Collateral Damage

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - A convicted felon charged with killing a 75-year-old South Dakota hospice nurse so that he could steal her car and drive to Washington, D.C., described the woman during a TV interview as "collateral damage" in what he envisioned as a scheme to kill President Obama. James McVay, 41, is charged with first-degree murder and burglary in the weekend stabbing death of Maybelle Schein. During a jailhouse interview with television station WKOW, in Madison, Wis., where McVay was arrested Saturday, he said that Schein was "in my way and I removed her. " "He did it just more or less as kind of a lark, I guess," Schein's brother, Ted Fetters, said yesterday.

EVERYONE is being oddly judgmental about the Cheney shooting incident in assuming it was an accident. After all, this shooter is already known for his homicidal tendencies because of his part in the international-law-violating, pre-emptive attacks on Iraq. Why such a mass-homicidal person is permitted to carry a gun is just one question. It may well be that he put that aspect of himself aside in his quest to kill small birds in Texas, but we need to keep an open mind. Perhaps those quail were security threats, carriers of avian flu or illegal immigrants, though that information must remain classified.

When Tiger Woods cracked up his car at the end of the driveway on Thanksgiving night, the golfer came away from the wreck with a long list of personal and professional collateral damage - some of which is still up on the lift in his private repair shop - and, more tangibly, he sustained a split lip and a sore neck. Fast-forward through the last five months, as Woods dealt with the messy unraveling of his world, still executed a reasonably quick return to golf, and now is forced to withdraw mid-round from a major tournament because of . . . a neck injury.

We're not sure the lessons of this case will be all that helpful to American justice or financial markets. . . . Maybe there's some rough justice in putting [Martha] Stewart in an orange jumpsuit for fibbing about the circumstances of [a stock] sale with her broker. But in a case ostensibly brought on behalf of sticking up for the forgotten "little guy" . . . prosecutors might have weighed the price paid by the truly innocent here: all the Martha Stewart Living shareholders, employees, executives, and so forth whose livelihoods have suffered tremendously since this case first broke into the headlines and whose futures, like their company, are now in limbo.

A heroic firefighter hunts down terrorists, avenging innocent lives lost during surprise attacks on the United States. This, the plotline of Collateral Damage, is no mere wish-fulfillment fantasy hatched in the aftermath of Sept. 11. It is pumped-up, feel-the-burn vigilantism starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, completed before the terrorist attacks and originally scheduled for an October release. As suspense craftsmanship, Collateral Damage is terrifically well wrought by director Andrew Davis, the filmmaker of The Fugitive.

IN CLINTON'S OWN BACK YARD Washington is a place of murder. Recently an elderly woman was found in her house wrapped in a rug, her throat slit. Dealers kill dealers almost every day; innocents get caught in between. A gang member opened fire on young children in a swimming pool. And in the Oval Office the President, to send a signal to Saddam Hussein, ordered a bombing raid that he knew could well result in, as they say in the business, "collateral damage. " As payback for a foiled murder plot, the United States killed innocent people.

Columnist Jeff Greenfield (Op-ed Page, Aug. 5) criticizes some New York liberals for entertaining Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and refusing to confront him on the repressive measures he has instituted. Mr. Greenfield's point may be well taken and those New York liberals should be instructed. However, in reading Mr. Greenfield's open letter to them, I felt that his intent was to persuade his readers to treat anyone sympathizing with the Nicaraguans or advocating a dialogue with Mr. Ortega as soft on injustice.

I don't know about y'all, but I'm starting to think maybe the country would be better off if we put all the politicians into Bedlam and let them carry on from there. Congress is making the president, scandal and all, look like a titan. First, they have a huge fight about whether to rename Washington National Airport after Ronald Reagan, our former president's greatest contribution to aviation having firing a bunch of air traffic controllers who are still mad about it. Ever get the feeling our lawmakers don't have a lot to do there?

As with most Americans these days, my mind never strays far from the war we are waging against terrorism. Recently, I had an epiphany about wars and heroes. Terrorism exists in many forms. Heroes and heroines are often disguised as everyday folks. Brave souls who keep marching forward into the face of certain pain and possible death. One lives right in my midst. I see her often. I know the toll the wages of war bring to her body and her spirit. She is my dear friend of 37 years.

WE FEEL sorry for the 48,000 Philadelphia boys who suffer the collateral damage caused by the Boy Scouts of America's war against tolerance. But we don't see a way that the city can legally continue to allow the Cradle of Liberty Council to stay in its headquarters on city property at 22nd and Winter streets. The city solicitor has advised Mayor Street that the 1928 law that gave the land to the Scouts requires that they be evicted after a year's notice. It's a double shame because the local Boy Scout council opposes and has fought the national Boy Scouts' policy of discriminating against gay leaders and boys who do not believe in God. The loss of the city headquarters will make the Boy Scouts a mostly suburban program.

