Healing

I cannot resist commenting on the Feb. 19 article "Penn medical school to throw out course requirements for admission. " I agree that medical students should pursue a broad undergraduate program. Extra medical courses taken at the undergraduate level only put undue pressure on the student and do not serve a useful purpose as these courses are repeated in medical school. Medical students must learn that a patient is more than a body to be treated. Successful healing of a person must take into account the role a person's mind plays in the healing process.

Every once in a while just a quick skim of the headlines can provide an insight into just which way the world is going these days. Consider the two headlines that appeared on the front of yesterday's business section of The Inquirer. "Layoffs planned by Hahnemann to balance cuts," read one over a story about how Hahnemann University Hospital was making staff cutbacks because of reduced government funding for health care. Right next to it was another headline: "Scouring the world for workers to open Trump's Taj Mahal," above an article detailing the critical shortage of casino workers.

One of the many highlights of The Well , Charlie Musselwhite's stirring new album, is a song called "Sad and Beautiful World. " Featuring his old friend Mavis Staples on guest vocals, it was inspired by the murder of his 93-year-old mother in her Memphis home in 2005. The key line is: "Let the blues heal what's been torn apart. " For Musselwhite, the blues more than any other music is all about healing and survival. "That's the nature of the blues," the 66-year-old singer, songwriter, guitarist and harmonica virtuoso says over the phone from a bus near Portland, Ore., while touring with Cyndi Lauper.

Some came in their Sunday best. Some wore their everyday jeans, denim skirts and western hats. Many of them wept as their political and spiritual leaders led them through the healing ritual. Others sat stoically, their emotions known to them alone. From all over the city, and much of the state, Oklahomans came to the state fairgrounds yesterday to share their grief in a way that lessened it somehow, to defy the hate-mongers who made this day necessary, and to begin restoring themselves.

On a mild September evening at Benjamin Franklin High School at Broad and Spring Garden Streets, about 80 people gathered to talk about their experiences with violence and why they are participating in the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program's "All Join Hands: Visions of Peace" project. A mural on the school's wall will rise in the coming months with images generated from participants' comments and through workshops and other gatherings. Here is a sampling of the stories that were told that night.

With all the free time on his hands, Eagles defensive end Brandon Graham has taken up golf. Graham's skill on the links were on display yesterday at a charity event in Ann Arbor, Mich., to support the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy. Like Rose, Graham is a former Michigan player. Graham has been doing most of the rehab work on his right knee in the Los Angeles area. Eagles coach Andy Reid has said the 2010 first-round pick is not expected to be ready when the season begins. Graham told the Associated Press he is to see Dr. James Andrews this week and hopes to be cleared to practice in September.

In a suite of modern offices perched above Main Street, the 20 students were learning a 5,000-year-old Asian practice that, some say, is almost as essential to human health as food and water. The students were learning shiatsu (pronounced she-AH-tzoo), an ancient Japanese healing art. They were gathered Saturday in Doylestown, the unlikely headquarters of the International School of Shiatsu, which has branches in England, Switzerland and Italy. Shiatsu, said Saul Goodman, the school's director and founder, is sometimes compared to massage but is actually a technique that incorporates the principles of acupuncture - substituting fingertips for needles.

When Gary Moore, a 37-year-old Toms River police officer, went to Ocean County Sports Rehab for back problems after a car accident, his physical therapist recommended he wear a magnet. "I didn't want to go out with this big magnet strapped to me," Moore said, but the therapist had just the thing - a magnetic device in the form of a sparkling gold chain. Golfers are walking the greens with magnets hidden under their polo shirts and tucked into their shoes. An orthopedist in Texas suggests some of his back-pain patients wear magnets in their underwear.

Perhaps more than ever, or at least in recent months, everyone needs a healing - that is Bobbi Trzaska's take on it. Not the kind that requires a doctor's prescription. The kind that comes from within. "It is time for everyone to let go of their inhibitions and fears and step forward into healing themselves," said Trzaska, a Medford-based yoga teacher and practitioner of reiki, a healing technique. Trzaska is organizing a Day of Healing at the YMCA of Burlington County.

Rep. Joseph Kennedy, D-Mass., said yesterday he hoped for "healing" after a Massachusetts district attorney decided not to file charges against his brother Michael over allegations that he had sex with the family's teen-age baby sitter. "Obviously this is a time when I hope that there can be healing in Michael's family," Kennedy told reporters yesterday. Both men are sons of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. "There can only be a sense of pain that has come out of all these circumstances, and I'm sure that he and [his wife]

IN THE WAKE of a homicide, "a lot goes on," said Officer Kathryn M. Battle, Homicide Unit Victims Assistance liaison, who is tasked with showing victims' families "the human side" of the Police Department. "Our objective is to show them . . . that we do care about them as a family, that their loved one is a person to us, not just a number," Battle said. Through the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, homicide victims' next of kin are entitled to up to $6,500 for funeral expenses to offset any costs not covered by insurance.

