Tragedy

Physicians busted for allegedly distributing OxyContin without prescription - even though the pills can be lethal - should be called OxyMorons.

IRECENTLY attended a panel at Haverford College titled "Three Women, Three Faiths, One Shared Vision," sponsored by Partners for Peace. One woman was a Palestinian Christian, one was an Israeli Jew, the third was a Palestinian Muslim. They are touring the country speaking out about the Palestinian-Israeli situation. There wasn't anything said that I hadn't read about before, but to meet people who live with this crisis makes it very personal. It was very, very sad to hear what they had to say. It made my heart weep.

Larry Kane is a veteran anchor and author This is a time for memories, mostly the individual flashbacks of the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 11: where we were, what we were thinking, the visual recollections. Rushing in to work, headed south on I-95 in the direction of Independence Mall, I was stunned at the traffic headed north. A rush-hour traffic jam, with people heading home at 9:30 in the morning? It was an attempt to escape, caused by fear - fear of what might come next.

In 2008, Philadelphia dancer Makoto Hirano formed a company called Team Sunshine Performance Corporation with actor Benjamin Camp and director Alex Torra   . For a year and a half, the three have been working on JapanAmerica Wonderwave , which premiered Thursday at Christ Church Neighborhood House. Fans of Thaddeus Phillips' work may remember Hirano as part of the cast of 2011's Whale Optics , but in JapanAmerica Wonderwave he is the dominant spirit, with Camp as a supportive foil, in an examination of how we process distant tragic events and assimilate them into daily life.

What Common Pleas Court Judge Bernard J. Avellino lacks in character, perhaps he can make up for in class by stepping down from the bench. If he would do so, I would then believe he is a man of his own speedy conviction. And, perhaps, more telling in all of this would be a comparison between a "coyote ugly" person who chews his way free to a "judge" who has set his own trap. This points out, more vividly than anything, the tragedy of politicized judicial selection. H. R. Collins Devon.

IT'S BEEN a month since this tragedy has visited us. What have we learned? That fear can replace happiness, anger can replace peace. I recently chatted with a person of the Moslem faith. As a Christian, I was having a hard time dealing with this. He pointed out some of the reasons why it happened. First, most Islamic countries are poor and highly uneducated. Regimes like the Taliban, feed off the fear of the people. Also, believe it or not, some of these problems stem from the days of Isaac and Ismail, a fight between brothers that happened over 8,000 years ago. Are we not all God's children?

Sicily Minor, 9, remembers walking through the picturesque Wissahickon Valley on a sunny Sunday in Fairmount Park when tragedy struck. Sicily was with Margaret Robertson, 37, when Robertson's 2-year-old son, Nolan Robertson Deal, fell through a partially open sewer and was swept away in a rushing stream of sewage water. The boy is still missing. "We were walking through the park," Sicily said last night. "It was around 4 o'clock. He got out of his wagon and ran through the grass.

Again, a plane tumbles from the sky with a famous person among those aboard. Again, thoughts about celebrity and mortality that seem at once powerful and trite are busily shared across the nation's electronic town square. Golfer Payne Stewart's celebrity wasn't of nearly the same wattage as John F. Kennedy Jr.'s, but in his knickers and tam, he cut quite a figure in his sport's verdant, coddled world. His swing made purists' heart flutter. His story of rediscovering God and family, thus softening edges that had made him enemies, was tailor-made for an age in love with redemption.

THERE ARE MANY kinds of desperation, as many as the stars above and the souls beneath them. The death of a child, the disintegration of a marriage, homes lost to floodwaters and whirlwinds, all of these things can drive you to - and beyond - the point of suicide. And yet, there are sources of strength as varied as the sorrow. For one man, that source was found in unwritten words, tapped out on prison walls and shared with his captured brothers in Vietnam. Major Gen. John Borling, a 6 1/2-year "guest" at the infamous Hanoi Hilton is, like Joyce Kilmer and Wilfred Own, a soldier-poet.

