Duty to Warn

In mid-January, the Associated Press published a report on the controversy currently brewing between America's religious right and families headed by gay parents. The issue? Whose children should be allowed to participate in the White House's annual Easter Egg Roll this April? The Family Pride Coalition invited its members to attend and numerous religious fundamentalist groups sprang into action. Even the White House has weighed in.

'Will the president take any measures to prevent these activists from using this non-political event as a way to push their agenda on the rest of us?' White House spokesman Scott McClellan's response to the pool reporter's question included, '.I've seen a couple of reports about it; I don't know how extensive that reporting has been. But this has been a family event for a long time and the president always looks forward to this event. we'll talk about it as we get closer.'

He had his day. Now let's drag him out of sainthood and back into controversy and relevance.

Martin Luther King has more to give us in the 21st century than a three-day weekend. Just read the speeches that haven't been chiseled in stone yet.

"This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation's self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers."

The public accolades ladled upon this fallen leader embalm him in sentimentality, in some glass case in the pantheon of national heroes, next to Washington, Lincoln, Elvis, et al. Then once a year we cherry-pick a memorable phrase here or there ("I have a dream" comes to mind for some reason), as though the words are frozen in history, part of a time when there was struggle and disagreement and prejudice.

Dear Molly,

My 86 year old mother and I greatly appreciate your honesty and logic.  There was a recent congressional hearing on Halliburton's refusal for an entire year, to even minimally treat with chlorine, the contaminated Euphrates River water it was supplying to our troops in Iraq.  The water had been taken from the river a mile downstream from an untreated sewage outlet.  Two previous employees reported this gross negligence to higher-ups several times over the year, and were told to just keep silent about it.  The two repeatedly complained that the fecal bacteria was giving them and troops digestive and intestinal problems but their pleas were ignored.  I believe Halliburton's reaction should constitute treason, considering that such intentional negligence jeopardizes the very lives of our troops as well as their mission.  Don't our soldiers have enough with which to contend under this incompetent "Commander in Chief" and Administration without sleezy, no-bid, thieving contractors trying to poison them?

Sincerely,
Nancy Khoury

A provision in the "Patriot Act" creates a new federal police force with power to violate the Bill of Rights. You might think that this cannot be true as you have not read about it in newspapers or heard it discussed by talking heads on TV.

Go to House Report 109-333 USA PATRIOT IMPROVEMENT AND REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005 and check it out for yourself. Sec. 605 reads:

"There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to be known as the ’United States Secret Service Uniformed Division’."

This new federal police force is "subject to the supervision of the Secretary of Homeland Security."

The new police are empowered to "make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony."…

The language conveys enormous discretionary and arbitrary powers. What is "an offense against the United States"? What are "reasonable grounds"?

AUSTIN, Texas -- Several great minds were asked to help think up interview questions for George W. Bush. I liked, "Are you the worst president since James Buchanan, or have you never heard of him?"

Sorry about the snarkiness quotient, but is there anything these folks can't screw up -- and then refuse to own up to? Iraq is the most difficult to judge because it's so far away. I can find no indication -- from hours of electricity available to amount of oil being pumped to number of dead people -- that hints at any improvement.

On the other hand, even though I don't think it's my job, I can't prove that pulling out won't make things worse. Judging the good news-bad news volume from Iraq took such an exceptional lurch to ludicrous, it's now difficult to even try to judge it with a straight face.

This brilliant tour de force is testimony that film making can still have quality and value in this country. It is a mesmerizing docu-drama, superbly written and acted, with multiple messages for a nation now facing its worst civil liberties crisis ever.

Like Arthur Miller’s justly iconic Crucible, this film cuts to the heart of the McCarthy Era. The Crucible does double-duty, illuminating both the repression of the 1950s and the horrors of the Salem witch trials, which it depicts with stunning impact and accuracy.

Good Night, and Good Luck takes on McCarthy directly, but also demands an in-depth examination of the role of the modern electronic media, just in its birth. It does the job plainly and directly, with no punches pulled and no cutesy trucks, cutting right to the heart of this most serious of matters.

One decision doesn't make a career, but an alarm should have sounded when Chief Justice Roberts joined Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas in overriding the will of Oregon voters and attempting to overrule Oregon's Death With Dignity law. Although the Court's current majority sustained the law, this was the first major split decision of the Roberts court. And by contradicting all his fine-sounding phrases about Federalist principles (much as the five justices did in Bush v. Gore) Roberts made clear that his political beliefs will guide his interpretations. If there are doubts about his agenda, and where his loyalties lie, I'd suggest that this should bury them.

AUSTIN, Texas -- We live in interesting times, we do, we do. We can read in our daily newspapers that our government is about to launch a three-day propaganda blitz to convince us all that its secret program to spy on us is something we really want and need. "A campaign of high-profile national security events," reports The New York Times, follows "Karl Rove's blistering speech to national Republicans" about what a swell political issue this is for their party.

The question for journalists is how to report this. President Bush says it's a great idea and he's proud of the secret spy program? Attorney General Gonzales explains breaking the law is no problem? Dick Cheney says accept spying, or Osama bin Laden will get you?

Or might we actually have gotten far enough to point out that the series of high-profile security events is in fact part of a propaganda campaign by our own government? Should we report it as though it were in fact a campaign tactic, a straight political ploy: The Republicans say spying is good for you, but the Democrats say it is not -- equal time to both sides?

We heard from good authority that an interview with Free Press Editor Bob Fitrakis and footage shot by Free Press Managing Editor Suzanne Patzer and others from Columbus will be part of a film showing this week at the Sundance Film Festival. Here is the film information:

AMERICAN BLACKOUT
U.S.A., 2006, 86 Minutes, color & b/w
Director: Ian Inaba
www.gnn.tv