Opportunities

Edward Spencer Gale Dennis Jr. has said that if his life had a theme, it was never letting an opportunity for advancement slip by. "Opportunities were made available to me," he told a reporter five years ago, "and I think because of that - because I knew that opportunities had not been afforded in the past to the extent that I was a beneficiary of - that I really should not waste them. " Born in an era of segregation, the first black man to serve as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has made the most of opportunities in his 43 years - rising from boyhood in race-conscious Dover, Del., to the Merchant Marine Academy to the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania to chief of the Justice Department's narcotics and dangerous drug section in Washington, to the high-profile U.S. attorney's post in Philadelphia.

Philadelphians enjoy a rich inheritance. Their forebears chose a wonderful site for a city and built well. Independence and Carpenters Halls, the First and Second Banks, City Hall, the Museum of Art and the Parkway are only a few conspicious treasures, but one simple title embraces the largest single inheritance of all - Fairmount Park. The largest urban park in the world is also the finest. Its structure permeates much of the city and confers beauty and delight. The Cresheim and Wissahickon, Pennypack and Schuylkill, riparian lands and enclosing wooded slopes provide the skeleton.

Tchaikovsky wrote 10 operas but most American houses stage only a couple, including The Queen of Spades and Eugene Onegin (and even these, it seems to me, aren't performed often enough). Eugene Onegin is always special to encounter, as Tchaikovsky's music so sensitively elaborates the characters in Pushkin's love story (a poem actually) of tragically lost opportunities. Rising young Canadian baritone Gino Quilico, son of the baritone Louis Quilico, is expected to make a dashing title character in tonight's production of Eugene Onegin by the Opera Company of Philadelphia at the Academy of Music.

Prince John: Mother! He has a knife! Eleanor of Aquitaine: Of course he has a knife. I have a knife. We all have knives. It's 1183 and we are barbarians. And what witty barbarians they are, this ridiculously dysfunctional royal family struggling for power and land, betraying, fornicating, murdering, double-dealing, and slinging out one-liners all the while in The Lion in Winter. Eleanor was the richest woman in the world when she married Henry II, and he has, in the 30 years since then, become "the greatest power in a thousand years.

Jim, a successful 30-something male attorney, is divorced, rents a two- bedroom apartment in the 'burbs, and spends about an hour and a half each day commuting to Center City. "Jim," I said. "You must buy a home in the city this year! Both prices and interest rates are way down. " "But," he replied, "look at Donald Trump's problems because he bought real estate. " I hadn't realized that Trump's get-rich-quick deals with junk bonds and the S&Ls lining the pockets of the good ol' boys' real estate scams could obscure people's understanding of today's legitimate real estate opportunities.

Let's not get into a swivet over whether Harold J. Katz wants to move our basketball team to New Jersey. Even Katz is smart enough to realize that the 76ers' lease with Spectacor, the firm that manages the Spectrum, runs through 1999. If Katz wants to break that lease, it would cost him about 1.5 million smackers, every year. The guy's not stupid. Katz isn't the issue we should be thinking about. Nor should we be thinking only about what to do with the reportedly unsafe John F. Kennedy Stadium.

Someone once told me about a farmer who was hurrying home during a flash flood and, because he wasn't sure what to do, decided to ride his horse right through the rushing creek bordering his farm. Well, the situation was worse than the farmer thought, and the result was horse and rider were swept downstream, both nearly drowning before they managed to clamber to safety. After that, I was told, the farmer couldn't induce that horse to cross the creek even when the flow was a mere trickle.

Louis Malone couldn't stop smiling about the opportunity his Marlton advertising firm sees in jumping onto the economic juggernaut known as the Republican National Convention. "It would be very influential for us to do business for anyone that's coming to the convention," said Malone, vice president for business development for Adventures in Advertising, which can create items such as banners, buttons, logos and T-shirts. "There are opportunities for all of us. " Yesterday, two top officials from Philadelphia 2000, the host and organizational arm of the convention, touted the GOP shindig to more than 100 business leaders here at a breakfast meeting sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce of Southern New Jersey.

The pay is decent and the title is nice. But the work involved, by almost every comparison that can be made among jobs in state government, isn't exactly exciting. So why are six people, including two respected state senators with a combined 38 years of legislative experience, seeking to capture the Democratic and Republican nominations for state auditor general in the April 28 primary? The opportunities, the candidates say. Opportunities to improve Pennsylvania's fiscal management, shape public policy, safeguard the taxpayers' dollars and leave a mark on the commonwealth.

The Pittsburgh Steelers are a tough bunch that plays football on the muscular, visceral level. They're also almost universally picked to wind up in the AFC playoffs this season. So neither Steelers coach Bill Cowher nor any of his players could explain exactly what went wrong yesterday at Veterans Stadium, where the Eagles looked like the playoff-bound club and the Steelers a team that had simply lost its way. "It was a game of mistakes and missed opportunities," said Cowher, wincing at the impact of five turnovers by his offense and no takeaways by his defense.

