WASHINGTON (CNN) — Former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, expresses remorse and quotes singer/songwriter Garth Brooks in an e-mail sent to friends Wednesday, a day before he is to enter federal prison after pleading guilty to corruption charges.

Ney will report Thursday to a minimum security prison in Morgantown, W.Va., to begin serving his 30-month sentence after his guilty plea in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

In the all-lowercase e-mail note to friends, Ney thanks them “for all you have done for me and my family. your kind words, thoughts, and prayers throughout the last six months have helped us quite a lot.”

Ney, once a rising star in Congress, resigned his seat on Nov. 3 after acknowledging in October that he used his office for personal gain.

The former congressman pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud, deprive his constituents of honest service and violate his former chief of staff’s one-year lobbying ban; and a count of making false statements to the House. All of the allegations stemmed from the long-running probe into actions by disgraced lobbyist Abramoff.

CNN: America Does Not Need Another Leader Who, After A Dark Night Of The Soul, Thinks Garth Brooks Sums It Up Best

WIKIPEDIA: On 11 March 2003, Representatives Robert W. Ney declared that all references to French fries and French toast on the menus of the restaurants and snack bars run by the House of Representatives would be removed. House cafeterias were ordered to rename French fries as “freedom fries”. This action was carried out without a congressional vote, under the authority of Congressman Ney’s position as Chairman of the Committee on House Administration, which oversees restaurant operations for the chamber. The French embassy made no comment, except to point out that French fries come from Belgium.

WARNING: F-bombs. Also, this is fucking excellent! Muy bien!

[Photo Courtesy of PhillyHistory.org]
The City of Philadelphia’s photo archive contains over 2 million images that date back as far as the late 1800s, i.e. the last time a Republican won in this town. In all seriousness, this is an INCREDIBLE visual record of the city’s evolution and a relatively new web site, PhillyHistory.org, is making it available for online consumption and purchase. To date, some 22,000 images have been digitally scanned, at a rate of roughly 2,000 images a month. So, if you’ve been wondering why the line at Kinko’s is so godamnned SLOW, well, now you know. Phawker will be showcasing images from the PhillyHistory archive and their respective backstories on a regular basis. And to just to make local history fun, let’s have a WRITE YOUR OWN CAPTION contest right fuckin’ NOW! Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend us your wit! Send in your idea of a clever caption for the above image to Feed@phawker.com. First prize is a pair of tix to see Janeane Garofalo at the TLA Sunday March 11th!!! Second prize, a set of steak knives. Third prize, YOU’RE FIRED!

FRESH AIR
ABC news correspondent and former anchor Bob Woodruff was nearly killed by a roadside bomb on Jan. 29, 2006 in Iraq. He suffered a severe brain injury and was in a coma for over a month. He and his wife Lee have written a new memoir about his recovery, In An Instant: A Family’s Journey Of Love And Healing. Here’s an excerpt of the first chapter:

Orlando, Florida, January 28, 2006
The Sunday morning phone call pierced the quiet and I jolted awake to a bedspread of floral and chintz in a totally unfamiliar room. It took me a second to register where I was. Ah, right, I thought. Disney World. The wake-up call.

I rolled over and picked up the receiver. “Thank you,” I said, and lazily began to set it back on the cradle. I had decided to lie there for a few more minutes before I snuck out the door.

“Lee?” A faint voice came from the receiver, now almost back in place. Geesh, I thought. Personalized wake-up calls, how very Disney. I brought the phone back to my ear to thank the man.

“Lee, it’s David Westin,” the voice said.

He had my immediate attention. My brain fired signals to my body as I bolted up on the pillows. The president of ABC News does not make social calls to employees’ wives at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning, even a co-anchor’s wife. I licked my lips and swallowed. My mouth was dry.

“We’ve been trying to reach you,” he said, in a slow measured voice. He stopped for a beat as if to gauge how he would say his next line. “Bob has been wounded in Iraq.”

I sat straight up, trying to process the information I was hearing. Every synapse in my brain was firing. “Wounded?” I said to David Westin, as calmly as I could. “What do you mean wounded?”

“He was on an embed outside of Baghdad riding with the Iraqi army. We don’t have a lot of information right now, Lee, but we are getting it as fast as we can. We are getting him the best care possible.”

“David.” I interrupted him. “Is my husband alive?”

“Yes, Lee. Bob is alive, but we believe he may have taken shrapnel to the brain.”

