Straw

How can Israel maintain the trust of the American people when it continues to defy the United States? We have overlooked many unpleasant acts committed by Israel, such as the illegal use of our cluster bombs, but this last episode - spying on a country that has been an avid supporter since Israel's birth - is the last straw. Yes, Jonathan Jay Pollard has been convicted, but what is hard to swallow is that the Israeli bigwigs involved have received promotions. Unbelievable. What's more appalling about the whole thing is that you don't hear a peep out of Congress.

By Chris Kelly As a young beat reporter, I covered a Pennsylvania school board that included a member who was opposed to spending money on any educational advance newer than the blackboard. He was especially disdainful of computers, which he characterized as expensive toys that promoted laziness, liberalism, and pornography. "When I was in school, we didn't have no damned computers," he once said at a public meeting. "We had to use our noodle. " It wasn't clear if there was just the one noodle for the whole school, or if each kid got one. What was clear is that this dolt had no business visiting a school district, let alone running one. His statement is a classic example of the "straw man" fallacy, in which a debater creates a caricature of his opponent's argument and attacks it. This way, the dolt was able to sidestep the real problem, which was that the district had fallen behind its peers in acquiring computers.

The mud and straw mortar is more than 225 years old and is falling apart between the large red fieldstones. Joseph Bergmaier holds a piece in his calloused hands and shakes his head. "This place was crumbling, and then it exploded," he said. "When I first got here, it was like a house of cards, the walls were so loose. " Bergmaier sits on a cinder block and surveys the 18-inch walls that were host to George Washington's troops and barely survived a 1984 gasoline explosion.

For 22 years, they met secretly almost every day. He gave her the good life she'd always wanted - the metallic-blue BMW convertible, the full-length mink coat, the diamond ring, the comfortable Voorhees, N.J., condo. And he promised to leave his wife and marry her. But Sarah Banks, a 45-year-old receptionist for a Center City law firm, knew she'd always have to settle for a part-time lover in Philadelphia estate lawyer James B. Kozloff. What destroyed her was knowing 49-year-old Kozloff, who she affectionately called "James B.," was having an affair with another Center City attorney, Banks' sister Dorcas Banks said last night.

The U.S. Attorney's Office yesterday announced the filing of charges against a New York firm and its owner as the first prosecutions in an undercover sting involving the sale of substandard military fasteners. Prosecutors charged the company with selling to the government and its contractors ordinary commercial fasteners - nuts, bolts, fittings and O-rings - instead of the special, hardened aerospace-grade fasteners they had ordered. During 1990 and 1991 federal investigators set up a straw company in Northeast Philadelphia purportedly acting as an intermediary between companies supplying fasteners and Defense Department contractors.

SINCE HIS former position will also be part of his future, Kevin Neumann would have been mildly justified in offering resistance. But, hey, the kid's a team player. So during his senior baseball season at Lansdale Catholic High, there he is, playing catcher. And playing it some more. And some more. And some more. At least, that was the scenario Thursday as LC visited Conwell-Egan for a Catholic Blue regular-season finale in semi-hot temps. At 6:48 p.m., 183 minutes after the first pitch was thrown, Neumann framed a called third strike from righthander Matt Kress and the Crusaders owned an 8-6, 10-inning victory.

Getting a head start on summer, Charles Wilson checks out the straw hats in the window of Just Hats on 12th Street near Walnut Street. Wilson said it was time to switch from his felt hat to a cooler straw model. Today is expected to be a lovely spring day, though a breeze could play havoc with headgear.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia filed criminal charges Tuesday against the operator of a local mortgage foreclosure rescue scheme involving $31 million in fraudulent loans on 120 properties. Anthony J. DeMarco III offered to buy the houses of people facing foreclosure, allowing victims to stay in the houses and pay rent until they recovered financially and could buy the house back, the government said. In reality, the indictment alleged, DeMarco's real estate companies, DeMarco REI Inc. in Philadelphia and OPM Group L.L.C.

