National Anthem

Peirce College has its own American Idol: Raymond DeShields. And it will be the 39-year-old DeShields, recipient of the most votes in the college's American Idol- style online competition, who will sing the national anthem at the school's commencement ceremony Monday at the Kimmel Center. "Music is really my passion," said DeShields, a married father of three, ages 3 to 12, who is studying for a degree in business administration. "Life got in the way" was his explanation of why he has been working at Verizon as a database administration staff clerk for 15 years instead of pursuing a career in singing.

I LISTENED to the singing of "O Canada" at the Senators-Flyers hockey game on April 29 - and I just want to say thank you. Lauren Hart's singing of our national anthem was beautiful. I am but one Canadian among many who stands beside the United States and not behind you. Again, thank you. Al Jones, Ottawa Better Phillies posters, please I just want to say that the photos in the ads for your Phillies posters are better than the actual posters themselves. I have always collected these in the past because they were nice, glossy and colorful.

So you think you can sing? Melodiously enough to please thousands of cantankerous Eagles fans? Starting at 9 a.m. Saturday — a little after the dawn's early light — you could have your shot at becoming a National Anthem singer at a National Football League game at Lincoln Financial Field. The tryouts could last into early afternoon. A panel of judges will pick 25 competitors to move to the final round, at a later date, when three individuals will be chosen to perform during the coming season.

Gov. Rendell has no illusions of quitting his day job in Pennsylvania for a singing career. Wearing a No. 21 New England Patriots jersey, Rendell paid off a debt by singing the national anthem before yesterday's game between the 76ers and the Boston Celtics at the FleetCenter. When the Eagles lost the Super Bowl, 24-21, to the Patriots, Rendell lost his wager with Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who was at yesterday's NBA game wearing a No. 24 Patriots jersey. The payback was singing the "The Star-Spangled Banner" before the game, which the Sixers won. Rendell sang a capella, and it's likely he won't be making any encore performances.

PHILADELPHIA is reeling under the weight of unprecedented levels of gun- and drug-related violence, with no end in sight. The expense of this carnage is borne by taxpayers who must provide increased emergency medical care, police services and hospital care. I suggest that some of this burden might be lifted by the enactment of a hefty statewide tax surcharge on handguns and commonly sold drug paraphernalia like rolling papers and cigar wrappers. This concept is already used for gasoline, liquor and cigarettes to help pay for their hidden costs to the community.

WHEN WAS the exact moment you knew the Birds season was done? Was it Michael Vick's Week 10 concussion, or LeSean McCoy's in Week 11? Was it back in October, when coach Andy Reid canned Juan Castillo? Or December, when making the playoffs became statistically impossible? For lots of fans, it was mid-November. That's when we turned on our computers/tablets/smartphones and watched a 22-year-old Drexel student walk around FDR Park singing, "We Are Never Ever Gonna Win With Andy" to the tune of Taylor Swift's hit "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.

President Bush may have fooled some people with his support of a constitutional amendment to outlaw flag-burning, but I'm not one of them. I've seen him play the superpatriot game before, only to disappoint. For example, during his presidential campaign, Bush made a big deal out of his devotion to schoolchildren saying the Pledge of Allegiance, while implying that Michael Dukakis was wishy-washy about it. At the time, I was so inspired by Bush's patriotism that I proposed we broaden the reciting of the pledge beyond schoolrooms.

Here to honor America - the cast of Glee? When the World Series resumes at Citizens Bank Park tonight, the young actors from the Fox TV series will be singing the national anthem. What do a bunch of pretend Ohio high schoolers have to do with the Phillies? Not much. As always, being tapped to sing the national anthem before a World Series game follows a selection process that mixes star power, hometown pride, availability, and leverage. "You want to look for somebody who has a relevance in some way to the game or to the city," says Matt Bourne, Major League Baseball's vice president of business public relations.

As the last civilian commander of the Frankford Arsenal, Tiberio Panaccio, 59, was the man who locked all the doors when the historic facility in Northeast Philadelphia was closed in 1982. Yesterday, he returned for the first time in four years. "Thank God it has come back to life," he said. "The grounds are beautiful, and a fabulous job has been done. I have not seen the place look like this since the early 1970s. It is really alive again. " Indeed it is, especially yesterday when more than 500 people, including Mayor Goode, other elected officials and Mark Hankin, the developer who turned the arsenal into the Arsenal Business Center, celebrated the landmark's 170th birthday and the 172d anniversary of the writing of the national anthem.

What, already? A new decade? The closing decade of the millennium? The last chance we have to turn around this blood-soaked killer of a century and give it something else to be remembered by besides world wars, death camps, gulags, tyrants, terrorists, economic depressions, greed, hedonism, consumerism and Freddie. Here's a Last-Chance Agenda, an American 10-Year Plan for the 1990s: First: Greed is as American as apple pie. I have no illusion that we will ever banish it from our shores.