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"Country Bobby" Lowry is the guardian of Walter Pierce Community Park in Washington, D.C. He's been keeping an eye on the park for almost three decades and knows more about it than any city official. He knows the trees, the plants and the kids. In the first of four stories about the park, Katie Davis introduces us to this transplanted farm boy who never takes short cuts in his work.

The concept of "home economics" covers a lot of territory: It encompasses how we cook, eat, clean, make clothing and furniture, raise children -- pretty much everything involved with maintaining a home. NPR's Robert Siegel talks with the co-creator of a huge online archive of more than 1,500 books on the subject.

The Dutch parliament agrees to send 1,100 soldiers to an Iraqi province. The Green and Socialist parties oppose the deployment, as did a part of the Labor party, which said the war in Iraq is still ongoing and the Netherlands should stay out of it. Gregory Crouch reports.

Guest host Jacki Lyden is joined by Randy Cohen, writer of "The Ethicist" column in The New York Times Magazine. This week, they discuss the case of a woman whose former husband is demanding that she refund alimony he paid out to her in excess of the amount she was due.

Eitan Gorlin's latest film, The Holy Land, won the Grand Jury Best Feature Film prize at the 2002 Slamdance Film Festival. It's a love story, loosely based on his novella Mike's Place, A Jerusalem Diary, and his experiences as a bartender at Mike's Place, a popular bar on the Tel Aviv waterfront where Jews, Muslims, internationals, atheists and devouts congregate. Since the making of the film, Mike's Place was the site of a suicide bombing.

In December 1903, the Wright brothers gave wing to the idea that man could fly. Aviation has come along way in the past century, but some pilots still prefer to take to the skies in ultralight planes not much bigger than the one used in the original flight at Kitty Hawk. Hal Cannon of the Western Folklife Center profiles maverick ultralight pilot Arty Trost.

In some parts of the country, it wouldn't be summer without that fried dough treat, funnel cake. And for one man, who's known in some circles as the Funnel Cake King, they've helped make the American Dream come true. Frank Wilmer, a.k.a. Apple Frankie, talks with NPR's Vikki Valentine about his career in the funnel cake business.

In Part III of a series on how people in other countries view America since the war on terrorism, NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to Josef Joffe, editor of the German newspaper, Die Zeit, in Hamburg. NPR's Renee Montagne talks to Francois Delahaye, general manager of the Plaza Athenee, a luxury hotel in Paris.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan comments on Vivian Gornick's recent admission (which she has since denied) that she had invented some scenes and conversations in her memoir.

A car bomb explodes outside the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad, killing at least 11 people. Secretary of State Colin Powell promises the Jordanian government that the U.S. will step up security around the compound. Elsewhere in the Iraqi capital, at least two U.S. soldiers are wounded in a gun battle. Hear NPR's Anne Garrels.