Big Trouble

JUST CALL the Beltway sniper's territory "Rifle Country. " How many more people will be sacrificed because of all the guns? How many copycats will kill because they have a gun? The Bill of Rights has given the OK for psychos to kill. Our government should start protecting our people. We have Americans killing Americans, thousands each year, by guns. How much longer can the government overlook the guns that are killing Americans? Let's ask the main Rifleman, Charlton Heston.

"Big Trouble. " A comedy starring Alan Arkin and Peter Falk. Directed by John Cassavetes from a screenplay by Warren Bogle (Andrew Bergman). Photographed by Bill Butler. Edited by Donn Cambern and Ralph Winter. Music by Bill Vonti. Running time: 93 minutes. A Columbia release. In area theaters. Today's studio system is embarrassing. A film company has no problem dealing with movies that are mundane and familiar, but let something come along that's different, and everyone panics and the movie suffers.

Over the years, John Cassavetes has carved out a special place for himself in American cinema by acting in mainstream, commercial Hollywood movies and using the money to help finance his own defiantly independent films. The latter productions have a loyal cadre of admirers who enjoy Cassavetes' originality and often improvisatory style as a director. Occasionally - A Woman Under the Influence (1974) and Gloria (1980) are the most noteworthy examples - Cassavetes has attracted a larger audience without compromising himself.

They go by the name of midge, also known as Chironomidae, and they're stirring up signs of trouble in Mill Creek. It seems that midges, of an insect family akin to mosquitoes that likes to hide in the mud and silt of streams, are crowding out the less robust insects in the six-mile, otherwise peaceful and pristine, Mill Creek. "Midges should be in creeks," said Mike Weilbacher, president of the Lower Merion Conservancy, the local environmental preservation group. "But not in these numbers.

Slated for release last September, the would-be screwball comedy Big Trouble was wisely yanked after the events of Sept. 11. The problem: A key plot device in this addled adaptation of humorist Dave Barry's novel deals with smuggling a nuclear bomb through airport security - successfully. The folks at Disney's Touchstone Pictures would have been wiser, however, just to have forgotten all about this hyperactive farce. Set in a Miami that's criss-crossing with gangsters, gun-runners, bumbling feds, klutzy cops, high school pranksters, a wifty hobo, a curvy domestic, and a newspaper man turned ad-company hack, Big Trouble is more trouble than it's worth.

Player-agent Tom Reich, in the March 9 Inquirer is quoted, in effect, that unless stories about drugs and drug use are kept out of the media "we're all going to be in big trouble. " So drugs are not the problem, reporting is. Now if The Inquirer will stop reporting on MOVE, police extortion and sundry types of gangsterism those problems will also go away. Raymond A. Reardon Horsham.

Maureece Rice had scored seven points for Strawberry Mansion by halftime of yesterday's Public League boys' basketball quarterfinal against Martin Luther King. That number could have been seen in two ways: An unlucky seven. It meant big trouble for 10th-ranked Strawberry Mansion because Rice, the Knights' junior guard, averages nearly 17 points - per half. "It's bad because we need him to score if we want to win," senior guard Aaron Brown said. A lucky seven. It meant big trouble for visiting King because Rice, who is on pace to break Wilt Chamberlain's city scoring record next season, cannot be stopped forever.

Ask any Philadelphia Catholic League girls' volleyball coach what happens when the Cardinal O'Hara Lions are allowed to settle into their game, and they will say the same thing: "You're in big trouble. " That's something defending league champion Hallahan already knew. The Lions had defeated Hallahan twice during the regular season after average starts. The point was pounded home again in last night's Catholic League championship game when the Lions captured their first title in 12 years, 15-11, 15-8, over the defending champions.

In a press conference earlier this week, undisputed heavyweight champion Mike Tyson offered his opinion that British challenger Frank Bruno "will be in big trouble" when the two men finally got around to sharing a ring and comparing punches. A seeker of truth from an English newspaper wanted a more detailed explanation. Exactly what sort of trouble, he pressed the 22-year-old champ, could Bruno expect to find himself in? Tyson appeared incredulous at having been asked the question.

Washington prospect Bryce Harper will make his big-league debut Saturday in Los Angeles when the Nationals play the Dodgers to determine (at this admittedly early date) the best team in the National League. Harper started the year with the triple-A Syracuse Chiefs where he's batting a puny .250 with a single home run in 20 games. But don't let the numbers fool you. The 19-year-old outfielder - the No. 1 overall pick in the 2010 draft - has been the most ballyhooed prospect since the Nats drafted pitcher Stephen Strasbug a year earlier.

