Walrus

The Atlantic walrus, a rare and endangered species, is the subject of Canada's just-issued platinum, four-coin proof set. Struck in 99.95 pure platinum, each coin shows the walrus in various icy settings. Once common in Canada's north, the walrus population is estimated at only 15,000 today, living in Hudson Bay and the eastern Arctic. Pierre Leduc designed the set that highlights Canada's endangered wildlife. All coins also carry the portrait of Queen Elizabeth by Dora de Pedery-Hunt.

Patricia Bosley Merbreier, 86, beloved by children for decades as television's "Mrs. Noah," died Thursday night, June 23, after a prolonged illness at Shannondell, a retirement community in Audubon. She and her husband, W. Carter Merbreier, cohosted the long-running program Captain Noah and His Magical Ark on what is now 6ABC. Capt. and Mrs. Noah (as they referred to each other even in their personal lives) invited scores of newsmakers and celebrities onto their program, which ran from 1967 until 1994.

Former Diff'rent Strokes star Todd Bridges pleaded guilty Thursday to narcotics and weapons charges. The 27-year-old former child star could get up to five years in prison at sentencing Aug. 31. He remained free on $10,000 bail. Bridges was arrested Dec. 29 after Burbank police found 1 1/2 grams of methamphetamine and a loaded 9mm gun in a car he was driving. Bridges said the car wasn't his and he didn't know what was in it. IT'S ME, MA About 100 regular customers of Quincy's/Philadelphia nightclub in the Adam's Mark Hotel on City Avenue will get to work with former Philadelphian- turned-Hollywood producer Boomer Stevens next week on the filming of a TV- series pilot.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch and former television executive Wendi Deng were married aboard the News Corp. founder's yacht in New York Harbor. A 12-minute fireworks display set to Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" followed the wedding aboard Murdoch's Morning Glory, drawing cheers from people who could see the ceremony from passing ferries and boats. Eighty-two guests attended the private ceremony on Friday. Among the guests were family members, including Murdoch's four children, and friends Michael Milken and Russian entrepreneur Boris Berezovsky.

An Inconvenient Truth, the Oscar-winning 2006 documentary about Al Gore's little slide show, offers a wealth of facts, figures and graphs on the state of the planet and its grim future if current global warming trends are not reversed. It will fall to today's children, though, to keep environmental awareness at the forefront as they become architects, engineers and consumers themselves - children who are not yet patient or verbal enough to sit through An Inconvenient Truth. Arctic Tale conveys the message to kids in an endearing story wrapped around some of the most compelling footage ever captured at the top of the world.

There was electricity in the air at the Mann Music Center on Saturday night. The love man, Barry White - hot again with the platinum success of his most recent album, The Icon Is Love - was about to perform in Philadelphia for just the second time in 15 years. What a disappointment, then, that the "Walrus of Love" seemed detached, dispassionate and, well, lazy. He sang songs - most of them from his '70s heyday - with less energy than he brought to the pronunciation of words such as gingivitis and gubernatorial in a recent David Letterman gag. If White hadn't been sweating profusely, it would have been hard to tell if it was live or it was Memorex.

Pook & Pook Inc. will celebrate its 25th anniversary this month with what it is calling is biggest winter sale ever, a two-day, thousand-lot event that indeed invites superlatives. It will begin with items from the estates of two of this region's best-known collectors. Pieces owned by H. Richard Dietrich Jr. of the Chester Springs area and Elinor Gordon of Villanova will be featured. Gordon, a collector and a dealer specializing in Chinese porcelain, died in July at age 91. Ron and Debra Pook had known her for 40 years.

Craig Stadler, who played the entire tournament with a new putter after losing the one he had used for two years, won the Nissan Open yesterday in Los Angeles to end a two-year victory drought. The bearded "Walrus" of the PGA Tour closed with a 3-under-par 68, then sweated out the finish. Stadler's 6-under total of 278 at Riviera gave him a one-shot victory over former Southern Cal roommate Scott Simpson, two-time tournament winner Fred Couples, Mark Wiebe and Mark Brooks. He earned $216,000 for the victory, his first since he won at San Diego two years ago. It was his 12th win in 20 years on the tour.

By Michael Krikorian It's sad to see magnificence decline into mediocrity or worse: Muhammad Ali unable to speak; Mickey Mantle limping back to the dugout, head down, after striking out; Brando looking like a beached Pacific walrus; Renoir with hands so arthritic he could barely hold a brush. And the word amazing . For too long now, I have been painfully aware of the failing meaning, diluted power, and lost essence of amazing . I have known for a few years that amazing was stumbling, and that it was only a matter of time before irrelevance set in, but still it hurts.

THEY'LL BE FAB FOUR-EVER FIRST 'ANTHOLOGY' ALBUM SHOWS THE BEATLES' UNEVEN START THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY 1 (Capitol/Apple) Like the ABC-televised Beatles series, this first of three album sets uncovering "lost" Beatles recordings has a problem living up to its hype. The group looms so much larger in death than in life that it's hard to remember they were human and fallible, or as John Lennon puts it, "just a band that made it very, very big, that's all. " The TV show has its share of inane babble and the "Anthology 1" album accounting for their career from 1958 through '64 has a number of underwhelming performances, especially on the first of two discs.