I tried to digest what that meant and couldn’t comprehend it. He was alive; I’d start with that. The rest was gravy.

You can’t know how you would behave in a crisis until it drops out of the sky and knocks you down like a bandit: stealing your future, robbing you of your dreams, and mocking anything that resembles certainty. Sudden tragic events and even slow-burning disasters teach us more about ourselves than most of us care to know.

“Lee, we have a plane waiting to take you and the kids home to Westchester,” David said. “You just have to tell us what time. It’s fueled up and ready to go.”

I felt I needed to keep him on the line for some reason. I wasn’t ready to start making decisions. I didn’t want to take my first step into this new world. I wanted to relish my old life for just a minute more. All four of my children were blissfully sound asleep beyond my door. Inside my room their secure little lives were being hacked apart while they dreamed, oblivious to the chaos.

Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media.

“Some soldiers believe this is a form of punishment for the trouble soldiers caused by talking to the media,” one Medical Hold Unit soldier said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

It is unusual for soldiers to have daily inspections after Basic Training.

Soldiers say their sergeant major gathered troops at 6 p.m. Monday to tell them they must follow their chain of command when asking for help with their medical evaluation paperwork, or when they spot mold, mice or other problems in their quarters.

They were also told they would be moving out of Building 18 to Building 14 within the next couple of weeks. Building 14 is a barracks that houses the administrative offices for the Medical Hold Unit and was renovated in 2006. It’s also located on the Walter Reed Campus, where reporters must be escorted by public affairs personnel. Building 18 is located just off campus and is easy to access.

The soldiers said they were also told their first sergeant has been relieved of duty, and that all of their platoon sergeants have been moved to other positions at Walter Reed. And 120 permanent-duty soldiers are expected to arrive by mid-March to take control of the Medical Hold Unit, the soldiers said.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Army public affairs did not respond to a request sent Sunday evening to verify the personnel changes.

The Pentagon also clamped down on media coverage of any and all Defense Department medical facilities, to include suspending planned projects by CNN and the Discovery Channel, saying in an e-mail to spokespeople: “It will be in most cases not appropriate to engage the media while this review takes place,” referring to an investigation of the problems at Walter Reed.

ARMY TIMES: See No Evil, Speak No Evil
RELATED: “A new 200-room state-of-the-art hotel featuring first-class accommodation at reasonable prices is now open here at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.”

[Photo via ARMY NEWS SERVICE/Caption: Spc. John Perkins takes a picture of himself and Spc. Aaron Blakely and Spc. Larry Burns during a limo ride to the White House. Photo by Staff Sgt. Carmen Maldonado, 2003]

WHO: Kindergarten through Grade 4 students from Thomas M. Peirce School
WHAT: Will enjoy a reading of Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham by National Constitution Center staff, as part of Read Across Philadelphia Day, which is in line with the nationwide event, Read Across America Day, celebrates the birthday and legacy of Theodore Guisel, better know as Dr. Seuss. March 2, 2007 will mark the author’s 103rd birthday.
WHEN: Thursday, March 1, 9:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m.
WHERE: Thomas M. Peirce School
2300 W. Cambria Street
Philadelphia, PA 19132

Camden school officials plan to investigate student allegations that police [NOT pictured] used excessive force to quell a cafeteria brawl that injured five students [NOT pictured] and a security officer Monday at Camden High.

School investigators want to know whether police sprayed Mace and struck students with clubs during the melee, which shut down Camden’s largest high school, School Board President Philip E. Freeman said.

At least 17 students were arrested, and more charges are possible, officials said.

“There’s a whole lot we need to find out,” Freeman said yesterday. “These are very serious allegations.”

Teresa Sicard Archambeault, a Camden police spokeswoman, said police were authorized to use Mace in such situations to control unruly crowds, but she said police did not use Mace on Monday. She also denied student allegations that police used stun guns.

“This is everyday life in Camden,” Ogletree said while walking home yesterday with a blue sling on her arm. She said she was one of five students treated for injuries from the disturbance.

District officials plan to interview students, teachers and staff members to try to find out what prompted the fight, and whether police or students used Mace, Freeman said. It seemed unlikely that stun guns were used, he said.

Freeman said he was alarmed by photographs showing police officers with clubs in their hands.

INQUIRER: Spared The Rod?

