Common Sense

Common sense provides us the ability to differentiate right and wrong. Whether for a huge moral question (e.g., abortion) or for simple household safeguards (keeping sharp objects away from children), common sense is the compass that allows us to think, determine a course of action, and predict the outcome of those actions. But common sense is under siege. Elected officials, activists and others use the mainstream media to bombard us with an agenda that defies this internal compass.

Educators are still pressured by the "publish-or-perish" syndrome even if only in a letter to the newspaper expounding some idiotic idea that increases the cost of education. Requiring Spanish to exit is one; forcing college students to buy computers is another (fine for the computer companies, bad for students and parents struggling with high tuition bills). Years ago when I first saw the new-math book my kid brought home I almost went into orbit. As an engineer I knew it was a bad idea: too rigorous.

One of my favorite subjects in college was logic. Naturally, I couldn't get enough of Mr. Spock on Star Trek. Spock: Random chance seems to have operated in our favor. McCoy: In plain, non-Vulcan English, we've been lucky. Spock: I believe I said that, Doctor. That kind of talk never fails to give me goosebumps. Admittedly, my time in college was a long time ago, and over the years, the dapper Professor Adalja's carefully drawn distinction between deductive and inductive reasoning has decomposed in my mind into something less.

When it comes to human biology, technology is about three football fields ahead of common sense. The simple act of human reproduction was once a private matter between a woman, a man, her family, his family, the priest-rabbi-minister-shaman and the entire village. They all agreed, at least, on what constituted a proper home for a child. No longer. Now reproduction can take place between a dead man and his wife, or a divorced couple who froze a few embryos, or a man and a woman who have never met each other but communicated through a turkey baster.

Ten-year-old Porsche Brown's childhood was cruelly interrupted on Dec. 9. This fourth-grader from Holme Elementary School in Philadelphia was removed from her classroom, handcuffed by police, loaded into a police wagon, and driven to the police station. Her crime? A pair of scissors was found in her backpack, and she was promptly suspended. Across the country, schools are criminalizing behavior that used to be handled in families, neighborhoods and the principal's office, and Philadelphia is no exception.

Early this year, while Sheldon Hackney was busy posturing his way into an appointment to head the National Endowment for the Arts, the University of Pennsylvania - where he was nominally in charge - was torn apart by two incidents that mocked the ideals that should define campus life. In January, when five African-American undergraduates claimed a white student had called them "black water buffalo," a nationwide debate on speech codes was set in motion: The accused took his case to the Wall Stret Journal editorial page, while his accusers tried in vain to get the matter resolved through Penn's byzantine internal judicial procedures.

It was a little after midnight, the day after Christmas, when I heard unusually loud thumping from the stairway of the house adjoining my father's. I rushed outside and saw a woman I did not recognize, but assumed lived in the adjoining house, leaning against my car, looking up to the house. "What's the matter?" I asked. "The house is on fire," she answered. I was incredulous. I wondered why no one in that house had the presence of mind to warn me, my father and cousin.

We recently celebrated the 210th anniversary of one of the great literary products of America - Thomas Paine's "Common Sense. " One of the most quoted passages from Paine's classic tells us a great deal about today's Philadelphia: "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. " Unfortunately, Philadelphia's government is not in the best state today; we may be approaching the intolerable stage....

From the gun lobby comes word that former President Ronald Reagan's desertion on handgun waiting-period legislation is at most a venial sin. "Understandable loyalty," intones the National Rifle Association. Loyalty, that is, to James Brady, Mr. Reagan's wheelchair-bound former press secretary. But that doesn't quite explain it away. At George Washington University ceremonies marking the 10th anniversary of the assassination attempt on Mr. Reagan that left Jim Brady maimed, the President didn't sound lukewarm.