MICHAEL Nutter first came to our attention as a member of City Council. He fought an inspiring battle to save the libraries from drastic cuts. We rewarded him with the mayorship. One of the first things the new mayor did was to propose the closing of libraries. Taken again! The School Reform Commission hired Arlene Ackerman to fix our schools. She had a history of antagonizing school employees across the nation. Now she's spent the system into bankruptcy. Her plan? Abrogate union contracts to cover the shortfall.

SHE shouldn't have said it. She's been talking publicly for more than 20 years. She should know better. If you say the "n-word," you're in big trouble. So Dr. Laura Schlessinger made a boo-boo, and now she's hanging up the microphone after more than two decades on the air. I'm sad to see her go, because I think a lot of wisdom came from that bleached-blond, bony little package. But I'm even sadder that she let herself get done in by the usual liberal mobs that traffic in hypocrisy and twist the words of people they hate, while giving a pass to people they like.

Storm water is nasty and dirty and can cause flooding. So the sooner it gets off a property, the better. But it's about to become valuable stuff in Philadelphia. Businesses can make money by embracing it. Or face losing money if they let it go. This week, the Water Department is sending notices to 79,000 commercial customers about a new billing structure for storm water that will begin in July. As always, there will be winners and losers. By the end of a four-year phase-in period, at least 1,500 customers could see an increase of $500 or more a month in their bills, said Joanne Dahme, public affairs manager for the department's Office of Watersheds.

As the Rendell administration moves inexorably toward its finish line in January 2011, it is reasonable to begin considering the issues awaiting the next governor. Of significant note is Rendell's inability to enact comprehensive and sustainable reforms of public pensions and retiree medical plans. Obviously, the General Assembly is inextricably linked to any reform efforts - or lack thereof. The next governor will inherit these significant liabilities that have been politically manipulated and are proving increasingly unaffordable.

You don't have to care about media companies or reporters to care about the state of the news, because if it's in trouble - and it surely is - this country is in trouble. That's why I recently called on President Obama to form a commission to address the perilous state of America's news media. Some might scoff at the notion that a president and a country occupied by two wars and a recession should add the woes of the news media to a crowded plate. But the way the news is delivered, and the quality of the information the public gets about what's going on here and abroad, have and will continue to have a profound effect on these issues and the overall quality of government.

Delaware County's Penn-Delco School District, shaken by the arrests Wednesday of a former board president and superintendent for allegedly secretly investing in a daycare company the district did business with, faces another crisis from a state inquiry. Keith Crego, the former board president, and Leslye Abrutyn, the former superintendent, were also members of a district-related nonprofit that received a $100,000 state grant in 2005 for classroom technology programs. Instead, the Penn-Delco Educational and Cultural Foundation, created to supply extras to district schoolchildren, spent most of the money - about $80,000 - to install a bronze statue of a griffin (the Sun Valley High mascot)

Ten minutes into the ride, Melanie Styer, 17, chased Faith Lily into the back row of the minivan, where she changed the lamb's diaper. The rest of the 45-minute ride to Chester Springs, where the lamb would be moving, was not eventful. Even if it had been, Melanie's parents, Robert and Peggy Styer, didn't look as if the 4-week-old, 18-pound lamb could upset them. "It's sort of like a dog. Sheep are so easy," Peggy Styer said, but then speculated on why they aren't sustainable pets.

When coach Jay Wright watched as the Selection Sunday show pitted Villanova against Kentucky, he thought of one player immediately. "Oh, man, another great big guy," Wright said he thought. "Here we go. " This time, the giant Villanova will need to stop is Kentucky's Randolph Morris, a 6-foot-11 center. Villanova has faced its share of the best big men in the country: Georgetown's Roy Hibbert, Texas' Kevin Durant, and Pittsburgh's Aaron Gray. The Wildcats lack a dominant, physical big man, but used a committee of forwards to try to contain those players.

One ill-timed three-putt. A stray tee shot. Just like that, Michelle Wie went from historic to just plain history. On the brink of becoming the first woman in 60 years to make a cut on the PGA Tour, the 15-year-old was out after finding big trouble on two of her final four holes at the John Deere Classic. Her even-par 71 yesterday left her at 1-under for the tournament, missing the cut by two strokes. She finished tied for 88th. "It was pretty killer," she said. "Even though I finished below par, it still feels [bad]