Bunch

WHAT WOULD you say if I told you that you could profoundly cut your risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer? Significantly decrease your risk for Alzheimer's disease, too? And, better yet, that you could do all this without spending a single dime? Impossible, right? Wrong. All that and more may be possible simply by following the sage advice of Dr. Michael Mosley, a British medical journalist and co-author of The FastDiet: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, and Live Longer with the Simple Secret of Intermittent Fasting . The "Fast Diet" is all the rage in Britain and could take flight here as well.

WHERE CAN we begin to say "thank you" for the nice surprise the residents of the Philadelphia Protestant Home residents received on Sept. 11? The Daily News said it all on the first anniversary of the attacks: "There are no words!" The paper is a treasure of remembrance that we can keep and pass on to our children. Again, so many thanks for sending those papers over to the grateful folks at PPH. Dottie Warrington The Philadelphia Protestant Home

YOU JUST can't make make this stuff up! First we have Sen. Edward Kennedy, in his questioning of Alberto Gonzales, wanting to know if he thought holding someone under water would be considered torture. The senator, of all people, should know! Then we have Sen. Robert Byrd, ex-KKK member, criticizing Condoleezza Rice for "increasing isolation, enmity in the world. " The Democrats might have lost the election - but they certainly deserve an award for unmitigated gall! John M. Kaufmann Sr., Springfield

WHO IS paying Will Bunch's salary - the Democratic National Committee? I just read another of his inaccurate and heavily biased polemics. The target was Mitt Romney. Bunch cherry-picked the quote to purposely smear Romney. The full and unobjectionable quote was: "You know, if someone doesn't give me the good service, then I want to say, 'I'm going to get someone else to provide that service to me.' " Surely, only a desperate Democratic demagogue like Bunch would stoop to twisting that, right?

Three young white men who have been accused of harassing a family here because the sons are friendly with African American men say they are not instigating trouble, and deny that they are members of a hate group. "No, I am not a skinhead," said Matt Szymanski, 19, of Franklin Township, in an interview last week outside Municipal Hall. He was accompanied by James "Jimmy" Downs, 20, of Vineland, and a 16-year-old Delsea Regional High School student who asked that his name not be used.

Never mind the scorching heat blanketing Atlantic City on this Saturday night. The real inferno was inside the Tropicana Casino's Planet Rose. Strippers were grinding, pumping, and pounding to the pulsating music. Bottles of booze were being guzzled, as dollar bills were stuffed into waistbands. Whistling and whooping, the crowd was on fire. A bunch of guffawing guys having their way? Hardly. Just girls gone wild, getting down-and-dirty, and lusting after the men in the SavageMania exotic male dancer show.

Exquisite flavor, the perfect crunch. The taste you'll savor each time you munch. They're never soggy or saggy, and the spicy ones pack a punch. So try a Weavers Way PhillyFresh pickle. If you try one, you'll want a bunch. - Saint Mad

A bunch of eating utensils, the plastic variety, bedeck a fence next to abandoned railroad tracks at 10th and Spring Garden Streets.

1. IKEA LEDARE While not quite as bright as others in this group, this 600-lumen (45- to 50-watt equivalent) bulb puts out the most even, warm (2700 kelvin), "old school" style illumination of the bunch, consumes just 10 watts and sells for $13.99. 2. CREE Pioneering North Carolina-based maker of LEDs has a warm-white 800-lumen (60-watt replacement), 9.5-watt bulb at a great price ($12.97 at Home Depot's) with special features. It's the rare LED bulb working with all dimmer switches, and it boasts a shatter resistent glass shell with rubberized (although dust-attracting)

I FOR ONE have had it. I'm sick and tired of a bunch of idiots foaming at the mouth regarding President-elect Obama having no experience. Unless I've lost my mind, neither did Ronald Reagan. He was a Hollywood actor. Need I say more? Ann Townson Philadelphia

Exquisite flavor, the perfect crunch. The taste you'll savor each time you munch. They're never soggy or saggy, and the spicy ones pack a punch. So try a Weavers Way PhillyFresh pickle. If you try one, you'll want a bunch. - Saint Mad

COLUMNIST Will Bunch is constantly trying to tie (usually violent) historical events to the modern-day political debate. That is fine, but Bunch always uses these events, such as the tragedy at Kent State, to attack those with whom he disagrees politically. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell wrote a memorandum that convinced corporate America that the free-enterprise system was being negatively portrayed on America's college campuses. That is all Kent State and the Powell memo have in common; they both involve higher education, to a degree.

