Poster Child

Thank you for the hearts, but we get it - women get turned on up there; for men, it's down below. It's the formula of every romantic comedy, but is that truth "ugly"? Or is this just the worst title ever? Kathryn Heigl wears heels, but she's (too) sensible; a bad girl would flash us the stiletto heel of her peep-toe pump. Gerard Butler is a rapscallion - we know this, because he wears jeans with a jacket, and he's so lazy, he has to lean. (The four-day stubble is mandatory.) It's "27 Dresses" vs. "300," and L-O-V-E is a numbers game.

The man who was photographed throwing snowballs during a New York Giants game says he had been turned into a scapegoat for thousands of fans who did the same thing. "I feel like, hey, I'm being tossed out there like a piece of meat to the lions," Jeffrey Lange said yesterday at a news conference at his lawyer's office. "Honestly, I can't believe I've been singled out. " Lange, 26, of Readington, N.J., was arrested Wednesday and charged with improper behavior for throwing a snowball onto the field during the Giants-San Diego Chargers game Saturday at Giants Stadium.

It isn't every 5-year-old child who can hear a golf tip from a Professional Golfers' Association tour member such as Hal Sutton and turn it into a perfect 10-foot putt that rolls gently into a practice-green hole at White Manor Country Club. But then again, Folsom's Joey Jenkins isn't any ordinary little boy. Joey is this year's official poster child for the $25,000 McNeil Classic, a PGA tour event to be conducted Monday and Tuesday at White Manor in Malvern. The tournament will be dedicated to Joey and almost 30,000 other children nationwide who have cystic fibrosis.

Six-year-old Michael Stumm of Havertown grins and giggles and says he thinks it will be "fine" to be famous. By the end of the month, the face of the cheery child with an infectious grin will be seen throughout Southeastern Pennsylvania as the 1990-91 "Winning Kid" poster child of the Epilepsy Foundation of Philadelphia. The poster will mark November as National Epilepsy Month. When he was 4, Michael began having seizures. There were days when he had as many as six or seven a day, his head dropping and nodding.

Emily Sara Biddle, 4, of Northeast Philadelphia, poster child for the Eagles Fly for Leukemia fund-raising drive and one of running back Ricky Watters' biggest fans, died of cancer Thursday at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children. Emily and Watters were featured on a poster promoting the nonprofit organization that raises money for cancer research and supports pediatric cancer-treatment centers in the region. Eagles players volunteer their time for the program. Emily was recommended as poster child by staff members at St. Christopher's.

It's a cover-up at the Opera Company of Philadelphia. Responding to criticism from its board and subscribers over the poster for a forthcoming production of Strauss' Salome, the troupe stapled four (not seven) red chiffon veils over the biblical temptress's nipples and crotch in the poster put up recently outside the Academy of Music. In addition, the company will not put the specially commissioned illustration on the cover of its program booklet or in bus-shelter advertisements.

He always did have a craving for ice and rarely hesitated to indulge it. That ice is melting now. So diamonds, it turns out, really are not forever. A Georgia judge has ordered Allen Ezail Iverson to pay a jeweler about $860,000. But apparently he can't, so his bank account has been commandeered, and his earnings, whatever of them may be left, are to be garnisheed. The King of Bling, it would seem, is about to become the Prince of Pawn. The man who is the best small scorer in the history of the NBA, who lit up Philadelphia nights with his pyrotechnic play, is said to have worked his way through the better part of - big inhale here - $150 million.

RE DAVID TISCHMAN'S Nov. 4 "Poster Child" movie review: Who are you to try to put Tyler Perry and his movie "For Colored Girls" down? I realize that your opinion is just that. . . yours. However, are you upset that Tyler Perry (despite his unpleasant childhood) has been so blessed to "make it," and become super rich? He also "gives back. " If he wants to use Janet Jackson in his movies, what's it to you? Everyone I know loves Tyler Perry's movies and plays. What's your problem - other than being a hater?

Most people would be nervous about meeting the governor, chatting with Dr. J or making an appearance on the most famous telethon on television. Not Jill Woloshynsky of Bustleton, this year's Muscular Dystrophy Association poster child for Pennsylvania. "It's no big deal," said Jill, 8, when asked whether she would be scared to be seen by hundreds of thousands of people on the annual Jerry Lewis Labor Day telethon for the MDA, which airs next Sunday and Sept. 7. "She is really a lot better than me at these things," said Jill's mom, Patti Lee. "I am a nervous wreck, and she is really calm and can make small talk with people like the governor or the mayor.