ROBIN LEACH , the former host with the golden voice of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous," will be in Atlantic City this weekend as a "Millionaire Maker" to crown the first of four guaranteed millionaires through Harrah's, Showboat, Bally's and Caesars. But Leach suggested that the winners' best move is not to take their winnings back to the slots. "Bank the money and don't spend it all at once . . . I've seen so many people crash and burn in my time, but this time I'll give some advice to stay newly rich and famous," Leach told me from his Las Vegas home.

By Jun-Youb "JY" Lee When I heard Vice President Biden proclaim to University of Pennsylvania graduates Monday, "China is going to eat our lunch," I wondered if he understood his audience. Onstage with him were Amy Gutmann, Penn's president, and Princeton professor Kwame Appiah, one of Biden's fellow honorary doctorate recipients. Both are leading thinkers on cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism. What did they think of Biden's patriotic call to serve American interests above all other nations'?

Two years ago, CyOptics Inc. was looking to go public and raise $100 million, but it dropped those plans last May. On Thursday, the Lehigh County maker of optical components agreed to be acquired for $400 million. The buyer? A cash-rich Singapore company called Avago Technologies Inc. It's telling that Avago was able to pull off its initial public offering during one of the worst years for such financings (2009), while CyOptics couldn't squeak through the IPO window during the year when Facebook went public - the biggest tech IPO ever.

TWICE IN THE last week, the Flyers faced off against teams desperately clinging to their playoff lives - riding identical five-game losing skids into the matchup. Both times, Winnipeg and Ottawa skated off the ice with a pair of points, quickly rejuvenating their playoff hopes in this crazy, shortened season. It was the Senators' turn Thursday night, scoring two third-periods goals - including a rare breakaway, power-play tally - to down the Flyers, 3-1, in a somewhat empty and lifeless Wells Fargo Center.

IT'S LIKE a juggling act for 76ers coach Doug Collins right now. His team is seven games behind Milwaukee for the last playoff spot in the East, has lost 10 straight on the road, and plays 15 of its final 24 games away from Philly. Still, Collins' approach will be to try to win every game. At the same time, evaluating for the future is something that must be done at some point, whether the team is mathematically out of the running or just hopelessly removed from it. "It's continuing as a coaching staff to create a very positive environment for our guys to come to work to every day, to continue to teach," Collins said of the remaining 6 weeks of the season, barring playoffs.

Peter Laviolette appeared annoyed at hearing yet another question about the Flyers' trying to reach a level the coach considers way too low. When the Flyers host the Ottawa Senators in Saturday's noon affair at the Wells Fargo Center, they will be attempting for the seventh time this season to scale Mount .500. The Flyers (10-11-1) are 0-6 in their other attempts to reach .500 and have been outscored by 29-12 in those games. "Five hundred isn't going to do anything for us," he said following a long practice on Friday at the Skate Zone in Voorhees.

By Thomas C. Woodward Back in the late 1970s, I had a summer job as a bank teller that helped point me toward my career in banking. That's not unusual. Summer jobs not only provide critically needed skills and an introduction to the working world, but they also often ignite a desire to develop educational and professional goals. Unfortunately, too many young people are not receiving these necessary opportunities. Recent data from the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that youth employment is at its lowest level since World War II. Moreover, in Pennsylvania, the youth unemployment rate is 15 percent higher than the general unemployment rate.

The Phillies' projected opening-day catcher enjoyed the attention. After the best season of his career, he was in demand and happily answered questions during a banquet stop at a hotel and casino in Bethlehem, Pa., late last month. These are the best of times for Erik Kratz, a blue-collar worker from the town of Telford on the Bucks-Montgomery County line who refused to let years of rejection deter his pursuit of a big-league dream. This, however, is not the ideal catching situation for the Phillies.

NEW ORLEANS - As he walked down one of the long hallways at the New Orleans Convention Center on Monday following a night of celebration and a morning news conference, John Harbaugh still was having trouble getting used to the fact that he is a Super Bowl-winning head coach. "I mean, I can't even believe we're having this conversation walking down the hallway after winning the Super Bowl," he said. "To me, I can't believe we're having this conversation, in all honesty. " They're probably having trouble believing it at Syracuse and Boston College, as well, two of the many places that thumbed their noses at the then-Eagles special-teams coach when he was looking for a head-coaching opportunity.

  It's hard for anyone to care for an ailing, aging family member, but Im Ja Choi faced extra challenges when her mother's stomach cancer was diagnosed in 2002. Choi's mother, who had come to the United States from Korea in 1978 to help raise Choi's children, had never learned to speak English or enjoy American food. Choi thought she would be miserable in a nursing home. But her mother weighed 62 pounds and had a colostomy bag when she got out of the hospital. Choi and her husband both worked.