Closet

WHY DOES the Daily News provide a forum for morons? Mr. Carchidi asked how we know that Obama isn't a "closet Muslim. " Also why Barack doesn't use his middle name. (Kenneth doesn't use his.) Obama isn't a closet anything. Neither is Mr. Carchidi - he's an open hate- monger. Bryan Flannery, Chalfont

Barbara Spiro-Ryan's closet is not really a closet. It's more like a room that's part pink-floral French country boudoir, part fashion museum. There is no denying that Spiro-Ryan, a retired senior vice president of institutional advancement at Drexel University, has fabulous clothes. No woman could ignore her airy Jason Wu dresses, full-length fur-trimmed Oscar de la Renta coats, or soft leather Rachel Roy jackets. The Louis Vuitton bags in sizes big, bigger and biggest are nothing to sneeze at, either.

The Smithsonian Institution - which for good reason also is known as the "Nation's Attic" - announced that during 1986 it had acquired 942,000 new items for its extensive collection. Joining existing artifacts - such as Gen. P.H. Sheridan's stuffed horse, Dorothy's ruby slippers and a 1935 Girl Scout uniform - were old pieces of the Brooklyn Bridge, 10,000 Scandinavian moths and butterflies, the personal papers of Playboy illustrator Alberto Vargas, 300 calculators and President Warren G. Harding's top hat. News reports of these eclectic acquisitions arrived at a household we know just in time for the annual event, known there as The Expedition to the Back of the Closet, subtitled This Year We Have to Throw Something Out. The coincidence did not go unnoted.

The conversation turned to the subject of gay film director John Waters. I mentioned that I saw him once, riding a bike in Provincetown, Mass., where he was attending a film festival. I didn't mention the g-word - you know, the three-letter word that should have come right before the word "film," most often accompanied by the l-word. The conversation took place last week on the college campus where I teach, and somehow, the little censor inside my head thought maybe I'd be promoting some sort of gay agenda in a setting where it didn't need to come up. The closet is a funny place.

During the Senate hearings on gays in the military, Sen. Sam Nunn proposed a compromise: " . . . this issue could be resolved along the lines 'We don't ask any questions, and you don't give any answers.' " His proposal is the very arrangement currently crumbling in corporate America. The senator's proposal to continue to allow homosexuals to serve if they stay in the closet has been the unspoken agreement in American business for many years. Most companies didn't want to know such information, and most corporate employees agreed not to provide it. Why is this arrangement collapsing in the military and many U.S. corporations?

Green Bay Packers rookie fullback Najeh Davenport was arrested yesterday, accused of breaking into a university dormitory in Miami and defecating in a woman's closet. Davenport, 23, surrendered to police and was charged with a second-degree felony count of burglary and a misdemeanor count of criminal mischief. The fourth-round draft pick out of the University of Miami was wanted on a warrant issued in April. He was released yesterday from a Miami-Dade County jail after posting a $6,500 bond.

The body of a 33-year-old woman who had been missing about a week was found yesterday in the bedroom closet of her Southwest Philadelphia apartment, police said. Police said Cathy Lofton, of South 52d Street, had been strangled. She had been the subject of an intense search by family members for several days, police said. Lofton's boyfriend, Thomas Morris, 33, of the 700 block of South 51st Street, was arrested a few blocks from his home yesterday and charged with her murder.

Robin Daniels's captivity inside closets started long before her boyfriend was arrested on charges that he kept her locked in one for up to 20 hours at a time, surrounded by buckets of her urine and feces, for two years. The boyfriend, Hiram Thelmon, told a psychiatrist that he'd been locking Daniels in closets when he went to work since the couple moved into their first apartment, Dr. Mark Sageman testified yesterday at Thelmon's trial. Thelmon, 29, is on trial before Common Pleas Judge Arnold New, charged with aggravated assault, kidnapping and related charges for allegedly locking Daniels in a closet of a room at the Kesmon Hotel for two years.

Thanks to a Main Line consignor who is remodeling, Barry Slosberg's two-day "quality" auction today and tomorrow has some better-than-average European furniture. The top piece of furniture, however, is American, a large corner closet that came from the house of the 18th-century printer Christopher Sauer. "It oozes age," Slosberg said this week at his gallery in Port Richmond as he went over some of the details of its workmanship, including its double arch, 16-glass-paned doors.

Where is debate within journalistic circles about the political correctness of some of the reporting about John du Pont's homosexual secret life. Why did he invest so heavily in a wrestling center at his estate? And before that in swimming and with the police? Was it sincere interest in law enforcement and sport? Or was it to be among all those big, hulking men? Was the crotch hold a real wrestling move or an unwanted sexual invitation? Was he buying sex from some of those athletes?

