Smoke Signals

Anti-smoking educator Sterlen Barr is getting some help from an unlikely ally: the world's biggest tobacco company. Two weeks ago, the Philip Morris Co., maker of Marlboro cigarettes, acknowledged that smoking is dangerous and addictive, a move that experts say was a calculated legal effort to protect Philip Morris from lawsuits by smokers who might contend that they were unaware of the dangers. "There is an overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases in smokers" is the no-nonsense warning on the Philip Morris Web site, www.philipmorris.

Michael J. Fox is positively oozing intensity in a full-page, close-up photograph in a recent issue of Rolling Stone. His jet-black sweater is pulled over his hunched shoulders, his hazel eyes have a no-nonense penetration, his fingers are holding a cigarette. A cigarette??? A dirty, cancer-causing, disgusting weed in the hand of the clean-cut, All- American boy, the hearthrob of "Family Ties" and "Back to the Future"? Yes, it's true. The young man is a chain-smoker. And for Rolling Stone, he agreed to reveal this aspect of his personal life.

It's going to be a good day, the American soldiers thought as they left the base and started their patrol in the most dangerous part of Baghdad. On the decrepit streets lined with raw sewage and garbage, Iraqi men silently stared down the passing humvees, sometimes with arms crossed. One man stepped out of his shop and spit toward the convoy. Children ran along the patrol route, waving, cheering, and begging for candy. A dirty look is better than no one out at all, the soldiers said.

There have been movies about American Indians before, but "Smoke Signals" claims to be the first one with the proper credentials - conceived, written, directed and co-produced by Native Americans. This kind of on-the-cheap, grass-roots authenticity can be a mixed blessing. While watching such productions, viewers can be forgiven for wondering what Jerry Bruckheimer, to pick a name, might have done with the same material and about $50 million in Hollywood money. Or Kevin Costner, whose well-meaning "Dances with Wolves," is roasted pretty thoroughly in "Smoke Signals," a movie with a lively contempt for Hollywood treatment of Indian stories.

From John Ford's Cheyenne Autumn (1964) to Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves (1990), the dominant tone in Hollywood films chronicling the unconscionable treatment of the Indians has been one of sobering and long-overdue guilt. In Smoke Signals, the first widely distributed feature to be directed, written and coproduced by Indians, you might expect the view from the other side to be filled with pent-up rage or solemn elegy for their oppressed ancestors. Instead first-time director Christopher Eyre and Sherman Alexie, the gifted Indian novelist and poet, approach their film with an offbeat, subversive humor.

The plumes of mesquite smoke that curled out of the oil-drum barbecue were working slow magic on the meats inside - the Wagyu eyes of round, the mapled slabs of bacon, and the chile-rubbed shoulders of heritage pork, all destined for Cafe Estelle's tables. But smoke signals, puffing from that rusty rig in a side lot of an apartment building on North Fourth Street, were about all Cafe Estelle had to let the wider world know it exists. It's not easy to spot from passing traffic. And there's not much traffic anyway rumbling through this old industrial zone between Northern Liberties and Old City, just south of Spring Garden.

In a dilapidated trailer, the cavalry is chasing whooping Indians on a battered old black-and-white TV. Three young American Indians sit on a couch and watch. "The only thing worse than Indians on TV," muses one of them, "is Indians watching Indians on TV. " The archly funny line in Smoke Signals defines both the humor of a unique film and the kind of Hollywood stereotyping it ingeniously rebuts. Smoke Signals, which opens tomorrow at the Ritz at the Bourse and Ritz Twelve/NJ, is the first widely distributed feature about American Indians to be made by American Indians.

Not budging Relax, Dolphins fans. Joey Porter is sorry he refused to come off the field late in Sunday's loss to the Patriots. The star linebacker is sorry he committed penalties for unnecessary roughness and unsportsmanlike conduct in the same series. He's sorry he blew off head coach Tony Sparano and defensive coordinator Paul Pasqualoni after they did everything but send up smoke signals to get him off the field. He's sorry he ordered backup Charlie Anderson back to the bench.

HIGH-TECH met low-tech in Vatican City yesterday, and low-tech won. For a few delicious minutes, TV news anchors and their panels of pundits were reduced to the level of ordinary mortals, peering into their monitors to try to determine whether the smoke rising from the stack atop the Sistine Chapel was white or black, and whether what they were seeing was the first announcement of a new pope or merely a signal that the choice still lay in the...

Darren Daulton doesn't agree with Phillies general manager Lee Thomas, who said earlier this week that the catcher-turned-leftfielder could be back in the lineup shortly after the All-Star break. Heck, Daulton thinks he can be back a whole lot sooner than that. "I'm 99 percent sure I'm going to come back and play in the near future," he said from his Pinellas County, Fla., home yesterday as the Phillies prepared to play the Padres on the opposite edge of the continent. "And the 1 percent is I could break my leg tomorrow.

