health and welfare: Philadelphia Metropolis

Sink or Swim

The Inquirer inadvertently served up a compare-and-contrast moment in the Friday paper by running two stories about contract settlements side by side on the front page. The first was about the musicians at the Philadelphia Orchestra approving a new contract. ... (Comments)

Learning to Love

By Rebekah Henson» My parents made friends with a toll taker on the Betsy Ross bridge. The relationship began in 2007, when I was in college and my mother was in the hospital with a lesion on her lung the week before Thanksgiving. That November was the scariest month of my life. She was in her early 60s, and when you're a 20-something in college and your parents are in their 60s, you can't help but devote a few hours a week to wondering what might happen if their vices or genetics get the best of them before they watch you graduate college. My Mom's surgery day was the worst, especially when my Dad didn't call, as he had promised, to tell me that everything was all right. (Comments)

Young, Black and in Danger

YOUNG, BLACK AND IN DANGER  MEN IN PRISON, ON DRUGS, IN THE STREETS AND  IN THE MORGUE: THE NUMBERS ARE ALARMING. Jul 15, 1990 By Thomas Ferrick Jr. and Jerry W. Byrd , Inquirer Staff Writers  In relentlessly increasing... (Comments)

How Importent is Edukation?

The person I wouldn't want to be today is state Sen. Jake Corman. Corman is a Republican and a powerful one.  He is chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee.  He is also a fiscal conservative -- a let's-get-government-off-our-backs guy who will... (Comments)

Feeding Audrey

Mayor Nutter is beginning to look more and more like Seymour Krelborn. Does the name ring a bell? Seymour was the nerdy floral clerk in the musical Little Shop of Horrors who had the great misfortune to come into possession... (Comments)