Bulletin

An old familiar name reappeared on some city newsstands yesterday. The Bulletin's logo in its familiar Old English typeface graced the front of the Philadelphia Press and Bulletin, a paper launched by a former Bulletin staffer who says he will publish a weekly, and eventually daily, newspaper, despite his shoestring budget and tiny staff. Raymond Berens, editor and publisher of the paper and the writer of many of its stories, said he has no financiers behind him and is bankrolling the venture himself.

When we first saw the urgent "PM-TV-CBS-CHUNG" on the Associated Press wire, we thought, Oh, my God. She's announcing her pregnancy. She got the network to release the news for her. Clearly, Connie Chung has had an urgent attitude toward having a baby for years. She and Maury Povich have done shows on it, and detailed the anguish of fertility testing for anyone who had the misfortune to tune in. Why, this month in Good Housekeeping magazine, she confides that she's still trying - at almost 47. Hope does spring eternal.

Sportswriter Bob Lyons was so organized, so diligent, that he wrote his own obituary and left it for his family to disperse to the media. Mr. Lyons, 73, an understated, dignified man who wrote several books connected to the Philadelphia sports scene, died Wednesday of heart disease. One of Mr. Lyon's five children, Rick, said his father left an obituary "not because he wanted to write it, but because he wanted it accurate. He started his career writing obituaries for the Bulletin, and he ended it writing an obituary.

IT WOULD BE the final issue of a newspaper that had been a Philadelphia tradition for almost 135 years. Instead of the usual series of editions all day long, the newspaper would "lift" only once, just to correct or update wherever needed. The day before, I was one of the editors preparing that final edition of the Bulletin. Across the top of Page 1 was what we called a hammer head: Goodby, in big black letters, followed, in somewhat smaller type, by After 134 years, a Philadelphia voice is silent.

Preservationists who fought to save the former home of The Evening Bulletin were angered yesterday when they learned that the historically certified building at Juniper and Filbert streets had been demolished in 1985 for nothing. "It certainly saddens those of us who were working so hard to save it," said architect and preservationist Gray Smith, after learning the city had dropped its plans to build a criminal justice center complex at the site. Mary Lou McFarland, executive director of the Preservation Coalition of Greater Philadelphia said, "I hate to say that we told you so, but we did. "That, and other buildings on that block, shouldn't have been torn down," McFarland said.

IWANT TO add my name to the list of people who will vote against President Bush. He has done absolutely nothing but send this country backward in terms of economic stimulus, job creation and worldwide negativity. If this is the ideal leader, then I must be missing something. He did not support the extension of the assault-weapons ban, which is an affront to police officers and their families. Though he's a wartime non-duty respondent, he cast a pall over Sen. Kerry's war record.

T. Bayard Brunt Jr., 95, the Bulletin rewrite man whose 1981 class-action lawsuit prevented the last owner of the newspaper from using some of its employees' pension funds for its own purposes, died Tuesday, Feb. 28, at Samaritan Hospice in Marlton. On Sept. 14, 1983, U.S. District Judge John B. Hannum approved a $1.2 million settlement for 1,500 former Bulletin employees who had sued to recapture up to $2 million in overfinancing of their pension plan. The result of the suit was a windfall, making reporters, photographers, editors, and others eligible for payments ranging from $200 to $4,300, depending on seniority, The Inquirer reported at the time.

Robert E. Lee Taylor Jr., 96, of Bryn Mawr, a former publisher of the Bulletin and a longtime champion of a free press, died Thursday at his home. Born in Norfolk, Va., and raised in Baltimore, Mr. Taylor graduated from Princeton University in 1935, and went to work for his uncle Robert McLean, then publisher of the newspaper. Mr. Taylor worked in circulation and then joined the Navy, where he was captain of a submarine chaser in the Pacific through much of World War II. Returning to the Bulletin, he rose quickly through the ranks on the business side.

The corner bar, with its promise of camaraderie and the sharing of advice and sob stories, has a new competitor - the personal computer. Can this be true? Can the PC, with its bleary array of accounting programs and beeping high-tech games to play in isolation, really bring people together? You bet. And the price of this high-tech watering hole is often less than the cost of a few beers on a Friday night. Throughout the world, PC enthusiasts - and there are many - have made it their mission to provide computer-age versions of the conversation salon.

Francis J. Burke, 84, of Drexel Hill, who worked as a reporter for the Bulletin, International News Service and Yank magazine during World War II, died of kidney failure May 16 at Delaware County Memorial Hospital. Mr. Burke spent 46 years as a journalist, and friends were not surprised by his choice of careers. His father, Stephen, had been the city editor of the Philadelphia Record. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1936 from St. Joseph's College, Mr. Burke joined the Philadelphia office of INS, the news service started by publisher William Randolph Hearst to compete with the Associated Press.

