Wall

The biggest - and least talked about - loser in the immigration "grand bargain" announced last week is the planet. The deal amounts to an environmental double-whammy: If enacted, it would cause damage through those provisions meant to increase the number of immigrants in this country and through those designed to keep immigrants out. The legislation requires the construction of 370 miles of border fencing before any liberalizing of immigration is...

Beads of blue paint freckled the legs and pink shirt of 12-year-old Schanchez Roberson as she dabbed, smeared and swirled her paint brush one day last week to create a bright blue sky on the brick wall of ABC Park's field house.The painting of the mural has been a diversion from the lazy days of television watching that Schanchez and 12 other children who go to the Samuel F. B. Morse Recreation Center had planned for the past two weeks. Each day, the group tromped to the Southwest Baltimore park to participate in one of two new, unrelated mural projects in the city this summer.

It'll never replace Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia in the ice cream marketing Hall of Fame, but workers at a Glen Burnie Friendly's restaurant hope to turn the birth of three stray kittens into a public relations bonanza.The kittens, about 8 weeks old, were found behind a hollow wall in the ladies' restroom at Friendly's in Marley Station.A customer heard their cries Sunday. A manager called the Fire Department and mall security to punch holes in the wall. An "out of order" sign was hung on the door.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- There's a nasty scab running down Raphael Wall's nose. Is it a badge of honor for the Maryland cornerback, something that would do a football macho man proud?"

A 35-year-old Westminster workman was injured fatally yesterday when a section of a decorative granite-block wall collapsed on him in Lutherville as he was digging a ditch beside it so the wall could be moved.A MedEvac helicopter flew the victim, Geoff MacLellan, of the 1200 block of Fairway Drive, to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead.The accident occurred about 9:30 a.m. at the entrance to Selsed House, the former Marburg estate, in the 1100 block of W. Seminary Ave.Authorities said Mr. MacLellan was digging a ditch beside the semi-circular wall so cables could be passed beneath it to a crane which would then hoist it onto a truck.

New York. -- The last time I saw Berlin, less than a year ago, it was pleasantly boring. The wall and the tension were down, the feeling that perhaps tomorrow we die was gone, and the ''capital'' of a unified Germany was coming back down to earth after more than 40 years as a ''flashpoint'' or ''tinderbox,'' the place where World War III would begin.So President Clinton was in the wrong place at the wrong time last week to get what he wanted (and needs): a flashy rhetorical foreign-policy triumph that might have reminded Americans of the dangerous excitement when President Kennedy looked over the wall between West Berlin and East Berlin in 1963, or even the lesser moment in 1987 when President Reagan shouted that Soviet President Gorbachev should tear down the wall.

A 35-year-old workman was injured fatally yesterday when a section of a decorative granite-block wall collapsed on him in Lutherville as he was digging a ditch beside it so that the wall could be moved.A MedEvac helicopter flew the victim, Geoff MacLellan of the 1200 block of Fairway Drive, Westminster, to Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where he was pronounced dead.The accident occurred about 9:30 a.m. at the entrance to Selsed House, the former Marburg estate, in the 1100 block of W. Seminary Ave.Authorities said Mr. MacLellan was digging a ditch beside the semicircular wall so that cables could be passed beneath it to a crane which would then hoist the wall onto a truck.

Who would ever think a few Jersey barriers could cause such a fuss?Since last May, concrete barriers have blocked southbound traffic at the intersection of York and Joppa roads and Allegheny Avenue. The Great Wall of Towson, as some dubbed it, was proposed by Councilman Douglas Riley to ease traffic congestion at the heart of the Baltimore County seat.Local community groups liked the wall. Area retailers hated it, claiming it deterred potential customers. It did seem a strange suggestion coming from Mr. Riley, a self-proclaimed business advocate.

COLLEGE PARK -- Versatility isn't always a blessing.Just ask Raphael Wall, a junior from Wilde Lake High who plugged a number of holes for Maryland in 1992. He was the superback in three games, played in the secondary in four others, and was the team's top kickoff returner.He wasn't satisfied with his performance on either side of the line, but Wall predicts that the second half of his Terps' career will be more settled -- and productive -- than the first."Let's say there's been uncertainty about my role here," Wall said.