Not budging Relax, Dolphins fans. Joey Porter is sorry he refused to come off the field late in Sunday's loss to the Patriots. The star linebacker is sorry he committed penalties for unnecessary roughness and unsportsmanlike conduct in the same series. He's sorry he blew off head coach Tony Sparano and defensive coordinator Paul Pasqualoni after they did everything but send up smoke signals to get him off the field. He's sorry he ordered backup Charlie Anderson back to the bench.

The plumes of mesquite smoke that curled out of the oil-drum barbecue were working slow magic on the meats inside - the Wagyu eyes of round, the mapled slabs of bacon, and the chile-rubbed shoulders of heritage pork, all destined for Cafe Estelle's tables. But smoke signals, puffing from that rusty rig in a side lot of an apartment building on North Fourth Street, were about all Cafe Estelle had to let the wider world know it exists. It's not easy to spot from passing traffic. And there's not much traffic anyway rumbling through this old industrial zone between Northern Liberties and Old City, just south of Spring Garden.

WHEN THE GAVEL comes down Tuesday afternoon, signaling the end of trading without waivers, deals will have been made, the pennant races will have been altered and it will be pretty easy to figure out - on paper - which teams have helped themselves the most. What can be more difficult to decipher is how moves, or lack of moves, will impact the clubhouse psyche. Just the seductive whisper that they could be close to getting Mark Teixeira from the Rangers for uberprospect Jarrod Saltalamacchia , shortstop prospect Elvis Andrus and a minor league pitcher was a pick-me-up for the Braves.

THE PHILADELPHIA smoking ban passed in City Council during our last session on June 15. I voted against the ban, and it is no secret that I'm a former smoker. But I feel strongly that if you're going to ban smoking in bars, restaurants and nightclubs as well as in other public places in the city of Philadelphia, then you should ban it in the entire state of Pennsylvania. Both of our next-door neighbors, the states of New Jersey and Delaware, have enacted a statewide smoking ban. Seven other states, including New York, have also banned smoking in public places like restaurants and bars.

HIGH-TECH met low-tech in Vatican City yesterday, and low-tech won. For a few delicious minutes, TV news anchors and their panels of pundits were reduced to the level of ordinary mortals, peering into their monitors to try to determine whether the smoke rising from the stack atop the Sistine Chapel was white or black, and whether what they were seeing was the first announcement of a new pope or merely a signal that the choice still lay in the...

Consider the cigar. Not quite as insidious as the cigarette, nor as prudish as total abstinence, the cigar confers enjoyment in moderation. The occasional indulgence, a life well-balanced. Unfortunately, Philly's proposed smoking ban says little about our forgotten man. Well, I think it's time someone spoke up for the stogies. I live in a town that has two coffee shops. One for smokers, the other for people who hate smokers. The smoke shop (started last year by an ambitious post-grad )

It's going to be a good day, the American soldiers thought as they left the base and started their patrol in the most dangerous part of Baghdad. On the decrepit streets lined with raw sewage and garbage, Iraqi men silently stared down the passing humvees, sometimes with arms crossed. One man stepped out of his shop and spit toward the convoy. Children ran along the patrol route, waving, cheering, and begging for candy. A dirty look is better than no one out at all, the soldiers said.

A sense of urgency suddenly surrounds the 76ers. The 18-6 Sixers, who have the NBA's best record, the team preparing to face the daunting Utah Jazz tomorrow night at the First Union Center. Maybe that explains why the Sixers remained on the practice floor for more than two hours yesterday at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. Maybe that is why they worked as hard as they did, even in the absence of coach Larry Brown, who was away on personal business. Maybe that is why backup center Matt Geiger, who has missed six of the last seven games with a problem with his right leg, went through a full workout wearing a new knee brace.

Another outclassed opponent went up in smoke at the hands of Sister Smoke. Jacqui Frazier-Lyde, the 38-year-old daughter of Smokin' Joe, put an end to Wanda Gamble's folly just 59 seconds into their fight in front of 1,200 curiosity seekers at the Turning Stone Casino and Resort. Gamble, a ring rookie out of Akron, Ohio, walked straight into Frazier-Lyde's left hand mere seconds into the fight. She hit the canvas less than five seconds after the opening bell. After fumbling awkwardly against Frazier-Lyde's power punching, Gamble absorbed a body-shot, stood there for a few moments and took a knee in the center of the ring for an unceremonious conclusion to the fight.

Anti-smoking educator Sterlen Barr is getting some help from an unlikely ally: the world's biggest tobacco company. Two weeks ago, the Philip Morris Co., maker of Marlboro cigarettes, acknowledged that smoking is dangerous and addictive, a move that experts say was a calculated legal effort to protect Philip Morris from lawsuits by smokers who might contend that they were unaware of the dangers. "There is an overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases in smokers" is the no-nonsense warning on the Philip Morris Web site, www.philipmorris.