Sportswriter Bob Lyons was so organized, so diligent, that he wrote his own obituary and left it for his family to disperse to the media. Mr. Lyons, 73, an understated, dignified man who wrote several books connected to the Philadelphia sports scene, died Wednesday of heart disease. One of Mr. Lyon's five children, Rick, said his father left an obituary "not because he wanted to write it, but because he wanted it accurate. He started his career writing obituaries for the Bulletin, and he ended it writing an obituary.

JACK McBRIDE'S DOOR was always open. Friends, friends of friends, his sons' friends - all were welcome to drop in anytime, check out the refrigerator, have a meal, sleep over if they wanted to. A happy, congenial Irishman, Jack was the kind of guy who always gave of himself, whether it was to his five sons, his cherished grandkids or his many friends. Jack was there with an open door and an open heart. And his grandkids could wrap him around their fingers. They were spoiled rotten by Grandad.

By Don Harrison Frank Rizzo died in 1991, but he's still making news. Theatre Exile, a South Philadelphia company, recently announced plans to premiere a work about the former mayor by playwright Bruce Graham, hopefully next year. By the time Rizzo became mayor in 1972, he was on a first-name basis with just about everyone in Philadelphia's news business. For years before entering politics, Rizzo had been a cop - a very visible and quotable cop. A good quote (the more outrageous, the better)

As a journalist, Herb Drill always looked ahead. He made sure he would be remembered - by writing his own obituary, packed with details of his life. Herbert Alan Drill, 71, formerly of Richboro, Bucks County, a freelance journalist and a former reporter for The Inquirer, died of complications from a genetic disease Monday, Feb. 25, at his home in Jacksonville, Fla. He had been ill for several years, his family said. Mr. Drill worked for The Inquirer beginning in 1989, covering suburban business, police, and municipal government, and writing obituaries.

DEAR ABBY : The other day at my in-laws', my mother-in-law, father-in-law, "Bert," and I were in their computer room. Bert has pictures of his family posted on his bulletin board. One of the photos he posted recently I found disturbing. It was of a young, well-endowed woman in her early 20s wearing a tight tube top. What disturbed me was that Bert has printed my 16-year-old daughter's name underneath and the date "2017. " When I asked him about it, he said that was what she will look like at 21. I think it's unnerving for a grandfather to be picturing his only granddaughter in such a manner.

COLUMBIA, Pa. - The proprietor of a restaurant in south-central Pennsylvania who made national headlines when her Sunday discount for anyone showing a church bulletin was challenged by a member of an atheist group says the controversy hasn't hurt business. In fact, Sharon Prudhomme says business is up at Prudhomme's Lost Cajun Kitchen in Columbia, Lancaster County, because of the publicity. She said she had received thousands of supportive e-mails, as well as phone calls and social-media postings.

  The Virgin Mary was due to appear on the night of Sept. 20, 1953. Reappear, actually, as she had already appeared to a group of youngsters twice in two days at 52d Street and Parkside Avenue at the edge of Fairmount Park. More than 50,000 came to see the expected miracle. Among them was Henry R. Darling, a young reporter for the Evening Bulletin, who had been on the paper only a few years and had been assigned obituaries, 50th anniversaries, and innocuous features.

THE VIRGIN MARY was due to appear on the night of Sept. 20, 1953.   Reappear, actually, since she had already appeared to a group of youngsters twice over the previous two days at 52nd Street and Parkside Avenue at the edge of Fairmount Park. More than 50,000 people showed up to witness the expected miracle. Among them was Henry R. Darling, a young reporter for the Evening Bulletin, who had been on the paper only a few years and had been assigned mostly to obits, 50th wedding anniversaries and a few innocuous features.

THERE WAS the Norristown welder who was adept at sneaking up on skunks, grabbing them by the tail and throwing them over a fence before they could react. There was the female recluse in Wayne who, when she died, left behind 400 bags filled with trash, including three boxes of string, one of which was carefully labeled: "String too short to use. " These were two of the characters whose stories emerged from the typewriter of Joseph P. Barrett during the more than 27 years he worked for the old Philadelphia Bulletin as a police reporter and feature writer.

As a graphic designer, Mike Dew is inspired by what he sees - especially while tooling around on the Internet. "I come across things that I want to cook, or stuff for my apartment, or things for work like type, design, architecture. " Now, it all gets tacked on his Pinterest page. Get ready to embrace the newest social media darling - because along with your Facebook wall, Twitter handle, and LinkedIn profile, now you must have a Pinterest page. That is, if you are the creative, visual type.