Train Wreck

  Few American business leaders are as connected to the concepts of saving and long-term investing as John C. Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group in Malvern. Bogle's principles were to provide key assets for anyone seeking a comfortable retirement - the reward for a lifetime of striving and planning. But for many Americans these days, a well-financed retirement is a quaint goal unlikely to be gained. Here is what Bogle, who turned 84 last week, said about the future of retirement in the United States:   Question: Is retirement as we know it today a relic of 20th-century American economic might and something that will not exist in the future, given faltering family incomes, disappearing traditional pension plans, and other wrenching changes in the economy?

The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee told the nation's governors yesterday that the Gramm-Rudman balanced-budget law was best understood as "a planned train wreck" and that the odds were 50-50 that the accident would occur. The train wreck, in the imagery used by the chairman, Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R., N.M.), would come in the form of the deep and automatic budget cuts that would be triggered this fall should Congress fail to reduce the budget deficit to the level stipulated by Gramm-Rudman.

Lennox Lewis wants to fight Mike Tyson, and calls him a "train wreck ready to happen. " After Tyson stopped Lou Savarese in 38 seconds in Glasgow, Scotland, the former heavyweight champion said of Lewis: "I want your heart. I want to eat your children. " Tyson added that when he does fight Lewis, "I will rip out his heart and feed it to him. " Lewis dismissed Tyson's taunts and said he's ready to give up his IBF belt to fight him. "He's a train wreck ready to happen," Lewis said in British newspapers yesterday.

Walter Brower's eyes lit up as he recalled the rain-drenched day in 1939 when he and a buddy were the first to arrive at a train wreck in the thick of the Pine Barrens. "The cars were all over the tracks. . . . I expected to find people dead," Brower said as he recalled the Aug. 19 crash of the Blue Comet, a luxury train that had departed from Atlantic City with 47 passengers, headed for Jersey City, N.J. For residents of the isolated area, the accident stirred the most excitement and alarm since the crash there of the Mexican airman Emilio Carranza 11 years before.

Three weeks before the first big deadline for Pennsylvania's welfare-reform law, thousands of recipients haven't fulfilled their responsibility to search for work. One diagnosis: Many recipients are in "denial. " Then again, so are welfare officials. Officials have yet to acknowledge serious problems in the way many caseworkers have administered the new law. This is easy since they conveniently control what little data there is. And they have yet to comprehend the unfairness of punishing children for their parents' failure to comply with the rules - especially if there's a chance that they are not "willfully" disregarding the law, as required before sanctions.

President Bush yesterday strongly defended his decision to restrict prime rebuilding contracts in Iraq to countries that supported the war, even as his aides acknowledged that the Pentagon's announcement of the new policy was badly mishandled this week. The announcement, which angered some U.S. allies, came just as Bush prepared to launch a global campaign to get countries to forgive much of Iraq's foreign debt, a key to the country's long-term reconstruction. The contract decision could undermine that campaign, as well as recent White House moves to repair ties with countries in Europe and elsewhere that have been splintered by differences over the Iraq war. "It was a train wreck," a top State Department official said of the decision-making process.

Among the worst railroad accidents to occur in this region was the head-on collision of two passenger trains near Bryn Athyn in 1921. Twenty-seven people were killed, most apparently burned to death, and 70 people were injured. As a result of the crash, the federal Interstate Commerce Commission mandated that all railway cars be built of steel. In a recent interview, railroad historian Larry Eastwood Jr. of Huntington Valley said the wreck took place on Dec. 5. By Dec. 23, the commission had published its report on the accident, he said.

His closest confidant asked the basketball world to pray for Allen Iverson, as if no one has all these years while seeing this train wreck coming. He acted as if the former 76ers star hadn't needed a significant dose of prayer, luck, and divine intervention until now. And as the rest of us are forced to bear witness to a disintegration, the rapid decline of a career clearly lacking nurturing, the time has arrived for Iverson's inner circle to stand up and be counted, to provide some semblance of tough love - by any means necessary.

When in Rome, do as the Rom-coms do? If only. An inert comedy starring Kristen Bell as a workaholic unlucky in love, When in Rome is a rom-bomb. When lovelorn Beth (Bell), scoops up a handful of coins from Rome's "fountain of love" (not the Trevi, but Trevi-like), she doesn't know she's messing with magic. The men who tossed coins in the pool wishing for love each fall for her, complicating her overscheduled life. Beth, a curator at the Guggenheim Museum whose work looks more like party-planning, gets jilted by her longtime beau on what seems to be the same night she learns that her baby sister (Alexis Dziena)

OK, I'VE LEARNED my lesson. Team meetings, pledges to make this the week the season turns around - none of that means anything with this particular group. As Rich Hofmann pointed out in Thursday's Daily News, the Eagles CAN still get it back together - from a math standpoint, they still hold their fate in their hands, this week against a pretty similar 3-5 train wreck of a team. But Demetress Bell against DeMarcus Ware? Really? After watching the disjointed defensive efforts against Atlanta and New Orleans, I'm convinced something is going on here beyond offensive-line injuries and unfortunate turnovers.