1. IKEA LEDARE While not quite as bright as others in this group, this 600-lumen (45- to 50-watt equivalent) bulb puts out the most even, warm (2700 kelvin), "old school" style illumination of the bunch, consumes just 10 watts and sells for $13.99. 2. CREE Pioneering North Carolina-based maker of LEDs has a warm-white 800-lumen (60-watt replacement), 9.5-watt bulb at a great price ($12.97 at Home Depot's) with special features. It's the rare LED bulb working with all dimmer switches, and it boasts a shatter resistent glass shell with rubberized (although dust-attracting)

IT HAPPENS in practice. It happens in games. Temple coach Fran Dunphy begins to instruct, recognizes whom he is speaking to, and stops midsentence. It has happened to T.J. DiLeo. It's happened to Khalif Wyatt, and Rahlir Hollis-Jefferson and of course, fifth-year man Scootie Randall. "I've been here so long I know exactly what he's going to say before he says it," Randall was saying before practice this week. "I'll be like, 'I know, I got it.' " He might not actually say this to his coach.

BRADENTON, Fla. - Space is tight at 90-year-old McKechnie Field, and the Phillies encroached upon the Pirates' batting practice when they began stretching Monday. Gaby Sanchez jogged past, dodging red jerseys and the batting cage. The Pittsburgh first baseman noticed Chase Utley in the pack and made eye contact. "How are these?" asked Sanchez, who put his hands on his kneecaps. Utley nodded his head and smiled. "Good," he said. Tuesday marks the three-week point of Phillies camp in this elongated spring, one defined by cautious optimism.

I'M 65, BORN and raised in Philly. When my wife retires and we opt to leave town, my main reason will involve managing my blood pressure, because driving around Philly almost always raises it. Every locale has its own cultural aspects, and over time those aspects become accepted reality. That includes a locale's driving culture. Philly's has always been in the Dark Ages. It has never been a car-friendly town. In my younger years, I knew something was wrong with the driving culture here when co-workers, having learned I'd visited New York City, would launch into a rant about "those crazy New York drivers, especially the cab drivers.

It was a trip down underworld memory lane, a nostalgic look back by a couple of 70-something wiseguys talking about custom-made shirts and cops on the take and laughing about the time Tony Bananas wanted to whack Ol' Blue Eyes. Yeah, that Ol' Blue Eyes. Frank Sinatra, the chairman of the board, the quintessential American saloon singer, a guy who had his own mob ties and whose career, many believe, was launched when a North Jersey wiseguy named Willie Moretti made bandleader Tommy Dorsey an offer he couldn't refuse.

IT WAS A bad night for a slightly-above-comatose President Obama and befuddled debate moderator Jim Lehrer, and a good night for a caffeinated Mitt Romney, but the biggest loser of the first presidential debate in Denver on Wednesday night was clear: The American people. An deeply divided electorate that craved simple and direct talk on how the 2012 White House rivals will help create jobs or reform health care instead got long, rambling and sometimes hard-to-follow riffs that did, at times, show stark differences between the candidates on issues from taxes to Medicare but lacked kitchen-table directness.

DID YOU HEAR the one about Kobe Bryant scoring 68 on a bunch of Chinese guys? Recently, Bryant, as he has done on many occasions, visited China, where he is that nation's most adored basketball player. He was hanging around the gym at what is billed as the Sprite China Second Annual Charity Basketball Game in Shanghai and, with his team facing a 29-point halftime deficit, decided to suit up and play against a bunch of players who probably could be beaten by the faculty at Lower Merion High School.

Never mind the scorching heat blanketing Atlantic City on this Saturday night. The real inferno was inside the Tropicana Casino's Planet Rose. Strippers were grinding, pumping, and pounding to the pulsating music. Bottles of booze were being guzzled, as dollar bills were stuffed into waistbands. Whistling and whooping, the crowd was on fire. A bunch of guffawing guys having their way? Hardly. Just girls gone wild, getting down-and-dirty, and lusting after the men in the SavageMania exotic male dancer show.