. Since the American-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, journalists have had the time to...

When Marine Lance Cpl. Jeffrey Lucey returned from his tour of duty in Iraq, he looked like a kid who lucked out. No visible wounds. But looks aren't everything. He had nightmares and nausea, drank heavily and showed other signs of depression. He threw his dog tags at his sister and called himself a "murderer." He told his sister he had "a rope and tree picked out" behind the family home. Then, in June 2004, a few months after his return, he went to the basement of his parents' home in Belchertown, Mass.

Each week, one of Charlie Conner's stories about life with his wife and four kids in Catonsville appears on the Internet. Flush with their tax refund but unable to find a baby sitter, he and his wife forgo a fancy dinner for two and take the kids out for cheeseburgers. With a tinge of regret, his wife gives up "liquid refreshment" for Lent. Spring comes with erratic weather, but flowers manage to blossom in the yard. "Actually, in a walk around the house Sunday between showers, I could count more than a dozen in various colors and some just coming up," he writes in an entry, adding, "Otherwise, the yard is a soggy mess."

Too often the users of nanoparticles assume that substances that are safe in larger dimensions will present no problems when used in nano applications. But if engineering a substance down to a few nanometers (a human hair is about 80,000 nanometers thick) gives it special features like improved electric conductivity, logic suggests it might also present new threats to the human body. Two dollar amounts are often cited in the discussion on nanotechnology safety risks. One is the projected value globally of all applications of this technology by 2015: $1 trillion.

NEW YORK -- Early in 2004, Richard Hankin, the producer and editor of the mesmerizing Capturing the Friedmans (2003), set out to examine a subject mainstream media had largely ignored: the psychological and physical readjustment of thousands of men and women who'd lost the use of limbs or senses during military duty in Iraq. He discovered the focus for the documentary Home Front when he looked up John Melia, who established the Wounded Warrior Project to support injured veterans and their families (and was himself a vet wounded during Marine action in Somalia)

A Baltimore County judge heard Round 3 yesterday in a legal battle that revolves around whether a kitchen addition planned for a Rodgers Forge rowhouse would be built in its side or backyard. To resolve the dispute, Judge Ruth A. Jakubowski must answer the seemingly simple question of which side of Brigid and Dave Wilder's brick Colonial revival house is its front. "It's all about setbacks and location, location, location," the judge said at the start of yesterday's hearing, telling both sides that she has reviewed everything in the thick court file, including photographs and architectural drawings, lawyers' briefs and transcripts of hearings.