Big Ears

Barack Obama's election has been heralded as a point of pride for African Americans, people of mixed race, Illinoisans, Hawaiians, Indonesians, Kenyans and Democrats. There's another group of people who would hail Obama's victory if they weren't so sensitive about their link to the president-elect: those whose ears are, well, irrepressible. I count myself among them. Self-deprecation is the most endearing form of humor, and Obama's description of himself as "the guy with the funny name and the big ears" won instant favor from those who share his gifts.

Why don't penguins fly? How fast can an ostrich run? Why do elephants have big ears? Hmmmmmm. Let's ask Scientist Dave. Dave is a volunteer at the Philadelphia Zoo, and one of his jobs is fielding questions about animals through the zoo Web site's "Ask-a-Docent" feature. But David Schaffer, 68, is no ordinary answer man. He is the retired head of pediatric ophthalmology at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a born teacher and animal lover. His flair for crafting online answers that are witty, expansive, and simple for children to grasp has won him fans from as far as New Berlin, Wis., where he has become a virtual guru to a classroom of second graders.

My daddy says that when he was a little boy, one of the biggest events each year was when the circus came to town. The train usually pulled in before dawn, and as the sun came up the roustabouts would put up a huge tent. The elephants helped. They're the strongest animals on earth. Daddy says most circuses aren't even around any more, but one that's still going strong - and still traveling by train - is the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The Ringling Bros.

One of the world's sweetest saxophones fell silent for good yesterday. Jazz great and South Philadelphia native Charlie Ventura died in a Pleasantville, N.J., nursing home, his body ravaged by cancer. He was 75. Mr. Ventura, known to his friends simply as Chaz, dominated the stage as one of America's top saxophone players in the late 1940s. He had what friends called "big ears" - an ability to pick up melodies by ear and improvise - and a big, passionate sound that won him fame the world over.

Perched on the back of a comfortable chair in author Judy Schachner's home, Skippyjon Jones appeared to be taking a break from his adventures as El Skippito, the great sword fighter. Schachner's Siamese cat and the inspiration for several books - one published and two due out next year - is "so funny" and "has just the sweetest personality," said Schachner, who draws on her pets, family and life experiences to produce award-winning children's books. Schachner, 53, of Swarthmore, won the 2004 E.B. White Read Aloud Award for her book, Skippyjon Jones, the story of an irrepressible kitty with an "overactive imagination" that thinks he's a chihuahua and a great sword fighter like Zorro.

What would happen if you watched 140 straight episodes of The Donna Reed Show? Would you start baking from scratch? Or vacuuming your drapes? Would you fade to black and white? In an unprecedented experiment - with the American viewing public as guinea pigs - Nick at Nite is presenting The Seven Day Donna-Thon to find out if a megadose of TV Land's perfect mom can make the world a nicer, cleaner place. Beginning May 7, all of the cable channel's programming (from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. every day)

There, sitting on a shelf right behind the kitchen table, is a photograph. It is of a young boy, no older than 6. He has short bangs, cut a little higher on one side than the other, big ears and a smirky grin that leaps off the celluloid. Just a few steps away, in a crib, lies a tiny baby. He is just 10 days old, but the resemblance to the young boy in the photograph is uncanny. Same dark hair, the ears just a touch too big for his head, the identical cleft in the chin. His mother will tell you he has the same long, elegant hands and big feet, too. Under the circumstances, the similarities could be unbearably painful.

The vigil for Sgt. Andrew Ramirez began early on Eastmont Avenue, in the Hispanic heart of East Los Angeles. Old women shuffled outside to tape small American flags to their bungalow porches, teenagers tied yellow ribbons to their muddy bikes, and a bustling, striving immigrant community that has sent many of its young men off to be soldiers fell silent in nervous prayer. The conflict in Yugoslavia was suddenly intensely personal. Three American soldiers sent to keep the peace were now paraded by Serbian captors as prisoners of war. Televised images of the trio, visibly bruised and wearing fatigues, were aired throughout the day yesterday, bringing the war home in a very visceral way to three disparate American communities: the street lined with neat bungalows in predominately Latino East Los Angeles; the small farming community near Smiths Creek, Mich.

Bweeee-da-de-de-da-da-shu-bop! Charlie Ventura has new chops! The cat still can't eat steak, but what is sirloin compared to the sweet sound of a saxophone? Last week - for the first time in two years - the jazz legend did something much more important than chew. He blew. Once perhaps the leading sax man in America, a South Philly native who toured the world and owned the stage, Charlie Ventura is now a weak and convalescing man of 74, who almost died three years ago and has suffered for years from bad teeth he's been too down and out to have fixed.

NOBODY in City Council will mistake him for Little Orphan Annie singing "The sun'll come out tomorrow," but Mayor Nutter will part the dark clouds of his recession-ravaged budget today just long enough to deliver a ray of hope to the city's most distressed neighborhoods. He calls it "PhillyRising" - and it works. Before the swollen streams of government cash flow dried up, Philly mayors used cops as Glock-toting magicians, sending occupying armies of police officers into the city's most crime-ridden communities to make drug dealers disappear with headline-grabbing numbers of arrests.

