Argument

By Chris Kelly As a young beat reporter, I covered a Pennsylvania school board that included a member who was opposed to spending money on any educational advance newer than the blackboard. He was especially disdainful of computers, which he characterized as expensive toys that promoted laziness, liberalism, and pornography. "When I was in school, we didn't have no damned computers," he once said at a public meeting. "We had to use our noodle. " It wasn't clear if there was just the one noodle for the whole school, or if each kid got one. What was clear is that this dolt had no business visiting a school district, let alone running one. His statement is a classic example of the "straw man" fallacy, in which a debater creates a caricature of his opponent's argument and attacks it. This way, the dolt was able to sidestep the real problem, which was that the district had fallen behind its peers in acquiring computers.

Robert Adams, a member of Warrington's Parks and Recreation Board, says that Warrington Supervisor Joseph Bonargo pushed him several times during a heated argument Saturday morning at the Barness baseball fields. Adams has filed a criminal complaint against Bonargo with District Justice Oliver A. Groman because Bonargo's brother, John Bonargo, is the police chief in Warrington. Groman's court clerk confirmed that Adams had filed a complaint against Bonargo, but refused to release the complaint until the District Attorney's Office reviews it and decides whether to press charges.

You are to be congratulated on your article on guns (Feb. 13) - an excellent puff piece, probably written by Police Commissioner John Timoney and his sidekicks. It lacked any pretense of fairness. In the chart, "Armed and Dangerous," you list the number of guns used in major crimes in this city during 1999, but nowhere is there a breakdown of lawful gun permit holders vs. non-permit holders. It is obvious that the omission is intentional, so as to make it appear that all those crimes were committed by permit holders.

A barrage of violence Sunday that left five dead and seven wounded has left a top city police official puzzled. Most of the mayhem began over what William Blackburn, chief inspector of detectives, called "senseless argument. " "Arguments are still the dominant motive," he said in a news conference yesterday, "not just for the homicides, but for the shootings. " Asked to elaborate about violence on recent weekends, Blackburn said, "I'm not going to blame weather conditions.

The prosecutor compared the alleged rapist to the little man behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz. "Damon Thornton says, 'Pay no attention to the man behind the evidence,' " Assistant Gloucester County Prosecutor Keith Warburton told the jury in his closing argument yesterday. "But the evidence, ladies and gentlemen, is the yellow-brick road that leads to him. " Thornton, 30, who is serving as his own attorney, called the state's case a "bunch of bull" and "a conspiracy" in his closing argument before Superior Court Judge Donald Smith Jr. The jurors - who occasionally giggled and yawned on the seventh day of the trial - deliberated for a half-hour before recessing until 9 a.m. today.

A team from Overbrook High School won the Pennsylvania Bar Association's Mock Trial Competition yesterday. Overbrook, which also captured the championship in 1997 and 2004, acted as the defense in the final round in Harrisburg, with runner-up Greensburg Salem High School of Westmoreland County as the prosecution. Overbrook teacher Philip Beauchemin coaches the team of seniors Sarah Brown, Kiersten Harris-Andrews, Jamal Hill, Cedric Ingram Jr., Jennifer Josiaste, Lakyra Stokes, Tamika Webb and Ian Wiley.

Two men were shot and seriously wounded by one of the owners of Homer's Diner during an argument outside the 24-hour restaurant on the Collingswood Circle shortly before midnight Friday, police said yesterday. Collingswood police said Bret Nigro, 23, of Argyle Avenue, Washington Township, was shot in the right back and right shoulder and was listed in critical condition at Cooper Hospital-University Medical Center after surgery. William Palmer, 29, of Wedgewood Drive, also in Washington Township, was shot once in the abdomen and was listed in serious condition at Cooper.

Government can't attempt to maintain a status quo simply by spending money simply to maintain areas that are no longer competitive. . . . People, on their own, are going to where they think the greater opportunities are. . . . There's no question in my mind, the cities were overpopulated by the 1950s. - Thacher Longstreth Dec. 29, 1980, as president of the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce

A 30-year-old Hammonton man was fatally stabbed early yesterday morningafter an argument with several men on the parking lot of a tavern. Detective Capt. Brian Valerio of the Winslow Police Department said the victim, Joseph TomasinoJr., was stabbed several times about 11:15 p.m. in the parking lot of the Rustic Tavern on White Horse Pike in the Elm section of the township. No suspects have been charged in the fatal stabbing. Following the stabbing, Tomasino was rushed by ambulance to the William B. Kessler Hospital in Hammonton then transferred by helicopter to the Cooper Hospital-University Medical Center trauma unit.

