Golden Rule

RE THE letter to Harry Gross that appeared under the headline "Your SUV Drains Everyone's Gas Supply" (Feb. 21): It is not up to me to judge the faith of the writer. But I can judge the degree to which his faith influences his conduct by what he says. What a travesty that anyone would go to church - or synagogue or mosque - where community and concern for others is supposed to matter the most, and voice opinions like this. I would sum up his view as "I can do anything I can afford to pay for, and you can't stop me. " The writer needs to rethink why he attends church.

The 34,616 employees in the Philadelphia region who participated in our survey were asked to rate their company's chief executive officer in response to this prompt: "I have confidence in the leader of this organization. " The leaders with the highest scores among large, medium, and small companies are our winners. Top leader, large companies Brown's family-owned company, based in Westville, N.J., runs nine ShopRite grocery stores in Philadelphia, Bucks, and Montgomery Counties, and one in Brooklawn.

RE BRYAN M. Kilpatrick's letter on the Bible and homosexuality: What compels me to write has nothing to do with your deeply held beliefs on what the Bible has to say about homosexuality. But for someone who professes to embrace the spirit of the law, as distinguished from its letter, there is a decided self-righteousness and mean-spiritedness to your approach. While Judaism and Christianity do share many of the books of the Bible, the New Testament is canonized only by Christianity, but even Protestants and Catholics do not regard all of the same books as canon.

THE GOLDEN RULE Students at St. Denis School in Havertown are focusing on the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. "The goal is helping our children to become more aware and to appreciate the differences of other people and accept them," said Sister Marianna Walsh, principal of the school. "We hope it will carry on over the weeks, months and years. " She said it was one of the goals the school set during a recent Middle States Evaluation self-study.

Academic freedom is the golden rule at American colleges, a long-cherished principle that protects the right of professors and students to conduct controversial research and classroom discussion without fear of reprisal, all in the cause of knowledge and understanding. But as two local cases show, colleges with a religious affiliation often must struggle to balance academic freedom with the potentially conflicting values of religion. A part-time religion professor recently resigned from Chestnut Hill College after she said the Catholic school's president told her that, when speaking publicly, the professor could not identify herself as both a lesbian and a college employee.

"This is the bread of affliction which our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt; let all those who are hungry enter and eat thereof; and all who are in distress come and celebrate the Passover. " - The Passover Blessing NORMAN ROCKWELL (1894-1978), the quintessential illustrator of the common man, is best remembered for capturing on canvas an array of slice-of-life tableaus of 20th-century Americana. "Golden Rule," perhaps his most socially conscious creation, graced the cover of the April 1, 1961, Saturday Evening Post, a date that fell right between the start of Passover (March 31)

SOME questions for CEO Paul Vallas and some possible answers: If there is a dress code for students, will you be instituting one for the teachers and other school personnel? To learn by example is an old, golden rule. You have attempted to find appropriate punishment for certain infractions: cell phone use, late arrivals. You have suggested that the parents suffer the inconvenience of retrieving the phone at the central office. You acknowledge that a response to lateness has not yet been formulated.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - At the Almond Avenue Residence Club, an assisted living center in Orangevale, Calif., a dozen chatty older people meet for coffee every morning to debate how they'd answer questions printed in newspaper advice columns. After an hour of gentle exercise and a sing-along of perennials such as "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah," it's wisdom time. Activity director Lauren Guarducci reads to the group, and they listen carefully. The day's Carolyn Hax advice column question deals with a new bride, a cheating groom, and a friend who figures out the situation.

Dolores O'Riordan's songs are tailor-made for sing-alongs in large, open spaces - the words offer emotional catharsis, the hooks are easy and memorable, and there are quirky, wordless vocal phrases (like the instantly recognizable dee-do-dat-doo of "Ode To My Family") that repeat regularly. But O'Riordan's songs also depend upon her reed-thin voice, and Tuesday at Camden's Waterfront Entertainment Centre, the Cranberries' leader held a sing- in that positioned her voice atop a mass choir some 20,000 strong.

A Novel By Ken Kalfus Bloomsbury. 224 pp. $24. Reviewed by Glenn C. Altschuler The equilateral triangle combines the virtues of uniformity and variety, Sanford Thayer, the main character in Ken Kalfus' new novel, proclaims. The component of all regular pyramidal solids and the basis of all human art, it is "the most visually satisfying geometrical figure of them all. " Drawing on his cigar, Wilson Ballard, Thayer's chief engineer, shoots back: "Bloody difficult to dig, though.