To climb the white-carpeted staircase of his Mount Laurel home, 8-year-old Shawn Dennsteadt must plop his arms, which have no hands, on a step and then push off another step with his legs, each of which is missing half a thighbone and one part of the shinbone. But Shawn can scramble up the stairs in just a couple of seconds, faster than most adults with strong legs. And that's just the beginning of the surprises Shawn has in store. He can walk - something doctors said he never would do when he was born.

Perennial candidate Warren Bloom pulled the top ballot position for Philadelphia Traffic Court in Tuesday's primary. Which is troubling because, six years ago, Willie Singletary was first on the ballot and, despite being spectacularly unsuited, won the job. Bloom is the poster candidate for why voters are wretchedly served by this multicar crack-up of an institution. Nine former "judges" on this "court," including Singletary, were charged last fall with conspiracy and fraud for fixing tickets.

THE NEWEST entry in the growing list of global-warming documentaries opens, horror-movie-style, with dramatic footage of lightning storms, floodwaters, wildfires and drought-strangled fields, as though weather itself were something new and terrifying. The statistics come later, suggesting that extremes of climate are, in fact, occurring more widely and frequently, and that they're the result of human activity. But to grab your attention, the film starts with scare tactics. What, you were expecting a calmly reasoned argument from a film called "Greedy Lying Bastards"?

Revealing that you have been sexually abused doesn't come easily at any age. Child victims often fear for their lives. Years later, they fear the reaction of others to such a shocking admission. But unless victims come forward, nothing changes. Just look at the Jerry Sandusky case, which has led to sweeping reforms at Pennsylvania State University to protect children and make sure sexual attacks are reported. The importance of coming forward was reiterated this week by boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard, who spoke candidly at a Penn State conference on child sex abuse about a secret he had kept hidden for years.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - Sugar Ray Leonard still hasn't told his parents or his 11-year-old son, and Monday was just the second time that he spoke publicly about being sexually abused as an adolescent. He had not written a speech, and he momentarily grasped for words. During a 30-minute talk before a room full of experts and advocates, however, the boxing legend moved quickly from uncertainty to clarity - "I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse" - and then a declaration that surprised even organizers of the Pennsylvania State University conference.

BEFORE cellphones, before the Internet, it was on a Thursday evening exactly 20 years ago when the phone hanging on the kitchen wall began to ring. It was the office. Jerome Brown was dead. You do this job long enough and you become numb to stuff. The news is bad, yes, but an impending deadline becomes the most powerful anesthetic. You gather your thoughts for a few minutes, if you have a few minutes, and then you start typing. There isn't any other way. That night was one of the hardest, though.

The world finally got to see Dharun Ravi cry, and if his tears didn't demonstrate the remorse he has so famously failed to express publicly, they at least looked genuine. The seemingly unflappable Ultimate Frisbee ace barely batted an eyelash Monday when others in the Middlesex County courtroom described his actions as "evil" and so lacking in humanity as to verge on monstrous. But when his mother, Sabitha Pazhani, began sobbing just a seat away, Ravi's enormous brown eyes filled up, then spilled.

THIS WEEK created a beautiful harmonic convergence in the resignation of Traffic Court Judge Willie Singletary and in public hearings yesterday on judicial merit selection. Singletary, as you may recall, initially got into hot water for suggesting, while campaigning, that donors would get favorable treatment, and later outdid this behavior by allegedly showing iPhone pictures of his genitals to a female colleague. (Singletary, who also resigned by iPhone, might want to consider trading it in for a Nokia.)

He always did have a craving for ice and rarely hesitated to indulge it. That ice is melting now. So diamonds, it turns out, really are not forever. A Georgia judge has ordered Allen Ezail Iverson to pay a jeweler about $860,000. But apparently he can't, so his bank account has been commandeered, and his earnings, whatever of them may be left, are to be garnisheed. The King of Bling, it would seem, is about to become the Prince of Pawn. The man who is the best small scorer in the history of the NBA, who lit up Philadelphia nights with his pyrotechnic play, is said to have worked his way through the better part of - big inhale here - $150 million.

Harrisburg - the city - is broke. It's spending more money than it brings in. The mayor and council don't agree on what to do. So the state has stepped in - as it has with Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and Chester and other cities in years past - to prevent Harrisburg from stiffing its bankers and bondholders and others who live off the money they lend to elected officials. The state wants to ensure that the various lenders are still being repaid with interest, by taxpayers, for years to come.

Before Saturday's win over Vancouver in their home opener, the Union were actually fit to be tied. That's because the day before the game, goalkeeper Faryd Mondragon bought the entire team and front-office personnel blue ties. The Union wear suits and ties to games, and Mondragon wanted to make sure they were professionally attired. When asked about it, the 39-year-old keeper brushed away questions. He didn't do it for the publicity, conceding that it was a gesture to help bond the team together.