Sandy Smith

Perhaps documentary filmmaker/television producer/professional gadfly Michael Moore was unaware that he was not speaking to a group of journalists-to-be.

When city planners talk about community, it’s usually in terms of physical spaces. So it comes as a surprise that in his latest book, “Open Moral Communities” (MIT Press, 2000), Professor of City and Regional Planning Seymour Mandelbaum has almost nothing to say about the physical realm.

Attention all A-3s: You now have a chance to take charge of your retirement savings — if you act right away.

  For those who are anxious about China-Taiwan relations in the wake of Chen Shui-ban’s victory in Taiwan’s recent presidential elections, James Lilley had one piece of advice: Calm down.

The Center City apartment of Yu Hsiu Ku, Ph.D., is chock full of the stuff of a full and rich life. On the bookshelves are binders holding the thousands of Chinese poems he has written; some time this year, they should be joined by another volume — a collection of 100 of those poems translated into English for the first time.

For the better part of a decade, a group of subversives within the University has been spreading its radical agenda to an unsuspecting audience. Along the way, it did raise a few minor ruckuses, but by and large it has been quietly successful, converting others here and at other campuses to the cause.

The University committee charged with reviewing Penn’s research on human subjects has identified five things Penn can do right now to improve its methods, including requiring researchers to disclose conflicts of interest and hiring outside monitors for research projects whose funding does not provide for them.

We were intrigued by a factoid that crossed our desk a few months back: the State Data Center, the clearinghouse for statistical information about Pennsylvania, had cited the University of Pennsylvania Library’s reference desk as the most-frequently-consulted resource in the state for data on the state.

It almost reads like something out of Horatio Alger. Kid from a poor but proud family applies himself, does well in school and lands in the Ivy League. From there, the story usually goes like this: Graduates from college, becomes a successful lawyer, makes mucho bucks, moves to a country manse (or at least a big house in the ’burbs), hangs out with the elite.

You know you’re someone special when they name a bus for you.