Thirst

MOUNT AIRY has long been of two minds, at least. Split between Carroll and Frederick counties, and within a mile of Howard and Montgomery counties, the town has good reason for its cosmopolitan outlook. But therein lies the basis for a conflicted view of its future: Stay a small town, or build it and let them come. The municipality has struggled in its decisions as a new exurban bedroom community. Finally bursting at the seams from rapid population growth and subdivision expansion, the community this month called a timeout.

Washington. -- Not only is America's military shrinking, but so is the industrial base that supports it. What may be needed, for want of a better term, is an industrial national guard, a pool of key production workers who could be mobilized to re-energize defense production in an emergency.''We are losing an average of 20,000 defense workers per month,'' said Larry Skibbie, president of the American Defense Preparedness Association. A retired Army general, he heads an organization that was created as a result of the poor state of America's industrial preparedness before World War I, a tale that ominously seems to be playing out again.

PHILADELPHIA - Like so many beavers, earlier Pennsylvanians rarely passed up a chance to throw a dam across any river, creek or stream they happened across. But now that zeal is running in the other direction, as the state and private partners have been removing more dams every year - restoring stream flow, improving conditions for prized sport fish and eliminating potential killers. "Pennsylvania is leading the nation in the effort to remove dams," said Eric Eckl, spokesman for American Rivers, a private Washington-based nonprofit group that is a partner with the state Fish and Boat Commission and Department of Environmental Protection.

Though the LPGA schedule might remain in rebuilding mode for another year or two, it certainly has no shortage of majors. The tour announced a fifth major will join the lineup in 2013, when the Evian Masters completes an overhaul that encompasses a new name, date and course. The tournament, renamed The Evian, will be in mid-September as the season's last major. By then, Evian Golf Club in Bains, France, will have completed a redesign, including amphitheater seating along its final four holes.

The birdhouse has gotten super-sized. A variety of fowl are homesteading inside big-box megastores, enticed by the safe environs and possibly free food - in the process enhancing the experience of shoppers on the prowl for gas grills or lawn spreaders. "There's a nest up there you can see," says Rachel Woodall, nodding toward a glob of grass and twigs wedged between metal roof rafters at the Home Depot store in Timonium. "And there's a bird on top of the light fixture!" Sure enough.

Perhaps you remember when Dr. Doom conquered the world. Or perhaps you don't. Sadly enough, even in this day and age, not everyone is comic book literate. Suffice it to say, then, that back in the 1980s, Marvel Comics published a graphic novel in which the villainous Victor von Doom achieved his dearest goal: to rule the world. And he made it a better place, too. Famine ended, the stock market climbed, crime fell, occupying armies withdrew, racial oppression vanished. Doom turned the planet into a paradise, and the only cost of his beneficence was free will.

Your average college student uses up many yellow magic markers underlining every other sentence in 2-inch-thick chemistry textbooks. So it's easy to understand how such tedious study habits could prompt a collegiate dude to toss aside the books every now and then and toss down some brewskis.How else does one explain the large quantity of beer being downed by the young and the restless at Stxx Bar & Grill? Gauging by a recent visit, it would probably be more efficient to simply install hoses behind the bar and shower everybody in the vicinity with draft beer.

CHICAGO -- The fragile flower that is soccer in the United States is putting down roots in a pair of queenly mansions in the historic district just south of Chicago's Loop.Here, at 1801-11 South Prairie Ave., turn-of-the-century home to some of Chicago's most prominent families, the United States Soccer Federation is establishing its headquarters.There are 35 employees at work administering every aspect of the sport, from training and registering officials to organizing national teams on seven different levels.

Is there life after growth in Maryland? Are the nearly 6 million people who live here now more important than the 1.1 million projected to come here by 2025? Is the goal of land-use planning to make our communities better, not just less bad? Does a "sustainable" environment include all species - not just ours? Instead of shooting all the lawyers, should we gun for economists? "Yes" to all of these should seem obvious to anyone who has worried about the quality of life around Chesapeake country.

The Historian By Elizabeth Kostova. Little Brown, 656 pages, $25.95. A crucifix, a tiny silver pistol with matching bullets and dagger, a head of garlic. These accoutrements are viewed by the heroine of The Historian in a tiny rare books chamber at Oxford University in 1974. The vampire hunting kit dates to the 17th century. Our heroine -- unnamed in classic gothic fiction style -- is just shy of 18. Her American father, Paul -- one of the historians of the title -- may or may not be a vampire slayer.