Silence

When it comes to Center City's proposed special services district, no news was definitely good news this week. On Monday the deadline passed for property owners to object to paying a 4.5 percent property tax surcharge to fund extra cleaning and security for the city's commercial core, and only a relative handful said no. That means that this crucial program has surmounted its major hurdle and now needs only final City Council approval, which we...

WHEN THE Oscar nominations were released last week, the silence was deafening. Three actors were nominated for saying virtually nothing - two for the silent movie "The Artist," and Max Von Sydow, who was anything but extremely loud in "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. " He plays a mute. Von Sydow was mum on the subject of his nomination, but issued a photostat of a handwritten note: "I don't know what to say. " Last year, everyone was talking about performers who didn't talk.

Led by their valedictorian, the 194 members of the senior class at Camden County Vocational-Technical School observed a moment of silence last night during the school's commencement exercises. The pause, which brought an automatic stillness to the crowd of several hundred, was called for by Loreli Liebermann shortly after she began to give her commencement address. It had been expressly forbidden by the vocational- technical school's Board of Education during a public meeting last month after Liebermann requested permission.

Mayor Street is calling on Philadelphians to leave their offices and homes on Sept. 11, join hands and observe a citywide moment of silence. The observance, to take place at 10 a.m., will follow a memorial march organized by firefighters and police. "After Sept. 11, you saw total strangers on the street saying hello, holding doors for people," said Frank Keel, Street's spokesman. "The mayor's feeling was maybe if some of that spirit of brotherhood has subsided over the past year, maybe this kind of citywide bonding in silence and remembrance can rekindle some of that sense of goodwill and brotherhood.

Andy Rooney's July 22 Op-ed Page column "Street musicians are not music to his ears" hit home. Once a street musician, I played the horn with classmates in front of Woolworths on Chestnut Street, near Broad Street. We were students of the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts, and we needed the extra money. At $10 each per hour, I couldn't think of a better way to spend my free class periods. But today, after seven years of studying to be a priest, I find that silence is a friend I see too seldom.

WHY COULDN'T Page 1 Sexy Single Nefertiti Jaquez (as beautiful as she is) list an e-mail address like everyone else did? Not even an account set up just to see the public reaction? You are a truly blessed, gorgeous woman. But you're shedding light as to why you may still be single! Ken Belneau, Philadelphia

THE MANNER in which Navy SEAL Neil Roberts died last week and the response to it reveals a lot more about the international community and the press than meets the eye. What is noticeably present in the reaction to this incident is the unmistakable sound of silence. On March 12, Mr. Roberts was seen on video being dragged away after falling from a helicopter that was under attack by enemy soldiers in Afghanistan. He was later found to be shot to death. Where is the outrage over this flagrant and wanton disregard of the Geneva Convention?

A year ago next Sunday, Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other human-rights activists were hanged in Nigeria for nothing more than peaceful protest against the decades-long practice of usurping and making uninhabitable private lands in the government-sponsored pursuit of oil. A year later, the Nigerian government continues to abuse its citizens' rights. Those who speak out risk imprisonment and death. Other than the release of a few political prisoners, the bulk of Nigeria's civic leaders, environmentalists and well-known government critics remain behind bars.

Question: I've been thinking of asking my girlfriend to marry me, after several years of happy and fulfilled dating. The other day, for the first time, my girlfriend expressed that she really didn't like that I work at home. I freelance and really love it. I have a lot saved, and I'm in a much better financial place than she is, which gives me a lot of latitude. She said she couldn't understand the perspective of someone who didn't go in to an office every day and who didn't have to bear the burden of working under a boss.

AT THIS time of year, our windows open up to sweet scents of spring - and the headache-inducing annoyance of the neighborhood nuisance barker. Is this dog yours? The owners of problem barkers seem to develop an ability to ignore the noise that has their neighbors thinking of legal action - or worse. But a dog who's barking night and day isn't having any more fun than the neighbors are, and you owe it to both your pet and those who can hear him to fix this problem. The first step is to figure out why your dog is sounding off so much.

"THE SILENCE" is an exemplary German-language thriller, a complex and disturbing examination of guilt, violence and psychological torment that chills us to the core not once, but two times over. Impeccably made by Swiss-born writer-director Baran bo Odar in a seriously impressive feature debut, "The Silence" is initially disturbing because the crime it focuses on is sexual violence: the rape and murder of young girls. But as adapted by Odar from a novel by Jan Costin Wagner, this is about what happens when a particularly heinous crime is repeated exactly 23 years later.

Stephen L. Carter is a Bloomberg View columnist Shortly after the proclamation of the new pope, a reporter for U.S. television told his audience that the Catholics of Latin America "have waited 20 centuries for a pope to come from this region. " Well. There were, of course, no Catholics in Latin America until about 500 years ago. We all make mistakes, but in this case, the error is probably explained less by exuberance at the selection of a new pontiff than by the inexorable demand of the medium for gab unceasing.

Rob Garfield is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist who specializes in "men's issues. " He's writing a book, The Guy's Guide to Friendship , and is interested in how men communicate or, more often, don't communicate, and the effect that has on their physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. Garfield, 67, who practices in Bala Cynwyd and is a faculty member of the psychiatry department at the University of Pennsylvania, conducts "friendship labs" and men's retreats to induce men to open up and relate on a deeper level.

DON'T LOOK TO me to say Bernard Hopkins should retire - not anymore. At this point, if the dude says he can continue to box until he's 50 years old, I'll roll with him. Claims that the 48-year-old Hopkins should have hung up his gloves several years ago have been based on the belief that older athletes cannot possibly continue to compete at a high level in a combat sport like boxing. But Hopkins keeps countering the argument with real-life empirical evidence, putting the facts on his side and defying logic.

Something is missing. Something obvious. Usually, it's so obvious you can't avoid it - in Center City, or leaching out into the neighborhoods and suburbs. But even though it's gone, few seem to have noticed. "I totally didn't," said Steve Red, an advertising executive whose offices are just a few feet beneath the 17-ton object that has abruptly vanished. Ring any bells? No bell, in fact, is ringing, and that's the point. The bell in question is exactly where it's always been, if quiet of late.

Though cutting-edge composers are characterized as not caring whether anybody listens, the John Cage summit meeting of four noted composers assembled at the International House on Sunday was as voluble as can be. Following a performance of Cage's Four6 , the friendly avant-garde legend Christian Woolf, 78, revealed that one source of the performance's singular sound world was a simple Lapstick (a disembodied electric guitar neck) on which various objects were dragged to create sonic effects.

Many residents in the region joined a nationwide moment of silence Friday morning to honor the victims of the Newtown, Conn., shootings. At 9:30, Mayor Nutter asked students from Samuel Powel Elementary School in West Philadelphia to close their eyes, "play the quiet game for 30 seconds or so," and "think about something really good. " Most of the students, gathered at nearby Metropolitan Baptist Church for their winter concert, did not know why Nutter made the request. Faculty and many parents had not shared the information, principal Kimberly Ellerbee said, adding that students had asked very few questions about the Dec. 14 killings.

Residents in the region joined with people nationwide in a moment of silence to honor the victims of the Newtown shootings at 9:30 ET Friday morning. When the time came, Mayor Nutter asked students from Samuel Powel Elementary School in West Philadelphia to close their eyes to "play the quiet game for 30 seconds or so" and "think about something really good. " Most of the students, gathered at nearby Metropolitan Baptist Church for their winter concert, didn't know why Nutter made the request.