MOORE, Okla. - Helmeted rescue workers raced Tuesday to complete the search for survivors and the dead in the Oklahoma City suburb where a mammoth tornado destroyed countless homes, cleared lots down to bare red earth and claimed 24 lives, including those of nine children. Scientists concluded the storm was a rare and extraordinarily powerful type of twister known as an EF5, ranking it at the top of the scale used to measure tornado strength. Those twisters are capable of lifting reinforced buildings off the ground, hurling cars like missiles, and stripping trees free of bark.

IF YOU'VE BEEN paying attention to the deadly collapse of the Bangladesh garment factory, you know our dirty laundry just got dirtier. Like a lot of you, I've followed the April 24 tragedy that, at last count, has claimed more than 1,000 lives. I was haunted by the heartbreaking photo of the couple found under debris in a final embrace. I was amazed at the rescue of the seamstress who lived 17 days trapped in the rubble. But it was all from afar. Until I went to my basement to do laundry, and noticed the tags on my clothes.

There are 12,000 pieces in Drexel University's Historic Costume Collection, but curator Clare Sauro's eyes twinkle like metallic threads when she explains why a particular light blue, crushed-velvet sheath from the 1920s is ageless and of-the-moment awesome. "It's from the Callot Soeurs," Sauro said, holding the 87-year-old textile delicately between white-gloved fingers. She's referring to four French sisters considered among the earliest dressmakers to incorporate mixed media into their frocks of velvet, lace, and ribbons.

NEWARK, Del. - New Castle County Police have charged an unlicensed day-care operator after officers say they found 3-year-old twins in a closet. Authorities went to a Newark apartment Thursday afternoon after receiving a report of possible child neglect. Police say no one answered the door at the apartment and a maintenance worker let officers in. Officials say officers saw a chair wedged in a hallway between a closet door and a bathroom door. Police say officers opened the door and found the twins sleeping on pillows and blankets on the floor.

The delicately bittersweet Israeli drama Yossi doesn't feel like a sequel. Director Eytan Fox's follow-up to the star-crossed 2002 romance Yossi and Jagger is a freestanding film that requires no knowledge of the previous movie. However, some acquaintance with heartache wouldn't hurt. In the decade since that first film, Yossi Hoffman has progressed significantly career-wise, but he hasn't made much headway emotionally since his secret boyfriend and fellow soldier Lior (also known as Jagger)

The shapely woman's leg - gam , to stay within the 1940s time period - with a lamp on top and tackier than the pinkest pink flamingo, sits right where it should - in the living room window. Across the room from the Parker family Christmas tree is a half-unwrapped Red Ryder BB gun. When I discovered the lady's hatbox in the closet of the upstairs bedroom, I called out to guide Dale Drottar, "My mother had hatboxes just like that in her walk-in closet. " To which Drottar replied, "That's the type of thing we hope to hear from people here.

KEVIN CLASH , the man behind Elmo , is resigning from "Sesame Street" after a second man alleged that the puppeteer began an inappropriate relationship with him when he was underage. Cecil Singleton , 24, claimed that he was 15 when their relationship started. He says he and Clash did not have sex back then but engaged in some, well, let's call it heavy petting. He said that he and Clash did not engage in the Clintonian definition of sexual intercourse until Singleton reached 18. Singleton is seeking $5 million in damages from Clash.

WEALTHY HEDGE fund CEO Daniel Shak is going after his ex-wife in one of the most lowdown and dirty ways a man can go after a woman. No, he's not after custody of the kids. He's after the shoes. Specifically, he wants to get his hands on his ex-wife Beth's extensive collection of designer stilettos. We're talking Christian Louboutons (a/k/a red bottoms), which start at about $600 and can cost upward of $4,000. Beth owns about 700 pairs of those alone, not to mention numerous pairs by the likes of Walter Steiger, Yves St. Laurent and Jimmy Choo.

DALLAS - An Army nurse showed no alarm or discomfort before suddenly collapsing during a Skype video chat with his wife, who saw a bullet hole in a closet behind him, his family said Sunday. Capt. Bruce Kevin Clark's family released a statement describing what his wife saw in the video feed recording her husband's death. "Clark was suddenly knocked forward," the statement said. "The closet behind him had a bullet hole in it. The other individuals, including a member of the military, who rushed to the home of CPT Clark's wife also saw the hole and agreed it was a bullet hole.

A 43-year-old West Philadelphia man has been arrested in the fatal stabbing f a Southwest Center City resident whose body was found stuffed inside his bedroom closet over the weekend. Police said an argument, the nature of which was not spelled out, prompted John M. Smallwood to repeatedly stab Shawn Andrews, 41. Andrews' body was found Saturday in the closet of his bedroom in a first-floor apartment on the 700 block of South 19th Street after a friend went to check on him, police said.