NOBODY in City Council will mistake him for Little Orphan Annie singing "The sun'll come out tomorrow," but Mayor Nutter will part the dark clouds of his recession-ravaged budget today just long enough to deliver a ray of hope to the city's most distressed neighborhoods. He calls it "PhillyRising" - and it works. Before the swollen streams of government cash flow dried up, Philly mayors used cops as Glock-toting magicians, sending occupying armies of police officers into the city's most crime-ridden communities to make drug dealers disappear with headline-grabbing numbers of arrests.

Barack Obama's election has been heralded as a point of pride for African Americans, people of mixed race, Illinoisans, Hawaiians, Indonesians, Kenyans and Democrats. There's another group of people who would hail Obama's victory if they weren't so sensitive about their link to the president-elect: those whose ears are, well, irrepressible. I count myself among them. Self-deprecation is the most endearing form of humor, and Obama's description of himself as "the guy with the funny name and the big ears" won instant favor from those who share his gifts.

Why don't penguins fly? How fast can an ostrich run? Why do elephants have big ears? Hmmmmmm. Let's ask Scientist Dave. Dave is a volunteer at the Philadelphia Zoo, and one of his jobs is fielding questions about animals through the zoo Web site's "Ask-a-Docent" feature. But David Schaffer, 68, is no ordinary answer man. He is the retired head of pediatric ophthalmology at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a born teacher and animal lover. His flair for crafting online answers that are witty, expansive, and simple for children to grasp has won him fans from as far as New Berlin, Wis., where he has become a virtual guru to a classroom of second graders.

Perched on the back of a comfortable chair in author Judy Schachner's home, Skippyjon Jones appeared to be taking a break from his adventures as El Skippito, the great sword fighter. Schachner's Siamese cat and the inspiration for several books - one published and two due out next year - is "so funny" and "has just the sweetest personality," said Schachner, who draws on her pets, family and life experiences to produce award-winning children's books. Schachner, 53, of Swarthmore, won the 2004 E.B. White Read Aloud Award for her book, Skippyjon Jones, the story of an irrepressible kitty with an "overactive imagination" that thinks he's a chihuahua and a great sword fighter like Zorro.

There, sitting on a shelf right behind the kitchen table, is a photograph. It is of a young boy, no older than 6. He has short bangs, cut a little higher on one side than the other, big ears and a smirky grin that leaps off the celluloid. Just a few steps away, in a crib, lies a tiny baby. He is just 10 days old, but the resemblance to the young boy in the photograph is uncanny. Same dark hair, the ears just a touch too big for his head, the identical cleft in the chin. His mother will tell you he has the same long, elegant hands and big feet, too. Under the circumstances, the similarities could be unbearably painful.

The vigil for Sgt. Andrew Ramirez began early on Eastmont Avenue, in the Hispanic heart of East Los Angeles. Old women shuffled outside to tape small American flags to their bungalow porches, teenagers tied yellow ribbons to their muddy bikes, and a bustling, striving immigrant community that has sent many of its young men off to be soldiers fell silent in nervous prayer. The conflict in Yugoslavia was suddenly intensely personal. Three American soldiers sent to keep the peace were now paraded by Serbian captors as prisoners of war. Televised images of the trio, visibly bruised and wearing fatigues, were aired throughout the day yesterday, bringing the war home in a very visceral way to three disparate American communities: the street lined with neat bungalows in predominately Latino East Los Angeles; the small farming community near Smiths Creek, Mich.

One of the world's sweetest saxophones fell silent for good yesterday. Jazz great and South Philadelphia native Charlie Ventura died in a Pleasantville, N.J., nursing home, his body ravaged by cancer. He was 75. Mr. Ventura, known to his friends simply as Chaz, dominated the stage as one of America's top saxophone players in the late 1940s. He had what friends called "big ears" - an ability to pick up melodies by ear and improvise - and a big, passionate sound that won him fame the world over.

The Dad Vail Regatta got under way in earnest yesterday on the Schuylkill. Hard-fought qualifying heats were raced in front of big, colorful tents on Kelly Drive that offered the tantalizing smell of grilling chicken and hamburgers. Temple's boats, as expected, had a good day, as did many others. Two spectators, in particular, were noteworthy, too. One was a tanned and blue-eyed 69-year-old named Ralph Lindamood, who, if it weren't for the thatch of silver hair, might have been mistaken for a competitor.

Bweeee-da-de-de-da-da-shu-bop! Charlie Ventura has new chops! The cat still can't eat steak, but what is sirloin compared to the sweet sound of a saxophone? Last week - for the first time in two years - the jazz legend did something much more important than chew. He blew. Once perhaps the leading sax man in America, a South Philly native who toured the world and owned the stage, Charlie Ventura is now a weak and convalescing man of 74, who almost died three years ago and has suffered for years from bad teeth he's been too down and out to have fixed.

What would happen if you watched 140 straight episodes of The Donna Reed Show? Would you start baking from scratch? Or vacuuming your drapes? Would you fade to black and white? In an unprecedented experiment - with the American viewing public as guinea pigs - Nick at Nite is presenting The Seven Day Donna-Thon to find out if a megadose of TV Land's perfect mom can make the world a nicer, cleaner place. Beginning May 7, all of the cable channel's programming (from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. every day)