Patricia Bosley Merbreier, 86, beloved by children for decades as television's "Mrs. Noah," died Thursday night, June 23, after a prolonged illness at Shannondell, a retirement community in Audubon. She and her husband, W. Carter Merbreier, cohosted the long-running program Captain Noah and His Magical Ark on what is now 6ABC. Capt. and Mrs. Noah (as they referred to each other even in their personal lives) invited scores of newsmakers and celebrities onto their program, which ran from 1967 until 1994.

By Michael Krikorian It's sad to see magnificence decline into mediocrity or worse: Muhammad Ali unable to speak; Mickey Mantle limping back to the dugout, head down, after striking out; Brando looking like a beached Pacific walrus; Renoir with hands so arthritic he could barely hold a brush. And the word amazing . For too long now, I have been painfully aware of the failing meaning, diluted power, and lost essence of amazing . I have known for a few years that amazing was stumbling, and that it was only a matter of time before irrelevance set in, but still it hurts.

By Dana Milbank Oil company executives are on the horns of a dilemma. Or, to be more specific, they are on the tusks of a dilemma. Congressional investigators looking into the Gulf of Mexico oil spill found that BP and three other oil companies had filed "oil spill safety response plans" for the Gulf that made reference to protecting walruses. The problem is that "there aren't any walruses in the Gulf of Mexico and there have not been for three million years," as Rep. Edward Markey (D., Mass.

Pook & Pook Inc. will celebrate its 25th anniversary this month with what it is calling is biggest winter sale ever, a two-day, thousand-lot event that indeed invites superlatives. It will begin with items from the estates of two of this region's best-known collectors. Pieces owned by H. Richard Dietrich Jr. of the Chester Springs area and Elinor Gordon of Villanova will be featured. Gordon, a collector and a dealer specializing in Chinese porcelain, died in July at age 91. Ron and Debra Pook had known her for 40 years.

An Inconvenient Truth, the Oscar-winning 2006 documentary about Al Gore's little slide show, offers a wealth of facts, figures and graphs on the state of the planet and its grim future if current global warming trends are not reversed. It will fall to today's children, though, to keep environmental awareness at the forefront as they become architects, engineers and consumers themselves - children who are not yet patient or verbal enough to sit through An Inconvenient Truth. Arctic Tale conveys the message to kids in an endearing story wrapped around some of the most compelling footage ever captured at the top of the world.

Kevin Stadler can't waddle far without being reminded how much he looks like his father. The comparisons were more about golf than girth yesterday in the Buick Invitational in San Diego, when the son of former Masters champion Craig Stadler shot an 8-under-par 64 to take the first-round lead. Stadler, who used to romp across Torrey Pines as a kid and watched his father win here 10 years ago, finished with a birdie and an eagle on the North course for a one-shot lead over Jesper Parnevik and Ted Purdy.

The Atlantic walrus, a rare and endangered species, is the subject of Canada's just-issued platinum, four-coin proof set. Struck in 99.95 pure platinum, each coin shows the walrus in various icy settings. Once common in Canada's north, the walrus population is estimated at only 15,000 today, living in Hudson Bay and the eastern Arctic. Pierre Leduc designed the set that highlights Canada's endangered wildlife. All coins also carry the portrait of Queen Elizabeth by Dora de Pedery-Hunt.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch and former television executive Wendi Deng were married aboard the News Corp. founder's yacht in New York Harbor. A 12-minute fireworks display set to Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" followed the wedding aboard Murdoch's Morning Glory, drawing cheers from people who could see the ceremony from passing ferries and boats. Eighty-two guests attended the private ceremony on Friday. Among the guests were family members, including Murdoch's four children, and friends Michael Milken and Russian entrepreneur Boris Berezovsky.

Craig Stadler, who played the entire tournament with a new putter after losing the one he had used for two years, won the Nissan Open yesterday in Los Angeles to end a two-year victory drought. The bearded "Walrus" of the PGA Tour closed with a 3-under-par 68, then sweated out the finish. Stadler's 6-under total of 278 at Riviera gave him a one-shot victory over former Southern Cal roommate Scott Simpson, two-time tournament winner Fred Couples, Mark Wiebe and Mark Brooks. He earned $216,000 for the victory, his first since he won at San Diego two years ago. It was his 12th win in 20 years on the tour.

THEY'LL BE FAB FOUR-EVER FIRST 'ANTHOLOGY' ALBUM SHOWS THE BEATLES' UNEVEN START THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY 1 (Capitol/Apple) Like the ABC-televised Beatles series, this first of three album sets uncovering "lost" Beatles recordings has a problem living up to its hype. The group looms so much larger in death than in life that it's hard to remember they were human and fallible, or as John Lennon puts it, "just a band that made it very, very big, that's all. " The TV show has its share of inane babble and the "Anthology 1" album accounting for their career from 1958 through '64 has a number of underwhelming performances, especially on the first of two discs.