Amish

It's harvest time, and this Amish family in Paradise is hoping for a profitable crop from its 16 acres of tobacco. The family has 92 acres, and also grows wheat, corn and hay. The Amish auction their tobacco three times a year.

AS A National Rifle Association member and NRA certified firearms instructor, I am deeply offended by Signe's editorial cartoon that has NRA members serving up innocent schoolchildren on what appears to be a sacrificial altar. Do you really believe we sanction or tolerate the killing of innocent children? I am as appalled and disgusted by the Amish school slayings as, I'm sure, all other NRA members. How dare you use this tragedy to portray us as child-killers? Congratulations to you and to the editors who approved the printing of this drivel - you have managed to cheapen yourselves as well as all of the decent people at the Daily News.

I thought the Feb. 2 Amish vacation article was interesting, especially the fact that the winter trips to Florida are not approved by the bishops of Lancaster County. There were pictures of the adventuresome folk riding bikes, playing shuffleboard, etc. Could The Inquirer be revealing something it shouldn't? Is a vacation in Florida really front-page news? Henry B. Coxe Philadelphia.

Avon Books has been publishing romance novels for nearly 70 years. Its current catalog includes titles such as Wicked, Sinful Nights, and The Hellion and the Highlander, and their covers feature the standard steamy look: heaving bosoms and huge manes of hair. Then there's Winter's Awakening (Avon Inspire, $12.99 paperback), a book with an altogether different cover. A beautiful, bonneted Amish woman, chastely dressed, stands alone against a wintry background, her eyes demurely downcast.

"The Amish would rather have something new than old so we bought what they called their old junk," Daniel McCauley said. As he talked, McCauley took from between two pieces of acid-free paper a sampler decorated with letters of the alphabet, a row of crowns, hearts, tulips, trees and birds, all cross-stitched in black, brown and green thread. "It has the whole vocabulary of Amish stitchery, and the woman we bought it from was using it as a dust cloth," he said. "Tell how we got these socks," said McCauley's wife, Kathryn, holding up a pair of purple wool, hand-knitted, knee-high socks with bright red, white and blue scalloped tops.

Dear Anne and Nan: For more than a year I have been trying to find a company where I can purchase Amish dolls and cookbooks. - Cheryl Marble, Greenwell Springs, La. Dear Cheryl: There's a wonderful store in Kidron, Ohio, that caters to the Amish. It's Lehman Hardware and Appliances Inc., and if they don't carry an item, you probably don't need it. They have Amish dolls and loads of cookbooks. Send $2 for a catalog to Lehman's, 4779 Kidron Road, Box 41, Kidron, Ohio 44636. Dear Anne and Nan: What can I do about a picture window over a tub/shower combination short of replacing the glass?

INTERCOURSE, Pa. - Ben Riehl counts himself well-blessed to live and work on the farm. Lots of Amish can't. Large families and high land prices have forced many to labor as carpenters or in machine shops among the "English," as they refer to outsiders. Even Riehl supplements his dairy income as a solar-panel installer. Lately, Riehl has gone one step further. He has opened his Beacon Hollow Farm to overnight guests. From all over the world, tourists have found his picturesque, 80-acre farm through an Internet he doesn't use "because we don't have a computer in the house.

He places his palms together in prayer-like fashion to say yes, and he crosses his thin little arms in front of his frail body to say no. Five-year-old Alvin Miller can neither walk nor talk. He suffers from glutaric aciduria, a genetic disorder with symptoms similar to cerebral palsy that is extremely common among the Old Order Amish. The smiling youngster has trouble communicating, but he has no difficulty expressing emotion - so evident one afternoon last week as he scooted on his bottom around his southern Lancaster County farmhouse floor.

FORGET the Amish reality show. In case you missed it, CBS head Leslie Moonves has announced plans to create an "Amish in the City" reality show for UPN to track Amish youths in their teenage freedom phase called rumspringa. Frankly, we'd rather see another Amish twist on a popular cultural trend. Voila: The Stoltzfus Beach Diet, a high-carb, all-dumpling diet guaranteed to transform your body and your life. It's simple. You don't need any special equipment or tools beyond one (1)

When two young Amish men and eight people associated with the Pagans motorcycle gang were indicted last month on drug charges, the clash of worlds seemed almost too extreme to believe: Old Order meets road warrior. Buggy meets Harley. Christian meets blasphemer. Abner and Abner meet Twisted and Trog (I'm not kidding about the names). But the Amish and the Pagans have a lot in common. The Amish tourist strip in Lancaster County is a commercialization of the anticommercial, an up-to-date marketing of the supposed innocence and simplicity of people who seem committed to living in the past.