NEW YORK - The police officer who accidentally killed a Long Island college student along with an armed intruder faced the most harrowing decision of a law enforcement career: choosing the split-second moment when the risk is so high that you must act to save a life, says an expert in the field. "The big question is, how do you know, when someone's pointing a gun at you, whether you should keep talking to them, or shoot?" said Michele Galietta, a professor of psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who helps train police officers.

Adapted from a recent online discussion. Question: I had a good friend in college, "Lucy"; we were inseparable, in each other's weddings, etc. Over the last two years we've had somewhat of a falling-out, and I've kept my distance from her for a number of reasons. Well, I just found out Lucy's mother killed Lucy's father and then tried to kill herself, and is now facing murder charges. How do I even respond? I knew her parents fairly well but I haven't spoken to her in months, and the last time we spoke it was cold and unfriendly.

By Jennifer Rubin After Newtown, President Obama spoke to the nation and launched a campaign for gun control. He ultimately failed, but there was a tragic event, a political response, and a result. As for the Kermit Gosnell trial, there has been virtually no political response to the horrors described in the grand jury report and subsequent trial. Unlike with Tucson, Newtown, Colorado, and many other shooting incidents, the president didn't want to comment on the trial or even on the broader topic of late-term abortion.

In 2008, Philadelphia dancer Makoto Hirano formed a company called Team Sunshine Performance Corporation with actor Benjamin Camp and director Alex Torra   . For a year and a half, the three have been working on JapanAmerica Wonderwave , which premiered Thursday at Christ Church Neighborhood House. Fans of Thaddeus Phillips' work may remember Hirano as part of the cast of 2011's Whale Optics , but in JapanAmerica Wonderwave he is the dominant spirit, with Camp as a supportive foil, in an examination of how we process distant tragic events and assimilate them into daily life.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - A stretch limousine that burst into flames on a San Francisco Bay bridge, killing five women inside, was carrying one too many passengers, investigators said Monday. The state Public Utilities Commission had authorized the vehicle to carry eight or fewer passengers, but it had nine on the night of the fire, California Highway Patrol Capt. Mike Maskarich said. He did not comment on whether the overcrowding may have been a factor in the deaths. The cause of the blaze remains under investigation, and the vehicle has not yet been inspected, Maskarich said.

Today I am thinking about the power of one. The concept has come up twice recently and has my attention. This month during a class at the Police Academy, Virginia Pagano, head of the drug abuse prevention organization Project Stay Smart, said something striking. Along with three others, including the CEO of Johnson & Johnson, Pagano had been called to testify before Congress. Pagano was scheduled to speak last, and as she listened to the other testimony, she became increasingly intimidated by the others' complex graphics, research, and multitude of statistics.

HOW FITTING for Doug Collins to draw upon Shakespeare in his final, melodramatic performance as Sixers head coach. A surprise playoff contender in his first two seasons, Collins ended Act III of his tenure by exiting stage left,where he will sit, for 5 years, now the power behind the throne. Collins will advise Josh Harris for $2 million, half of what he was going to make as coach next season. And thus, the production loses its star. Since his arrival, Collins, a former No. 1 overall pick of the franchise, has been center stage, the team's marquee draw.

Jason Osder was 11, a kid at the Miquon School, when the Philadelphia Police Department dropped a bomb on the MOVE house at 6221 Osage Ave. in West Philadelphia. It was May 13, 1985. By the end of the night, six adult members of the Afrocentric back-to-nature organization - long in conflict with city officials, with police, with neighbors - were dead. So were five children, trapped inside the house. And 60 other rowhouses in the surrounding area had been destroyed by a fire left unchecked.

TWO PEDESTRIANS were fatally struck by Amtrak trains in the region Wednesday, officials said. Shortly after 6 p.m., a passenger was struck at the Bristol station on the Trenton line and declared dead at the scene. No further information, including an identity, was available. Amtrak resumed regular service by 7:30 p.m., and SEPTA - which has a regional-rail stop at the station - was expected to resume service a few hours later. Earlier, a woman in her mid-40s was struck about 10:30 a.m. by a train at Churchmans Crossing Station in Newark, Del. A preliminary investigation by Delaware State Police revealed no foul play, and the incident has been deemed an apparent suicide.