Some will die in hot pursuit in fiery auto crashes.
Some will die in hot pursuit while sifting through my ashes.
Some will fall in love with life and drink it from a fountain
that is pouring like an avalanche
coming down the mountain.

–Gibby Haynes

The principal of Nitschmann Middle School in Bethlehem sold crystal methamphetamine to police informants three times this month, once in his school office, police say.

John Acerra, 50, of 832 Chestnut St., Allentown, was arrested Tuesday in his office, where police found meth on his desk, according to arrest papers filed by Bethlehem police.

Acerra faces felony charges of possession with intent to deliver meth and delivery of the drug and related charges. He is in Lehigh County Prison today under $200,000 bail.

According to an arrest affidavit filed by Bethlehem police investigator Michael Mish:

On Tuesday, police set up a $200 deal with the informant and Acerra. The informant wore a listening device as he conducted the transaction inside the principal’s office at Nitschmann.

The informant left the building, and police entered Acerra’s office. Inside, they found him sitting at his desk with a clear bag of meth next to a glass tube with meth residue and burn marks on it. Also on the desk was the marked money the informant used to purchase the drug.

Acerra was arraigned late Tuesday before Coopersburg District Judge David Harding at night court in Allentown.

Acerra became Nitschmann principal in July 2000 with a salary of $80,467 a year. Before that, he was the school’s director of instruction and curriculum.

MORNING CALL: Our Homework Was Never Quite Like This

EASTON, Pa. - A 44-year-old woman who sobbed and said she felt “profound remorse” for having an affair with a 16-year-old boy was sentenced to 9 to 23 months in prison.

Northampton County Judge Paula A. Roscioli said Suzanne Wagner appeared “interested in having her legal troubles go away.” Though psychological profiles showed a low risk of reoffending, Roscioli said Wagner should be punished because the boy “was too young, too vulnerable, and you truly took advantage of him.”

Wagner had pleaded guilty to corruption of a minor. She was also fined $5,000, ordered to perform 100 hours of community service, and ordered to have no contact with the victim or other children except her own, who are ages 16 and 11.

Wagner began a relationship with the boy in 2002 when she was living in Northampton. Assistant District Attorney Patricia C. Broscius said the affair came to light when Wagner wrote a love letter to the boy after the relationship ended. The boy said he was a willing participant, and a 16-year-old can consent to sex under Pennsylvania law. Broscius has said Wagner was charged with corruption in large part because of the significant age difference between the two.

AP: The Love That Dares Not Write A Letter

WASHINGTON - Yesterday’s stock market plunge shows the start of a “correction,” the age-old euphemism for a steep drop in stock prices, but it may also signal worse news than that. A steady stream of recent data shows mixed signals about where the U.S. economy is headed. The old sage himself, Alan Greenspan, suggests recession could be looming. Fasten your seat belts - some economic chop could be coming. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 416 points, or 3.29 percent, in trading yesterday. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index was off 3.86 percent, and the S&P 500 was off 3.47 percent. It was the largest one-day drop for markets since Sept. 17, 2001, the first day trading resumed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

MCLATCHEY NEWSPAPERS: The Elevator Drops

By Robert Moran INQUIRER STAFF WRITER With violent crime the overriding issue in Philadelphia’s mayoral race, U.S. Rep. Bob Brady (D., Pa.) tonight secured the coveted endorsement of the city’s police union.

The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, which represents thousands of city officers, will announce the endorsement tomorrow at a news conference.

The FOP board of directors listened to presentations by Brady, former City Councilman Michael Nutter, State Rep. Dwight Evans, and businessman Tom Knox, who spoke last night.

Brady spoke Feb. 13 and emphasized that he would listen to the concerns of ordinary officers working in the police districts, a union official who asked not to be identified said tonight.

U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), who has emerged as the leading candidate in polls, did not ask to present his case to the board, the official said.

The union has been at odds with Fattah for his support of a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal in the 1981 slaying of Officer Daniel Faulkner.

That’s a hot-button issue that for many officers overshadows Fattah’s policy positions on other public-safety matters.

Al Taubenberger, the sole Republican candidate, also did not ask to make his case before the union.

The nod from the police union comes on the heels of an endorsement of Brady, who is also chairman of the city’s Democratic Party, by District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham on Monday.

INQUIRER: Hmm, Visons Of November? Brady Vs. A GOP Candidate That Doesn’t Really Bother To Show Up Cakewalks Into Mayor Chair? Bet They Greet Him With Flowers And Candy, Too