A 24-year-old Hunting Park man was killed last night after an argument that police said began as trash talk at an organized basketball game at Temple University's McGonigle Hall was taken outside and settled with a single gunshot. A police officer at the scene said that about 8:50 p.m., a group of people left the game to continue their argument outside and ended up in a little plaza between two buildings on Broad Street south of McGonigle Hall. There, one of the participants pulled out a gun and shot once, striking Dwight Bates of the 3900 block of Ninth Street in the chest, Homicide investigators said.

A 22-year-old University of Delaware student was in stable condition at Christiana Hospital on Sunday after being stabbed in the chest and stomach during an early morning argument, Newark, Del., police said. The attack occurred around 1:20 a.m. in a city-owned parking lot on East Delaware Avenue near the center of campus. The suspect was described as a nearly 6-foot-tall white male, between 18 and 22, weighing 185 to 190 pounds and wearing a white T-shirt and black hat. Police did not identify the victim or the cause of the argument.

In Tennessee, welfare benefits may be reduced for families whose children get bad grades in school. The plan, laid out in a bill that has cleared committees in the state's House and Senate, touched off an uproar. Quickly, the legislation was amended to say the money would not be cut if the parents attended parenting classes or got tutors for their children. Still, anger persists about the bill. No such bill exists in Pennsylvania or New Jersey. But 15 cosponsors in the Pennsylvania legislature are backing a bill by State Sen. John Wozniak (D., Cambria)

A 38-year-old woman was stabbed to death Wednesday morning during what police believe was an argument in the city's West Oak Lane section. Kendra Burton was stabbed multiple times before 10 a.m. in her apartment in the 1600 block of Chelten Avenue, police said. Medics pronounced her dead at the scene. No arrests have been reported. - Robert Moran

A Delaware County man has filed a civil lawsuit against two Darby Township police officers, one of whom allegedly beat him, causing head injuries that required a 10-day hospital stay. "This is an egregious assault and battery," said Joseph Oxman, lawyer for Samuel Mirra of Nicole Lane in Darby Township. The officers, Daniel Fynes and Detective John Lundell, could not be reached for comment. Township Solicitor Michael Pierce had no comment. The township is also named in the suit.

NEW JERSEY state Sen. Jeff Van Drew wants a 5-year-old ban on harvesting horseshoe crabs lifted. Here are the main arguments over the ban:   Pro-ban * The Atlantic red knot, a shorebird recently added to the endangered-species list, depends on horseshoe-crab eggs as a vital food source, a resource that activists say would be depleted should the ban be lifted. * Tens of thousands of bird-watchers routinely flock to the Jersey Shore in early May to watch red-knot migration.

A Centre County judge denied Jerry Sandusky a new trial Wednesday, ruling that the former Pennsylvania State University football coach had sufficient time to prepare his defense to charges that he sexually assaulted teenage boys. Sandusky was convicted in June of 45 counts of sexual abuse of minors in a case that drew international attention. He was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison. Sandusky, 68, argued that the denial of a trial delay amounted to a denial of his Sixth Amendment right to an attorney.

If there is something in the makeup of Jason Smith that might have presaged the slaying to which police say he has confessed, nothing was immediately apparent Thursday. Neighbors in the Crescent Lane section of Levittown, Bucks County - where the 36-year-old exterminator lived with his girlfriend, their young daughter, his girlfriend's mother, and other relatives - described him as helpful, a family man who took his boxer, Tyson, out for frequent walks. They said he showed no signs of a violent temper.

SHE COULD COUNT her success by the number of lives she had saved. He could count his by the number of lives he claimed. She dealt with the most vulnerable. He dealt with the most reviled. But the paths of Melissa Ketunuti, a doctor at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and Jason Smith, an exterminator from Bucks County, crossed on Monday when Smith went to Ketunuti's Center City house to help her with a rodent problem. It was there, police say, in the basement of Ketunuti's home following an argument, that Smith killed the doctor as if her life mattered no more than the bugs and rodents he'd made a living exterminating.

MORE THAN 70 people signed up to air their grievances at the School Reform Commission meeting Thursday night, an unusually high number reflective of the controversy surrounding the district's decision to close 37 schools. Before they were given the opportunity to speak, protesters forced the SRC to rush through its agenda as several students, school faculty and parents repeatedly interrupted the proceedings. "You're here to talk about buildings; we're here to talk about education," Pedro Ramos, SRC chairman, said as he urged the audience to simmer down.

The mob lives. It's a brand-name enterprise leveraging a reputation forged through a century of crime, threats, and violence. That was a prosecutor's message Thursday at the start of three days of closing arguments in the racketeering trial of reputed Philadelphia boss Joseph Ligambi and six others. "The mob is to the criminal underworld what IBM and GE are to legitimate corporations," Assistant U.S. Attorney John S. Han told the 12 jurors and four alternates. The mob "has a simple and effective and enduring business model," Han said.