Jan. 13, 2007

The execution of Saddam Hussein was a crude, bizarre spectacle, following a deeply flawed trial process interrupted before this mass murderer’s crimes, and the ugly role of the U.S. in aiding him, could be laid bare to the world.

A fuzzy aura has been generated around Gerald Ford, 38th president of the United States, who died at age 93 on Dec. 26. When I arrived on Capitol Hill in the spring of 1968 as a reporter for the Daily World, House Minority Leader Gerald Ford (R-Mich.) was still spearheading a racist crusade against Rep. Adam Clayton Powell (D-N.Y.).

Ideas abound from all sources — government, media, military — on why we are in Iraq, how long we should be there and how we should get out.
A look at history may provide some real answers.

Aristotle, one of the great minds of antiquity, thought that the population of states could never grow larger than the few thousand who could be directly seen and addressed in one place.

Book Review: Rachel Holmes retells the true story of Saartjie (Little Sarah) Baartman, the “Hottentot Venus,” a young South African woman whose international adventures spanned more than 200 years.

I was scared to go to see the film “The Queen” since Helen Mirren is one of my favorite actresses. I was terrified that she would portray Queen Elizabeth in a positive light, and I would never be able to forgive her. The movie was outstanding and I do forgive her.

Dallas newspaper readers are asking, “What kind of people are they?” as they find out about Dyn-Gen, a government contractor headquartered in nearby Irving, Texas, which hires mercenaries to blow up or be blown up in the present Iraq war. As our tax money is paying for all this blowing up, we’re compelled to ask, “What kind of people are we?”

Longtime political activist and Communist Helvi Savola died at the age of 91 on Nov. 20 in Wausau, Wis. She had lived in Wausau since 2000, after retiring from many years of leadership in the Minnesota/Dakotas District of the Communist Party USA.