The news that NFL players are paid for being able to deliver hits capable of hurting an opponent isn't much of a revelation when you get down to it. That's the nature of the game. Hard hits are celebrated, and just as the NHL and NASCAR owe some popularity to the promise of potential violence at any moment, the NFL puts away a lot of dough because its players smack each other around with great frequency. The league has no problem licensing video games in which the mayhem is taken to cartoonish levels, and has never been bothered by the slavering mythology that NFL Films built around the exploits of guys like Ray Nitschke, Dick Butkus, and Mike Singletary, who were all nice enough when they weren't dismembering opponents.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - A convicted felon charged with killing a 75-year-old South Dakota hospice nurse so that he could steal her car and drive to Washington, D.C., described the woman during a TV interview as "collateral damage" in what he envisioned as a scheme to kill President Obama. James McVay, 41, is charged with first-degree murder and burglary in the weekend stabbing death of Maybelle Schein. During a jailhouse interview with television station WKOW, in Madison, Wis., where McVay was arrested Saturday, he said that Schein was "in my way and I removed her. " "He did it just more or less as kind of a lark, I guess," Schein's brother, Ted Fetters, said yesterday.

THE media jumped all over the incident involving the cow that escaped from an Upper Darby slaughterhouse. It received so much attention, Gov. Corbett even issued a "pardon" for the cow. Meanwhile, the media have paid very little attention to the fact that the governor is pen-happy in signing death warrants for humans. Although he's been in office less than six months, he's already signed (at least) four, including one for James "Jimmy" Dennis, whom many people, myself included, believe is innocent.

City Councilman Bill Green's support for a bill to eliminate the Philadelphia Sheriff's Office has earned him some enemies in the African American political community, with State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams (D., Philadelphia) leading the way. Green obviously was not quite prepared for the political blowback he reaped in June when he cosponsored Councilman Frank DiCicco's bill to eliminate the Sheriff's Office. The political community was abuzz last month after State Rep. Jewell Williams, the city Democratic leadership's choice to succeed Sheriff John Green, had words with Councilman Green at Councilman Curtis Jones Jr.'s birthday bash.

THERE have been any number of times since Sept. 11, 2001, when news from the wars overseas in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan detailed the loss of civilian life. Predator drone strikes, although highly successful in taking out the very worst of the worst, have often been associated with these losses. Chances are that when the stories appear, if you have any reaction at all, it's an acknowledgment that war is hell and that sometimes noncombatants end up in the cross-fire. (I put the blame for their deaths on their terrorist neighbors.

When Tiger Woods cracked up his car at the end of the driveway on Thanksgiving night, the golfer came away from the wreck with a long list of personal and professional collateral damage - some of which is still up on the lift in his private repair shop - and, more tangibly, he sustained a split lip and a sore neck. Fast-forward through the last five months, as Woods dealt with the messy unraveling of his world, still executed a reasonably quick return to golf, and now is forced to withdraw mid-round from a major tournament because of . . . a neck injury.

I can't imagine how much I would have to love a man to dice kabocha squash for his dinner. Along with "clean the squid" and "open the coconut," cooking instructions that involve reducing the size of roly-poly winter squash are easier said than done. This is the time of year when commands such as "cut the butternut squash into 1-inch-thick slices" fall into the lives of home cooks as frequently as autumn leaves. Such recipe directions in no way hint at the battle that must be engaged to do so. This is unfortunate, because nothing says October and November like the warmly orange and comforting dishes that may be made from these sturdy members of the gourd family.

All you have to know about "Battlefields: Dear Billy" is that it's one of the best comics you will ever read and one of the high points in the legendary career of writer Garth Ennis. Ennis not only manages to tell a fresh, unique World War II tale, but brilliantly focuses more on the characters rather than the bullets, bombs and blood. Ennis is determined to present the collateral damage of war - the emotional and psychological toll it takes on all those who participate in it - rather than a "Saving Private Ryan"-esque epic.

JOHN McCAIN knew more about collateral damage than the grunts who kept his plane aloft. Ground crews never have to do flyovers. They never have to see the burned-out villages or acres of crops that sometimes go up in flames along with their intended targets. As a Navy combat pilot, he was probably shocked and saddened by damage reports that revealed the unintended consequences of some of his missions. Last week at a town-hall meeting at Lakeview South High School, in Minnesota, McCain's face carried the pained expression of a flight commander who has seen the collateral damage of one too many misfires.

It was a crime so disturbing that the aircraft electrician who discovered it on a combat helicopter-assembly line at the Boeing Co. plant in Ridley Township last week almost threw up. A bundle of about 75 electrical wires controlling the instruments on a Boeing Chinook CH-47F - "the life and breath of the aircraft," in one union leader's words - had been slashed. Half the wires in the three-inch-thick cluster had been severed. Someone, it seemed, had hacked away at a $30 million aircraft that has been a workhorse for the military since the Vietnam War and a lifeline to the local labor force that produces it for the world's armed forces.