1. d. Thetford. 2. c. Corsets. 3. b. 1774. 4. a. Pennsylvania Magazine. 5. c. Bordentown City, N.J. 6. True, as early as 1775 in the essay "African Slavery in America. " 7. b. "Common Sense. " 8. c. "Rights of Man. " 9. d. "Dissertation on First Principles of Government. " 10. a. "The American Crisis. "

To mark the 275th anniversary of the birth of Revolutionary War pamphleteer Thomas Paine, answer these questions about his life and essays. 1. Where in England was Paine born? a. Lewes. b. London. c. Sandwich. d. Thetford. 2. For a time, Paine was a master stay-maker, with his own shop. What product did stay-makers produce? a. Anchors. b. Buttons. c. Corsets. d. Upholstery tacks. 3. When did he arrive in Philadelphia?

IN 2005, Upper Darby surfaced on the Delaware Valley's radar. That was not necessarily good news for Philadelphia's bedroom suburb. The media suddenly were filled with accounts of "scumbags," "bums," "thugs" and "criminal enterprise" coming from new Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood. The last phrase landed him in court. The outspoken top cop, who rose through the ranks of the Philadelphia Police Department and then became chief of police in Middletown, Pa., and Portland, Maine, before returning to his home turf, has a dual reputation as SuperCop and also as a media-friendly quote machine.

SO, LET'S GET this straight: HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius doesn't think that teenage girls are mature enough to avoid overdosing on emergency contraception medication that consists of a single pill , but that they are presumably mature enough to deal with an unintended pregnancy, arrange an abortion - or have a child? That's one conclusion you might draw from Sebelius' decision to become the first secretary of Health and Human Services - in, like, ever - to overrule a science-based recommendation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that would have made the so-called "morning-after pill" available on drugstore and supermarket shelves.

WASHINGTON - President Obama said Thursday that it was just common sense to keep girls under the age of 17 from being able to buy a morning-after contraceptive pill off a drugstore shelf. Citing his own two daughters, Obama said: "I think most parents would probably feel the same way. " Plenty of pediatric leaders and women's advocacy groups did not, as reaction flowed in to the administration's decision a day earlier to prevent the over-the-counter sale of the anti-pregnancy drug to sexually active girls of younger ages.

IN WASHINGTON, Congress has under development a federal bill seeking states' reciprocity rules for granting the individual's "right to carry" sidearm guns. In Pennsylvania, any resident who, by legal scrutiny, has forfeited his right to carry concealed sidearm weapons could go to some other state, pass a less-strenuous background check followed by lesser firearm regulations and then return to Pennsylvania's cities legally armed and dangerous. All the while, nationally, city populations are under siege with the growing menace of lethal weapons.

Common sense on jobs bill Politics didn't kill the so-called jobs bill of 2011; common sense did ("Politics killed the jobs bill," Thursday). We were fed the same line about how the so-called stimulus package of 2009 would create jobs and improve the economy. We can all see how well that worked out. So now all we need to do is spend about another half-trillion dollars we don't have and expect it to work this time? I don't think so. Stupidity (or is it insanity?) is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

There was something tragic about the plea made to Chris Christie last week by a woman who wants the coy New Jersey governor to run for president. "I really implore you," said the woman, after listening to Christie speak at the Reagan Library, "as a citizen of this country, to, please, sir, to reconsider. ... Go home and really think about it, please. Do it - do it for my daughter. Do it for our grandchildren. Do it for our sons. Please, sir, don't - we need you. Your country needs you to run for president.

AS REPORTS GO, the newly released five-year plan for policing the city is a lot like the commissioner who authored it: more common sense than flash. It's a smart approach that covers the basics rather than relying on whiz-bang technologies. The core of the plan strengthens one of Commissioner Charles Ramsey's major initiatives, the Police Services Area (PSA), which divides police districts into smaller units to allow for more "personalized" policing: beat cops, foot patrols, and a stronger connection between police and the communities they serve.

Peggy Weber Bradford stays slim with the aid of a support group the size of cyberspace. Her "Steps to Good Health" Facebook page is the heart of a growing online community of nearly 1,500 people. Its members help each other lose weight via Bradford's 10,000-steps-a-day walking (or vacuuming, or lawn-mowing) system, which she's more than happy to share. Free. "A lot of people are scared to go to a gym," says Bradford, whose mega-chunky "before" photo provides an astonishing contrast to the lanky, athletic woman who stands before me, 73 pounds lighter.