IN SOME PARTS of the nation

IN SOME PARTS of the nation, the gathering of more than 100,000 people on a Saturday afternoon would make for a good college football game (and one that gets plenty of media coverage).

What about when a gathering of a similar size takes place in Washington, D.C., to protest against the war in Iraq? Last Sunday's Boston Globe tucked the story on page 6 with a photo but without any mention on the front page.

That was the first problem for many readers. Add to that the next day's rather prominent display of another rally by a much smaller group of prowar demonstrators in Washington on Page A2 -- the lead national news page on a weekday. Now you've got the ingredients for an onslaught of angry e-mails and phone calls.

''I'm flabbergasted at the relative amounts of space given to the anti- and prowar demonstrations," wrote Saul Rubin from Arlington. ''For those using the Globe as their main or only news source, the impression of what went on was vastly distorted. I expect better."

Never mind whether Rubin or the dozens of other readers who lodged complaints last week are for or against the war in Iraq. His complaint about distortions is right.

To be fair, the Globe's Sunday story on the larger antiwar protest was written by staff reporter Bryan Bender and was longer (830 words) than the Monday Associated Press story (520).

Such distinctions -- among newspaper people, anyway -- mean that more thought was devoted to the coverage of the antiwar rally. But those differences are often too subtle for readers, who usually notice first where stories appear in the paper and how much space they were given.

A protest involving 100,000 Americans -- especially when it concerns a war that polls show most people now don't support -- deserved better treatment.

Ellen Clegg, the Globe's Sunday editor, explained that the antiwar rally had been considered for the front page but that ''other stories were stronger." The story was instead given a mention atop the news index on page 2 and noted where the full article could be found inside.

Readers would have been better served with something from the large rally -- the story, photo, or a mention -- on the front page. The New York Times, by comparison, provided a front-page photo and a tease to a story inside (though it had no story in Monday's paper of the prowar rally).

Second, the size of the display (particularly the photo) of the much smaller prowar demonstration in Monday's paper should have been reduced for a more balanced presentation of the two demonstrations, something national affairs editor Kenneth Cooper acknowledged last week.

So much for 20/20 hindsight. But from the dozens of readers who contacted the ombudsman, I detected another message for Globe editors: Put the Iraq war back on the front page.

''Please bring the Iraq war coverage to where it belongs," said Debbie Carvlin of Brookline. ''This is something the whole country is experiencing and it's been pushed too much to the side and I don't want us to get complacent about what's happening there."

Domestic stories have dominated much of the news lately -- from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to the vacancies on the Supreme Court.

In addition, the Globe recently relocated its two Baghdad-based staff reporters elsewhere in the region so that they can more broadly cover the Middle East. They still make regular visits to Iraq but much of the Globe's daily reporting now consists of shorter wire service stories.

And the paper's move toward a front page that uses larger photos and graphics means greater competition for stories to achieve page one display.

Before Friday's story from Washington on the testimony by Pentagon officials before a US Senate committee, the last time an Iraq-related story appeared on the front page of the Globe was Sept. 1 -- when 750 Shi'ite pilgrims were killed in a stampede during a religious festival. And when insurgents killed 160 people on the most violent day in Baghdad since the end of combat, the Globe's Sept. 15 story appeared on A15. (A prominent photo of a funeral for a Lawrence soldier killed in Iraq did appear on Thursday's front page but for a local story.)

The placement of stories is one way a newspaper gives readers a sense of what's important. If Globe readers are getting a message that the struggle in Iraq has become less of a priority, then the paper's editors should change that tune.

When Mark got off the bus, I tossed my backpack over onto his seat and said “’Scuse me” to the woman beside me, who had almost finished her novel.

I sat where Mark had been, and the seat was still warm from his body. For a second I almost understood my sister—why she might want to be close to him, or someone like him. Then I said, “He was so ugly.”

“Fuck you.”

Claudia put on her earphones, adjusted her pillow, and closed her eyes. I sat beside her, and I was hugely, oppressively happy. She was my sister and I loved her. I stole one of the buds from her ear, stuck it in my own, and Joey “Shithead” Keithley yelled at us as the afternoon sun poured through the window. I leaned against Claudia as though she was a pillow. “Get off me,” she said, out of habit, without meaning it. I rested my face against her bare arm, and the moisture of our skin stuck us together.