SINCE HIS former position will also be part of his future, Kevin Neumann would have been mildly justified in offering resistance. But, hey, the kid's a team player. So during his senior baseball season at Lansdale Catholic High, there he is, playing catcher. And playing it some more. And some more. And some more. At least, that was the scenario Thursday as LC visited Conwell-Egan for a Catholic Blue regular-season finale in semi-hot temps. At 6:48 p.m., 183 minutes after the first pitch was thrown, Neumann framed a called third strike from righthander Matt Kress and the Crusaders owned an 8-6, 10-inning victory.

MOUNT STERLING, OHIO - An Ohio officer whose use of a stun gun on a child resulted in the shutdown of a village police force said he shocked the boy twice as the 9-year-old lay on the floor with his hands under his body. Details of the Mount Sterling incident, released Monday, say the boy was warned before the officer shocked him at his home last week following a truancy complaint. The officer said the child begged his mother to let him go to school instead of with the officer, but she refused, telling him it was too late.

Nobody liked losing school aides, administrative positions, or the supply budget at Shawmont Elementary School, but staffers and parents dealt with it. Times are tough; everyone did more. Teachers spent more money out of their own pockets; parents sent in supplies, too. But losing the school police officer was the last straw for Janet McHale and Michelle Havens, the Roxborough school's Home and School Association co-presidents. "We realize that in these tough economic times, something needs to be done to help stop the madness of overspending," McHale and Havens wrote in a letter to me. "We can deal with having to send in reams of paper so that the teachers can make copies to assist our children in learning.

ORLANDO - Georgia businessman Herman Cain scored an upset win in the Florida Republican Party's straw poll Saturday, dealing a setback to national front-runner Rick Perry. The vote is nonbinding, but may signal a rough stretch of road ahead in a tightening race for the GOP nomination. It came after Perry, leading the field in most polls, stumbled in a Thursday debate, dismaying conservatives and changing the minds of some delegates who had planned to back the Texas governor. Cain received 37 percent of the 2,657 votes cast, more than twice as many as Perry, who made the most concerted effort here and captured 15 percent.

ORLANDO, Fla. - Georgia businessman Herman Cain scored an upset win in the Florida Republican Party's straw poll Saturday, dealing a setback to national front-runner Rick Perry. The vote is nonbinding, but may signal a rough stretch of road ahead in a tightening race for the GOP nomination. It came after Perry, leading the field in most polls, stumbled in a Thursday debate, dismaying conservatives and changing the minds of some delegates who had planned to back the Texas governor.

In the light drizzle of a wet Wednesday, they gathered in mournful silence. Members of the interfaith group Heeding God's Call came to pray at 16th and Catharine Streets, where, on July 1, 20-year-old Benjamin Butcher died of a gunshot wound. As of Monday, he was among 186 whose lives were claimed by gun violence this year, said Linda Noonan, a coordinator of the event. "In Philadelphia, someone is murdered in our city every 28 hours," she said. "Eighty percent of those are due to guns, and we believe the bulk of those are due to illegally obtained guns.

As you read your Sunday paper, Rick Santorum is scheduled to be crisscrossing New Hampshire. He's headed for a clambake in Rumney, a Greek festival in Manchester, and a meeting at Center Harbor in an old church called Our Lady of Victory. It's a wonder what finishing fourth can do for a man. Not so long ago, the former Pennsylvania senator was being dismissed as an asterisk in the Republican presidential race, a candidate who had to raise his hand and shame moderators into calling on him during a nationally televised debate.

AMES, Iowa - The Ames Straw Poll is many things: state fair with carnival rides, political convention, fundraiser for the Iowa Republican Party, test of a candidate's organizational strength, and what some might describe as an institutionalized if genteel day of bribery. But the quirky poll, in which only six of the nine declared Republican presidential contenders are participating Saturday, is also testimony to the paradoxical ability of Iowans, who pride themselves on their modesty, to capture the media spotlight.

AMES, Iowa - At Rep. Michele Bachmann's encampment Saturday, people lined up for corn dogs, Frisbee-size cinnamon rolls, and a chance to slip into an air-conditioned circus tent to listen to country music star Randy Travis play for an hour. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum drew them in with homemade peach preserves; Buddy Holly's old band, the Crickets; and bagpipers who played stirring airs right out of Braveheart . Texas Rep. Ron Paul had a massive tent city right next to the bus parking lot and served barbecue in a battalion-size mess hall.