Handouts

If you're like many people who frequent Center City, you've become so fed up with panhandlers that you rarely give them money anymore. And if we're all being honest here, you also find that you're less and less sympathetic to their plight. Besides the relatively few panhandlers who are persistent, obnoxious and even physically aggressive, there's the fact that homeless advocates tell us most of our spare change winds up at the liquor store or on the city's drug corners - not in providing food, shelter or clothing for the needy.

This would surprise Mrs. Herman, Mrs. O'Malley and all the other grammar school teachers who winced and looked pained at the watercolor drawings I produced in class. But it turns out that I am a natural-born artist. They'd have trouble believing that back at the Chase School. When they exhibited our works in the hallway, mine always wound up next to the janitor's nook. The problem, as I have now learned, is that I was ahead of my time. In fact, I didn't know I was an artist until a few days ago when I read about a federally-funded arts project in California.

Who is this person with a crazy name like Cushing Dolbeare? Should we really take her seriously when she suggests that we spend an additional $500 million annually to subsidize the housing costs of the poor in Philadelphia? Dolbeare must be taken seriously. She's an acknowledged national expert on the problems of housing for the poor. Her study for the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia (PILCOP) is probably the most detailed analysis ever undertaken of the city's housing programs.

For the first time in almost 30 years, and at the behest of President Clinton, Latin American and Caribbean heads of state (except Fidel Castro of Cuba) are meeting this weekend in Miami with their North American counterparts. Inter-American relations have undergone a sea change in these three decades, especially in the post-Cold War years. Thirty years ago, security considerations prevailed in the way the United States interacted with its southern neighbors. Today, economic considerations top the list.

It pays to live in a swing state these days. Just ask folks in central Ohio, where Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman this week announced a $207 million federal project to improve Columbus' drinking-water supply. There is no evidence the money found its way to Ohio for purely political reasons. But it certainly won't hurt President Bush in a state where he is neck and neck with Sen. John Kerry. For Kerry, it's a reminder that Bush can do what the senator cannot: Marshal the vast machinery of the federal government - including its treasury - to help his cause.

They came, nearly 200 strong, wearing business suits and kente cloth, driving Mercedes-Benzes and Hyundais. They hugged and ate and collected business cards. They sang and prayed and talked about the need for change in the African American community. Then they listened as New Jersey Secretary of State Lonna Hooks told them that the way to bring about such change - especially now that the political tides have turned - was to re-establish a black presence in the Republican Party.

Americans generally agree that if giving someone a fish is good, teaching him how to catch fish is far better. We believe that self-reliance is preferable to dependency and work is better than welfare. But when it comes to the neediest continent on the planet, the main use we make of these principles is to shred them. President Bush surprised everyone in this year's State of the Union address by proposing big increases in humanitarian aid to Africa, particularly to fight AIDS. Last week, he became only the third U.S. president to visit Africa in the last 25 years.

Abdullah al-Luhaymi spends weekend nights cruising around the Saudi capital Riyadh on his motorbike before stopping to meet friends, usually at an American-style fast-food joint. Each month he has more to choose from. "This is where we like to eat and watch people, this is the best area in Riyadh," the 29-year-old university graduate says, sitting on his Kawasaki. He's parked outside Dunkin' Donuts and just down the road from Applebee's, Elevation Burger and Krispy Kreme. People wait in lines to be served.

It's early morning and I am surfing. The remote control in my hand is traveling swiftly across dozens of television channels. But the same wave is breaking on every network news show. It's Phil Gramm on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN. Ever since the Texas senator decided to run for the White House, he's been on more channels than O.J. The Gramm who faces me across the bedroom this morning is hard to take before coffee. His appearances could be used as aversion therapy for someone trying to kick politics.

The Bucks County NAACP called for disciplinary action and teacher sensitivity training in the Central Bucks School District yesterday after an eighth-grade math class at Lenape Middle School got a homework assignment with an image of a black man that the group called "insulting" and "disparaging. " The picture - with the caption "Solving Equations Using Multiplication and Division!" - shows an unshaven black man with a straw hat and a gaping mouth missing most teeth. Beneath it is the slang expression "No Wai!