K

Man gets 35 years for killing corrections officer A Northeast Baltimore man was sentenced yesterday to 35 years in prison for killing a corrections officer in an armed robbery in May 2007. Brandon Wall, 22, of the 2000 block of Hillenwood Road, had pleaded guilty to felony first-degree murder for killing Lt. Perry Brooks, 48, as he sat in his 2004 Nissan Altima in the rear driveway of his home, one block away from where Wall lived. The killing was not related to Brooks' work in the Central Booking and Intake Center.

We're building a modern-style home that will include a fireplace. It's not the standard kind that's placed against a wall but will instead be situated between the living room and dining room and visible from both. What sort of mantel would be appropriate with such a fireplace? The type of fireplace you're describing is seldom accompanied by any mantel at all. In keeping with its minimalist styling, there are usually no decorative or framing elements around the firebox. Slate, marble and tile are the materials typically used on the surrounding wall.

On May 25, 2008 MR. WALL passed away. A private service will be held at Garrison Forest Veterans Cemetery.

Margaret Jane Wall, a registered nurse who had been assistant director of nursing at Union Memorial Hospital for two decades, died Sunday of lung cancer at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The Baldwin resident was 77. Margaret Jane Shelton was born and raised in Moores Springs, N.C., and graduated in 1947 from Nancy Reynolds High School, where she was a star player on the girls basketball team. She earned her nursing degree in 1951 from the old City Memorial Hospital, now known as Forsyth Medical Center, in Winston-Salem, N.C. After she married Hugh B. Wall Sr., a Westinghouse Electric Corp.

In the fall of 1972, Baltimore natives Jack Bergman, Ralph Robinson and Ricky Rucker served together aboard the USS Newport News. As they traveled through the Gulf of Tonkin, their ship's second gun turret malfunctioned. Hundreds of pounds of gunpowder ignited, killing 20 crew members and injuring dozens more. Neither Mr. Bergman, Mr. Robinson, nor Mr. Rucker had reached his 21st birthday before they were burned to death that October morning. They became Baltimore's 395th, 396th and 397th sons to die in Vietnam.

Allowing anyone to leave artwork on the wall of the Wall Art Gallery in Ogden, Utah, looked like a great idea on paper. It just didn't look so good on the wall. In an effort to tap the city's grass-roots creative spirit, the gallery let local artists use its outdoor facade as a canvas for freewheeling self-expression. Now the wall will be whitewashed. Some are crying censorship. Most people simply see it as "taking out the trash." Art in public places should have artistic merit. - Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City)

The biggest - and least talked about - loser in the immigration "grand bargain" announced last week is the planet. The deal amounts to an environmental double-whammy: If enacted, it would cause damage through those provisions meant to increase the number of immigrants in this country and through those designed to keep immigrants out. The legislation requires the construction of 370 miles of border fencing before any liberalizing of immigration is...

Frigid winter weekends keep you in the house, where you end up staring at the same old walls. Then you notice that the paint on those walls is chipped. And then you decide to "touch them up." Before you can say "home improvement," there goes your weekend, and your sanity. Last weekend, I got sucked into two such projects, touching up painted walls in the kitchen and an upstairs hallway. One wall was a satiny light brown, the other a dark shade of blue. As a painter, I was one for two. The success story, the light-brown wall - I think the official color is Antique White - is gorgeous.

There are no wallflowers among the hippest cover-ups today. Walls are taking on patterns that are big, bold, color-crazy and modern, although sometimes rooted in traditional design. Some trend-spotters say this signals a return to more lavish, over-the-top and possibly even cluttered interiors. It may be a reaction to of-the-moment minimalism that seems to pervade design magazines and retail catalogs. What's different about this renewed craving to put up paper, something we haven't seen a rush to do since the 1980s, is that even some diehard modernists dig it. The pattern may be startling.

The stock market has always been a rough ride for investors. For every boom to thrill us there is a bust to send us scrambling for the exits. Yet today, perhaps more than ever, average Main Street Americans are riding the Wall Street whirlwind without much of a safety net. Between our 401(k) and IRA retirement funds, our 529 plans and brokerage accounts, there are bonds and indexes to ponder, hedges and commodities to analyze. What's needed is a clear-headed adviser to give some reason to this chaos.