While I'm away, readers give the advice. On gutting out miserable holidays with family: My older sister hated me. My existence was an insult to her, and I was never allowed to forget it. In my adulthood, I lived just close enough to Mom and Dad (and sib) that my Christmases and Thankgivings involved a long, grueling visit to my family. It was torture, but because my parents wanted to go visit, we of course went along. Instead of being happy and comfortable in my own home with loving friends or other relatives, I was counting the minutes at my sib's place, feeling guilty about subjecting my husband and daughter to her, and trying to dodge the inevitable barbs, outright insults, and innuendo that were a fixed feature of our being in the same room.

IT CONSTANTLY amazes me that people today, like Peter Garvin (letter, March 20) , are jealous of the poor! Think about that: People are constantly complaining about what the poor have been given. Have we lost all sense of perspective? Yet I don't see these same [complainers] opting to move into the crime-ridden neighborhoods where the poor live, or send their children to the same schools as those attended by the children of the poor. If indeed the life of the poor is so attractive, it would not be difficult in this day and age to change your status so that you could qualify.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - At the Almond Avenue Residence Club, an assisted living center in Orangevale, Calif., a dozen chatty older people meet for coffee every morning to debate how they'd answer questions printed in newspaper advice columns. After an hour of gentle exercise and a sing-along of perennials such as "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah," it's wisdom time. Activity director Lauren Guarducci reads to the group, and they listen carefully. The day's Carolyn Hax advice column question deals with a new bride, a cheating groom, and a friend who figures out the situation.

The 34,616 employees in the Philadelphia region who participated in our survey were asked to rate their company's chief executive officer in response to this prompt: "I have confidence in the leader of this organization. " The leaders with the highest scores among large, medium, and small companies are our winners. Top leader, large companies Brown's family-owned company, based in Westville, N.J., runs nine ShopRite grocery stores in Philadelphia, Bucks, and Montgomery Counties, and one in Brooklawn.

I am 86 years old, and I still can remember my mother, Adah Carrowon. My mother had a stroke when I was born. She later died at age 39 when I was 17. My mother was slow to walk and had to drag her one leg but she never complained. She was a friend to all the teen friends that I had. We could ask her questions; she taught us to cook and clean; and she was a real Christian who followed the golden rule. You know she must have been special because she has a daughter who loves her to this day. Evelyn C. Robinson Philadelphia I only had my mother, Muriel Loretta Smith, for a few short years, but she was an incredible woman who gave me a loving example.

IN AESOP'S FABLE "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," there really was a wolf, a boy - and some sheep. And the wolf doesn't eat the feckless young man, it devours the sheep. I think it serves us well to remember that outcome as we think about SEPTA's fiscal crisis. We've heard it all before. SEPTA is running out of money, and if something doesn't happen, it's doomsday for us all. Then, at the last minute, somehow, some way, money is found. Like the townfolk in the story, most people have stopped responding to SEPTA's cries.

RE BRYAN M. Kilpatrick's letter on the Bible and homosexuality: What compels me to write has nothing to do with your deeply held beliefs on what the Bible has to say about homosexuality. But for someone who professes to embrace the spirit of the law, as distinguished from its letter, there is a decided self-righteousness and mean-spiritedness to your approach. While Judaism and Christianity do share many of the books of the Bible, the New Testament is canonized only by Christianity, but even Protestants and Catholics do not regard all of the same books as canon.

MIKE RICCHINI was still upset when I spoke to him a few days ago about something that happened just before Christmas. His daughter, Jenna, a 9-year-old third-grader at Vanzant Elementary in Evesham Township, came home and reported to her parents that her class would be watching a video the next day about children with "two mommies and two daddies. " Ricchini was angry and told the school principal so. "These are third-graders. There is no reason they should be watching videos on same-sex marriage," he told me. He also said he thought the parents were given insufficient notice of the showing of the video.

Two-part solution Your headline on yesterday's front page ("Split on Ten Commandments") actually provides the solution to this issue. The two tablets of the Ten Commandments should be split. That way, the first five, which are primarily religious, could be displayed in places of worship and homes, and the last five, which are primarily of non-sectarian moral applicability, could be more appropriately displayed in schools and courthouses. Personally, I would prefer that the "golden rule" - treat others the way you would want to be treated - be given such prominence and be taught in our schools.