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Open a design magazine or turn on a home decorating show these days, and it's clear: Midcentury modern is hot. It first showed up in the 1950s and '60s — think low-slung sofas, egg-shaped chairs and the set of Mad Men. My first midcentury modern find was a dining set I bought on Craigslist for $75. There was something about the clean lines and gentle curves of the wooden chairs that got me. I saw the name Drexel Declaration stamped under the table, Googled it and found a world of people in love with 60-year-old furniture.

I quickly realized $75 was a steal.

"It's blazing hot. It really is," says Eddy Whitely, a midcentury modern furniture dealer in Baltimore. "People that are into it are into it."

So who are those people? Let's start with who they aren't: baby boomers. According to Stacey Greer, Whitely's business partner, "They just don't want to look at it anymore, they want something different. They grew up with it and their parents had bought it, so they want anything but that. It's definitely more of a younger, urban look."

'People Tend To Like What Their Grandparents Liked'

Martina Alhbrandt loves finding and fixing up vintage pieces, things her parents would call dated or tacky. She's drawn to the simplicity of midcentury design. (She even keeps a blog called My Mid-Century Modern Life.) She describes the style as "clean and functional" and says it reminds her of the values of her grandparents' generation.

"My grandparents were very frugal," Alhbrandt says. "They worked hard and they bought things with cash. And if something were to break, like the drawer of a dresser were to break, they would fix it. They wouldn't just throw it away and go to Wal-Mart and buy a new one."

According to Bobbye Tigerman, a curator of design at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, nostalgia is a big part of what's driving the trend. "People tend to like what their grandparents liked and reject the taste of their parents," she says.

Architecture

Nature And Design Meet In Lautner's Modern Homes

As the American military winds down its efforts in Afghanistan, grand plans for nation building are giving way to limited, practical steps: building up the Afghan forces and denying the Taliban key terrain, especially the approaches to Kabul.

About an hour south of the capital Kabul, one Green Beret team returned to a village where American forces had pulled out.

Lt. Col. Brad Moses, who was in the Sayed Abad district four years ago, wandered around the government center and expressed disappointment at the scene.

Glass is shattered at some buildings. The roof of one has caved in. Across the yard are stacks of scorched and twisted cars. All this damage is the work of a truck bomb in 2011 that killed five Afghans and injured nearly 80 U.S. soldiers. After that, the American forces pulled out.

"This was the agriculture building over here, and the women's affairs and all the line ministers that were working out of here," Moses says. "It was nice ... the glass fronts, that was all civil affairs projects put in there, the flag pole, demonstrating their resolve."

The small team of Americans here now is riding around in all-terrain vehicles and large armored trucks, wearing body armor and carrying weapons. One of the Afghan government workers greets them.

Enlarge image i

As the American military winds down its efforts in Afghanistan, grand plans for nation building are giving way to limited, practical steps: building up the Afghan forces and denying the Taliban key terrain, especially the approaches to Kabul.

About an hour south of the capital Kabul, one Green Beret team returned to a village where American forces had pulled out.

Lt. Col. Brad Moses, who was in the Sayed Abad district four years ago, wandered around the government center and expressed disappointment at the scene.

The glass is shattered at some buildings. The roof of one has caved in. Across the yard are stacks of scorched and twisted cars. All this damage is the work of a truck bomb in 2011 that killed five Afghans and injured nearly 80 U.S. soldiers. After that, the American forces pulled out.

"This was the agriculture building over here, and the women's affairs and all the line ministers that were working out of here," Moses said. "It was nice ... the glass fronts, that was all civil affairs projects put in there, the flag pole, demonstrating their resolve."

The small team of Americans here now is riding around in all terrain vehicles and large armored trucks, wearing body armor and carrying weapons. One of the Afghan government workers greets them.

Enlarge image i

Almost all of the federal government's actions against terrorism — from drone strikes to the prison at Guantanamo Bay — are authorized by a single law: the Authorization for Use of Military Force.

Congress passed it just after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Now, President Obama says he wants to revise the law, and ultimately repeal it.

The AUMF is one of the most unusual laws Congress has passed this century. It's less than a page long. The vote was nearly unanimous. And it went from concept to law in exactly one week.

It authorizes the president to go after the groups that planned, authorized, committed or aided the Sept. 11 attacks, or any groups and countries that harbored them. In broad terms, it justified invading Afghanistan. But two presidents have applied it around the world.

"It was vast in the powers that it gave," says Karen Greenberg, who runs the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School. "And it was somewhat vast in its definition of the enemy. However, in many ways, that definition has expanded in the interim years."

Presidents Bush and Obama have used AUMF authority to kill terrorists in Somalia, Yemen and other places far from the Afghan battlefield.

More On Obama's Speech

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Breaking Down Obama's New Blueprint For Fighting Terrorism