Pascal Dupuis had no Mark Messier in him. Dupuis, the Penguins' scrappy forward, stopped short of guaranteeing a victory for Pittsburgh in Wednesday night's Game 4. His words were short and sweet, as the Penguins stare down being swept for the first time in 33 years. "It won't end like this," Dupuis said. That's a more tepid guarantee than the one Mark Messier delivered on behalf of the New York Rangers in a 1994 Game 6 matchup with the New Jersey Devils. He made good on the promise and the Rangers went on to win the Stanley Cup. For the Flyers, the benefits of ousting the pompous Penguins with a handshake on home ice are endless - including handing their hated rival the dubious distinction of being just the second team in the 94-year history of the sport to be swept in the first round following a 50-plus win season.

The front of Mike Patterson's T-shirt turned a darker, damper shade of gray as he pushed further into his workout. Standing on a soft mat, his feet sinking in as if in sand, the 300-pound Eagles defensive tackle sprinted in place, arms pumping and knees high, for a 15-second burst, then rested for 45 seconds, and sprinted again. His unruly hair - some teammates compare it to a grizzly bear's - mostly conceals the scar that begins at his right ear and runs up the side of his head, cutting a path that ends roughly a third of the way across the front of his skull.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Two weeks ago, Sam Perlozzo was raving about his next big idea. He'd call it "Sam's Stool" and market it to baseball teams at every level. The blue step stool he used to keep Chase Utley active in the field last spring was so helpful that the first thing Perlozzo, the Phillies' first-base coach, did upon arriving in Florida was to make sure no one had stolen it. Now, "Sam's Stool" will require modifications. Ideally, it could fold. Maybe it'll have wheels, or perhaps a bucket seat to make its user more comfortable.

Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, who was archbishop of Philadelphia from 1988 until 2003, was a prayerful man. While he visited all his parishes on a regular basis, a practice for which he was praised and loved by everyday Catholics, he seemed to prefer the solitude of meditative communion with God. If his faith is true, he has now met the object of his contemplation face to face, the robes and the miter left behind. He is as one of us, a sinner before the seat of an all-just, all-merciful God. I have always trusted God to do the right thing in these circumstances, and I have likewise always been relieved that he insisted on reserving this judgment entirely to himself.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Thousands of grieving Penn State supporters crowded the Bryce Jordan Center on Thursday to say an emotional last goodbye to beloved football coach Joe Paterno - but Karen Peetz and Keith Masser, the chair and vice chair of the university board of trustees, weren't among them. Instead, they watched a broadcast of the service from a seat across campus, in an office in the Old Main administration building. That's what it's come to: The Pennsylvania State University board of trustees is so reviled by some alumni that its members could not attend the mass public tribute to their most popular employee, lest their mere presence possibly cause an ugly disturbance.

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.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - In the snow-covered valley he made happy, a mournful calm followed Joe Paterno's passing Sunday. The legendary coach's death muted the typical energy of college life on the 854-acre campus. At his Beaver Stadium statue, bagpipes wailed and young voices sang the alma mater. A women's basketball game at Rec Hall was preceded by a tearful moment of silence and a spontaneous standing ovation. Thousands gathered at an Old Main candlelight vigil. But those respectful on-campus observances obscured an unresolved conflict, one that, given the bitterness at its heart, has the potential to haunt Pennsylvania State University long into its now Paterno-less future.

THIS IS A sports column, published in the sports section of the newspaper and the website, and it is still embarrassing to say this: That Penn State as a university, as a public educational institution, will not get past the damage of the Jerry Sandusky scandal until it has a winning football team under the successor to Joe Paterno. It sounds so superficial to hear it, and so crass to type the words, but the more you think about it, the conclusion seems unavoidable. Because while winning alone will not solve the school's current problem, and no one should pretend otherwise, Penn State could do everything right from here on and no one would acknowledge it if the football team went over a cliff under new coach Bill O'Brien.

A few days after the fourth funeral, Mike Gately heard about a contest. His neighbor told him that Under Armour, the Baltimore-based athletic apparel company, was starting a promotion to engage high school sports programs around the country. It was called "Finding Undeniable," a challenge to students and coaches and administrators to display school spirit through group cheers, band performances, mascot routines, and other shows of student-body enthusiasm. It was so now for today's teenagers - all tied into Facebook and other social media, all related to generating online votes, uploading videos, and eliciting "shout-outs" from celebrities on Twitter.