Family Values

WHAT ARE these Jacksons, America's official dysfunctional family? From Michael's alleged pederasty, to LaToya undressed, to the latest outrage, Janet's breast, we say, enough is enough. Let's take a page from the Amish, and introduce their practice of shunning into modern life, whereby they banish families from the community. The Jacksons should be the first to go.

My first chance to catch up on Woody and Mia. What a wallow! Holy cow. In this sunny political season, when the Republicans are working to make "family values" an issue - since they haven't got anything else going for them - poor Woody and Mia, on top of all their other problems, are now being sucked into the political vortex. U.S. Rep. Newt Gingrich, a thoroughly nasty man, said in the course of introducing President Bush this weekend, "I call this the Woody Allen plank. It's a weird situation, and it fits the Democratic Party platform perfectly.

Poor Bob Dole. He can't seem to stop giving the Clinton campaign new openings to portray him as out of touch with family life as it is lived these days. First it was that bridge business. President Clinton easily turned around Dole's reference as a bridge to the past to harp constantly on himself as a "bridge to the future. " But Dole kept going on about bridges. Now it's the Family and Medical Leave Act. Four years ago, when President George Bush vetoed the Democratic measure to grant 12 weeks of unpaid leave to employees for use in family emergencies, Republicans warned it would result in economic disarray.

The Rev. Sun Myung Moon spoke in Center City last night without a hitch. That's a far cry from Moon's appearance just 11 days ago at Olympic Stadium in Seoul, Korea, where the controversial minister hitched some 30,000 couples - and tens of thousands more via satellite - at his largest mass wedding ceremony ever. There weren't any wedding bells last night at the Philadelphia Marriott Hotel, where Moon kicked off a 15-city U.S. speaking tour before a packed banquet room of about 800 true believers and truly curious.

In his State of the Union address, President Clinton said, "The American people have got to want to change from within if we're going to bring back work and family and community. " In his home in Wisconsin, writer Rick Horowitz immediately assembled his family and pondered the state of his household. "Madam Speaker, members of the household, distinguished pets, my fellow Americans: "We gather here this evening at a time of enormous change and enormous opportunity. We find ourselves in a very different place from where we were even a year ago. But I think we can all agree that the backyard is a lousy place to give a speech in the middle of winter.

Last month's debate over a domestic partners bill in Philadelphia City Council once again evoked the political and religious maelstrom of "family values. " In a rare ecumenical partnership, Catholic, evangelical and Black Muslim leaders denounced the bill as a threat to the family and consequently to our civilization. I find myself distressed by the increasing theological and political rhetoric about family. I am not convinced that so-called "family values" are all that historically meaningful, nor are they all that Christian.

ZHENXING JIANG is missing. So is conservative outrage over her case, which should have those espousing "family values" rushing to her aid. Ms. Jiang fled China and came to this country, illegally, 11 years ago. She and her husband, Tien Xiao Zhang, have lived the American dream, working hard at their South Philadelphia restaurant, paying taxes and raising two sons, 4 and 7, who are U.S. citizens. After she entered the United States, Jiang applied for asylum. The family was keeping their regular appointment at the immigration office here when Jiang was taken into a separate room and told her asylum appeals had been exhausted.

Don't you just love it when those holier-than-thou types are exposed as sanctimonious hypocrites? Add the famously conservative "pro-marriage" author Tom Clancy to the pantheon of preachers who stray, the anti-abortion crusaders who use the service themselves and the homophobes revealed to be gay. Clancy was in court recently petitioning for a speedy end to his 28-year marriage so he can take a new wife, a woman who was 3 years old when...

Joseph Mattioli, 86, who gave up a successful dental practice in Northeast Philadelphia to found Pocono Raceway, died Thursday after a lengthy illness. Dr. Mattioli closed his dental practice at 34 to become an entrepreneur, investing in properties in Philadelphia and Northeastern Pennsylvania. Known to all as "Doc," he eventually founded Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pa., the only remaining family-owned and -run track on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule. Pocono Raceway opened in July 1971 with a 500-mile Indy car race.

FAMILY. That will be his enduring legacy. Family. Family is all. Don't you hear them: We Are . . . We Are . . . Family is the cry that echoes through the rolling hills of the Valley of Happy, that spills out from the Fortress Nittany, out into the real world, there tethered to the blue-and-white umbilical cord of thousands upon thousands upon tens of thousands of alumni. Don't you hear them: We Are . . . We Are . . . Once a Penn Stater, always and forever a Penn Stater.

By Jacqueline White History is rarely made on reality television, but it is being made in this season of Dancing With the Stars . Chaz Bono, the first transgender contestant, has shown the world the importance of family values - broadly understood. "My whole family's here," he announced on the show earlier this month. For Bono to claim such support is particularly poignant, and not just because his mother is the pop goddess Cher. Most transgender people endure heartbreaking family rejection.

Philly jumps to the music forefront again with a striking album release today from Kindred The Family Soul , "Love Has No Recession" (Shanachie, B+ ). Kindred (Aja Graydon and Fatin Dantzler) and company's more old than new soul approach works well on the material at hand. As the title suggests, theirs are songs often steeped in protest and prophecy as well as family values, aiming to keep it real while raising spirits in today's hard times. Hear 'em moan (with help from homie Bilal)

By Steve Lopez Back in 2003, I witnessed a remarkable spectacle at a rally for then-gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger. As I talked to people about allegations that Schwarzenegger had crudely groped women against their will, using his celebrity and power to have his way, they were outraged - not at Schwarzenegger, but at the Los Angeles Times, for reporting the stories. Even after Schwarzenegger stepped to the stage and admitted that "where there's smoke, there's fire," women who espoused family values came to his defense.

Rena Burke, 78, of West Philadelphia, a retired Sears, Roebuck & Co. employee and church volunteer, died of lung cancer Wednesday, April 13, at Lankenau Hospital. When Mrs. Burke was 2, her father died in an automobile accident. She, her mother, and two siblings moved in with her maternal grandparents in South Philadelphia. She was a graduate of South Philadelphia High School. From 1960 to 1991, Mrs. Burke was a catalog order processor at the Sears merchandise building on Roosevelt Boulevard in Northeast Philadelphia.

Thursday night's forecast of snow is a tad iffy, but I fearlessly predict Gov. Christie will not be on vacation. Instead, he'll be doing whatever a governor does in Trenton when a street in, say, Toms River needs a plow. Rest assured: Long before the next sighting of flakes over Freehold, the Big Guy will be out there. Shoveling. "This administration's always going to be about substance first," Christie boldly told Sean Hannity during a mini-blizzard of talk radio interviews this week.

The statistics in the classroom and on the baseball field are off the charts for Washington Township shortstop Nick Favatella. Yet one rival coach wanted to talk about something else: Favatella's character. "When he hits a home run, he doesn't try to show up the other team," Lenape coach Phil Fiore said. "He is a very classy kid and ballplayer, and his style and class are what I like the most. " That's saying something, because Favatella has done a lot in his four years at Washington Township.

The statistics in the classroom and on the baseball field are off the charts for Washington Township shortstop Nick Favatella. Yet one rival coach wanted to talk about something else: Favatella's character. "When he hits a home run, he doesn't try to show up the other team," Lenape coach Phil Fiore said. "He is a very classy kid and ballplayer, and his style and class are what I like the most. " That's saying something, because Favatella has done a lot in his four years at Washington Township.