Penn really wasted an opportunity for a quality win when it could not put away Texas-El Paso in its season opener. Those are victories that really impress the NCAA Tournament committee come Selection Sunday and help a team get a better seed. And over the course of the season, how many of these chances does Penn really have? The answer is realistically two, or at the absolute most, four.

Controversial British writer Melanie Phillips said multiculturalism and the appeasement of Islam will spell the destruction of Western civilization last night. The solution, she said, is to defend "our culture" by cracking down on what is taught by Muslim extremists in Western nations.

Kentucky Derby-winner Barbaro is resting comfortably in the intensive-care unit of Penn's New Bolton Center after having the cast removed from his right leg on Nov. 6. Barbaro - a thoroughbred racehorse who fractured his leg severely during the Preakness in May - has defied the odds over the courses of his arduous recovery.

More than modest To the Editor: I was disappointed to see you call President Amy Gutmann's donation to the University for financial aid "modest" yesterday ("Gutmann chips in for student aid, DP, 11/14/06). While it is, indeed, less than George Weiss gave to the University, it is still notable and is a good percentage of Gutmann's income.

With its strongest recruiting class in recent memory, nine returning letterwinners and two All-America seniors, expectations have never been higher for Penn men's squash. The team enters the season ranked sixth in the nation, its highest preseason ranking in years.

In recent years, the charity stripe has been anything but charitable to the Penn men's basketball team.

The nation's No. 4 women's squash team has not lost any starters from the previous season

Swans may live the first third of their lives alone, but when these birds find a partner, they stay together for life. The same is true of SWANS - Strong Women Achievers, No Spouse - Christine Whelan, author of Why Smart Men Marry Smart Women, said yesterday in a talk held for about 40 at the Penn Bookstore.

There's a new all-guys club at Penn, but it's not another frat. These guys want to talk sexual assault, and how to help its victims. Twelve students from Penn and Drexel University this semester started up the West Philadelphia chapter of 1in4, an all-male peer-education group that focuses on teaching college men about sexual violence.

Henry Kissinger, secretary of state during Vietnam, said last night that the current war in Iraq echoes the earlier conflict. "Americans want to compromise, but to our enemies, compromise equals defeat," he said.

Penn is becoming an increasingly difficult place for top students to get into. But it's also getting more and more difficult to get faculty members to stay. "The aggressiveness with which schools compete with each other has definitely increased over the years," Wharton Deputy Dean David Schmittlein said.

An everyday nuisance for Penn students turned fatal last month at Ohio State University. On Oct. 20, OSU freshman Andrew Polakowski of Erie, Pa., was killed when he tried to pile into an overcrowded elevator in a dorm on campus. The packed elevator - which had exceeded its maximum weight limit - began to move with the doors still open, and Polakowski was crushed between the elevator and the floor.

By Zachary Levine The Daily Pennsylvanian With all-Ivy swingman Lenny Collins gone, the Cornell basketball team was pinning most of its hopes on Adam Gore, last year's Ivy League Rookie of the Year. Now, the Big Red will have to find another option. Gore will miss the rest of the season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

Previous UA proposals a Palestra park, a massive new student center and many other ideas worth embracing.

We are just four days from tip-off for the first home basketball game. With that, here are some rules all fans should consider when attending a game at the Palestra. 1. Go to the games. None of the other rules matter if you do not follow this one. There are so many reasons to attend, and just listening on the radio isn't a substitute.

Alicia Puglionesi is a College sophomore from Havertown, Pa. Her e-mail address is puglionesi@dailypennsylvanian.com.

Incidents of racist and homophobic behavior "are not hard to find on Penn Athletic teams," according to an Undergraduate Assembly proposal passed Sunday night.