  Few American business leaders are as connected to the concepts of saving and long-term investing as John C. Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group in Malvern. Bogle's principles were to provide key assets for anyone seeking a comfortable retirement - the reward for a lifetime of striving and planning. But for many Americans these days, a well-financed retirement is a quaint goal unlikely to be gained. Here is what Bogle, who turned 84 last week, said about the future of retirement in the United States:   Question: Is retirement as we know it today a relic of 20th-century American economic might and something that will not exist in the future, given faltering family incomes, disappearing traditional pension plans, and other wrenching changes in the economy?

IN HIS MARCH 25th letter, Chris Isles suggested that Jack McMahon, the attorney defending Dr. Kermit Gosnell in his murder trial, is attempting to play on the sympathies of minority jury members by suggesting that Dr. Gosnell, who is African-American, is a victim of "prosecutorial lynching. " Well, of course he is, Mr. Isles; he'd be crazy not to! Jack McMahon is (literally) fighting for his client's life, as the District Attorney's Office would like none other than to see Dr. Gosnell put to death!

THE MOST poignant comment of the week may have come from Louisville coach Rick Pitino, who observed that it was probably a good thing that founder Dave Gavitt wasn't around to see the dismantling of the Big East. The lights going out on the tournament as we know it wasn't the only storyline of championship week, but it will be the legacy of 2013. Here, then, are other observations made from the last 7 days of insanity: * The fallen teammate award goes to UCLA's Jordan Adams, who suffered a season-ending broken foot in the Pac-10 semis and led his team onto the floor for the finals while in a wheelchair.

For the first time, a lawsuit alleges that the derailment of a freight train and subsequent chemical leak Nov. 30 in Paulsboro claimed the life of a resident of the waterfront industrial town. The children of Wessie L. Hardy, 77, who had an underlying cardiovascular condition, charge that she died in a hospital three days after she was enveloped in a cloud of vinyl chloride gas from the derailment. Their lawsuit, filed Feb. 25 in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, names as defendants Conrail, its joint owners CSX Corp.

19 troops killed in train crash BADRASHEEN, Egypt - President Mohammed Morsi on Tuesday pledged to hold officials accountable for a deadly train wreck that fueled anger against his administration for failing to carry out reform and overhaul the nation's deteriorating public services. Nineteen Egyptian soldiers were killed and more than 100 others were injured early Tuesday 12 miles south of Cairo. Part of the rear car rested by the side of the road. Shoes and remains of the soldiers' clothes and food were scattered along the tracks.

Two Salem County, N.J., chemical plants that require shipments of vinyl chloride have temporarily shut down as a result of last month's train derailment in Paulsboro, which spewed the toxic chemical into the air and blocked a critical railroad bridge, a chemical trade association said Friday. As many as 400 people are employed at the OxyVinyls and PolyOne Corp. plants in Pedrickstown, according to the association. The companies use vinyl chloride to make and distribute products including plastics, pipes, and floor materials.

OK, I'VE LEARNED my lesson. Team meetings, pledges to make this the week the season turns around - none of that means anything with this particular group. As Rich Hofmann pointed out in Thursday's Daily News, the Eagles CAN still get it back together - from a math standpoint, they still hold their fate in their hands, this week against a pretty similar 3-5 train wreck of a team. But Demetress Bell against DeMarcus Ware? Really? After watching the disjointed defensive efforts against Atlanta and New Orleans, I'm convinced something is going on here beyond offensive-line injuries and unfortunate turnovers.

"V/H/S" ENDS with an actual train wreck. But don't think of this as a spoiler. Consider it a warning, because the rest of the film is a train wreck as well. Realizing that horror's "found footage" gimmick has grown stale, "V/H/S" takes the next step forward by looking a few steps back. It uses a traditional anthology format, dividing its run time across multiple shorter stories that usually are connected by a thematic thread. On paper, it's a clever conceit. The framing story - which exists solely to get us to the abbreviated chapters - follows a group of destructive idiots hired by an unknown client to break into a deserted home and retrieve a VHS tape.

AND THUS it ends for Terrell Owens. For anyone who has even remotely followed T.O's career and had dealings with him, can anyone be surprised at its Greek-tragedy finish? Owens was cut on Sunday by the Seattle Seahawks - which presumably means his NFL career is effectively over. The former Eagle, who had a dramatic, if short, stint in Philadelphia, did not play last season following surgery on his left knee. He was trying to make a comeback with Seattle. "I'm no longer a Seahawk," he tweeted.