CLEVELAND - Sixteen men and women pleaded not guilty Thursday in beard- and hair-cutting attacks against fellow Amish in Ohio. The 10 men and six women and their attorneys overflowed defense tables and the jury box as they entered the pleas before U.S. District Court Judge Dan Polster in response to an updated indictment. The latest indictment added new allegations that the suspects tried to hide or destroy evidence, including a disposable camera, shears and a bag of hair from the victims.

MAYFIELD, KY. - A group of Amish men were sent to jail in western Kentucky yesterday for refusing to pay fines for breaking a state law that requires their horse-drawn buggies to be marked with orange reflective triangles. The men have a religious objection to the bright-orange signs, which they say conflict with their pledge to live low-key and religious lives. Ananias Byler, the first of 10 Amish men who appeared in Graves County District Court yesterday, was sentenced to 10 days in jail.

WOODCHOPPERTOWN, Pa. - Up here in the wooded hills of Berks County, boys are more likely to go hunting after school than play street hockey, as they might do in Essington or Secane. If they take in a ball game, it's more likely the Reading Phillies than the Philadelphia Phillies. And when they eat a big sandwich, they call it a sub, not a hoagie. They make it on a doughy soft roll, not an Italian hard roll. Culturally, rural Woodchoppertown is a world apart from the dense, twin-house neighborhoods of eastern Delaware County down by Philadelphia International Airport.

Judge denies Demjanjuk bid CLEVELAND - Convicted Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk's bid to regain his U.S. citizenship was denied Tuesday by a judge who said he had lied about where he was during World War II. U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster rejected the retired autoworker's citizenship claim, which was based on newly discovered documents, including one suggesting an incriminating document was a Soviet fraud. "John Demjanjuk has admitted that he willfully lied about his whereabouts during the war on his visa and immigration applications to gain entry to the United States," the judge wrote.

LANCASTER - The second of two Amish people charged with animal cruelty for leaving their buggy horses tied up in a southeastern Pennsylvania parking lot on a hot day has been found guilty and fined $300. The cases involving Paul Smucker and Linda Byler, both of Lancaster, sparked an outcry about animal abuse in an area populated by many Amish. Smucker was fined after being found guilty last week by a district judge. Byler had previously been fined $300 after pleading guilty in September.

"I'm not really the heroic type. I was beat up by Quakers. " - Woody Allen as Miles Monroe in "Sleeper" Quakers aren't part of the American Anabaptist tradition. Other than a shared predisposition toward nonviolence, they have nothing in common with the Amish. Still, Allen's quip helps us think realistically about groups with reputations for fierce peacefulness. Recently, seven members of a breakaway sect were arrested in Ohio for chopping off the beards of their fellow Amish for refusing to tolerate their bad behavior.

MILLERSBURG, Ohio - The leader of a breakaway Amish group allowed the beatings of those who disobeyed him, made some members sleep in a chicken coop, and had sexual relations with married women to "cleanse them," federal authorities said Wednesday as they charged him and six others with hate crimes in haircutting attacks against other Amish. Authorities raided the group's compound in eastern Ohio earlier in the day and arrested seven men, including group leader Sam Mullet and three of his sons.

Armed with 8-inch scissors, the group would arrive at the homes of Amish families in rural Ohio after dark and attack the men inside, holding them down as they sheared their beards and left them emasculated and humiliated. The Amish, whose beards carry religious significance, told federal authorities it was an assault worse than being beaten. The attackers told their victims it was religious punishment. On Wednesday, the U.S. Attorney's Office labeled the attacks hate crimes and announced it would federally prosecute Sam Mullet, a former member of the mainstream Amish who formed a breakaway sect, and six others from his group.

CARROLLTON, Ohio - Leaders of Ohio's Amish community faced a soul-searching question after what they say were haircutting attacks against several followers of their faith. Should they cooperate with authorities or adhere to their beliefs of forgiving one another and keeping disputes private? In the end, church bishops decided to seek help from the outside. "They didn't feel they could get it stopped any other way," said Timothy Zimmerly, a sheriff in Holmes County, where authorities say an Amish bishop and his son were held down while men from a breakaway Amish group used scissors and a clipper to cut their beards.

There's always next year As a lifelong Phillies fan (since 1964), I know something of frustration and disappointment ("Cards, Carpenter blank Phils," Saturday). No doubt, Friday night's loss was as tough as almost any I have witnessed. Still, it would not hurt to sit back and reflect on the incredible ride this team has given Philadelphia and indeed the region over the last five years. What a boost it has provided all of us during this difficult time of war, recession, and uncertainty.