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Edgar Allan Poe: A Tragic, but Talented, American Original
William Hughes
“[Poe] would dress in ‘black’...It was his color...He liked to wander through cemeteries.” - Peter Ackroyd.
Edgar Allan Poe died at the age of 40, in Baltimore, Maryland, under mysterious circumstances. The exact truth of what really happened to him has evaded historians. I think even the experts on the popular TV program, “Forensic Files,” would be baffled by the case. Poe is a both a legendary and tragic figure. He is one of America’s greatest men of letters. Was his death related to “a vote-rigging” scheme? Poe was found on Election Day, Oct. 3, 1849, “stupefied,” and dressed in shabby clothes, at or near “Ryan’s Tavern.” It was used by political thugs. Their gambit was to target an individual, get him drunk, and then run him from one polling place to another to vote for their candidates. We do know that an incoherent Poe was taken to a nearby hospital. According to the treating physician, Dr. John J. Moran, his last words, on Oct. 7, 1849, were: “Lord help my poor soul!” (1)
War on Gaza: Israeli Action, Not Reaction
Nicola Nasser
Stubbornly insisting on getting the carriage before the horse as the approach to a “durable and sustainable” ceasefire in Gaza Strip, U.S. and European diplomacy in particular is building on an Israeli misleading premise that the 22 – day military operation, dubbed “Cast Lead,” against the Palestinian Gaza Strip was a reaction and not a premeditated long planned scheme that found in the change of guards in Washington D.C. an excellent timing. It was “not simply a reaction,” but “a calculation," Daniel Klaidman wrote in Newsweek on January 10.
Tax Solution to Wretched Greed
Joel S. Hirschhorn
By now most Americans have experienced extreme disgust upon hearing about the nearly $20 billion in bonuses given to people in New York City’s financial sector at the end of 2008. After sending the nation into the current economic black hole there is no way of comprehending the audacity of financial company executives in giving themselves and their colleagues shameful rewards for abysmal and disgraceful performance. Other than screaming and moaning about all this dishonorable behavior what should the Obama administration and Congress do?
Here is the solution that the overwhelming majority of Americans should demand: A law should be immediately passed that imposes a new special federal income tax of 99 percent on all income in excess of $500,000 annually for single taxpayers and $1 million for couples, starting for 2008 income. Call it a greed tax. Call it justice. Call it getting even for too many years of uncontrolled greed that has given the nation nothing but economic injustice and inequality, and given capitalism a very bad name. Call it a sensible way to raise federal revenues to help offset the cancerous national debt.
March THIS for Stupidity: Taxing a House of Cards
Walter Brasch
My wife is a smoker. Except for one year when she quit, she's been a smoker since she was about 18. But she's cut back, from as many as three packs a day to just three cigarettes. And, she now smokes outside the house.
At various times, she was asked to show an ID. When in her 20s she saw it as an annoyance. By her 30s and 40s, it was a compliment. Now it's just downright annoying.
The law restricts persons under 18 years of age from buying or smoking cigarettes. My wife understands why she must be "carded."
Yesterday she was carded when she wanted to buy two lighters. The sweet lady at the grocery checkout counter said that the chain store is carding everyone who buys lighters. Something about a juvenile who used a lighter and accidentally set his house on fire.
How to Kill a Palestinian
Dr. Elias Akleh
Commenting on the latest Israeli one-directional onslaught against the Palestinians of Gaza Strip, the Israeli 10th TV channel has disclosed that the Israeli genocidal forces had used half of its air force and had launched at least 2500 air raids against Gaza Strip. The television military correspondent stated that the Israeli warplanes had dropped more than a thousand tons of explosives, including white phosphorous and DIME (Dense Inert Metal Explosive) bombs, during three weeks on the virtually unarmed densely populated 360 square Kilometers Strip. He added that the shells fired by tanks, artillery, gunboats, and infantry were not included in those fired by the air force.
For Palestinians, Obama’s Message is Crystal Clear
Ramzy Baroud
When former President George W. Bush departed for his final trip home, that very moment represented an end of a long and unbearable nightmare, one that Bush epitomized until his last day in office.
Americans may decry what we can finally dub as the ‘Bush legacy’, for it brought economic ruin, but also pushed the country into avoidable, if not completely preventable wars, disgracing the collective history of a nation that for far too long imposed its sense of moral authority on the world.
Bashing Venezuelan Democracy
Stephen Lendman
In November/December 2006, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's (FAIR) Steve Rendall explained that "Hugo Chavez never had a chance with the US press." It's been a constant since his December 1998 election, and hasn't let up to this day, with language all too familiar:
-- a "would-be-dictator;
-- an autocratic demagogue;
-- a modern caudillo;
Main Core, PROMIS and the Shadow Government pt.1
Ed Encho
"Over the last two weeks I have encountered just such an apocalyptic situation, where I and the Department of Justice have been asked to be part of something that is fundamentally wrong."
(Excerpt from Deputy Attorney General James Comey's draft letter of resignation to President Bush, dated March 16, 2004, which Comey did not in the end send.)
"Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull" (George Orwell: 1984)
I: Main Core and PROMIS
Going back to work
Najwa Sheikh Ahmed, Nusierat Camp, Gaza Strip
The road was dreary, it was the second day after the cease fire was announced, and people started to leave their houses to see what has happened to the other places, I was on the taxi going to my work in Gaza, and all the way I was trying to prepare myself of what I am going to see, the destruction in the houses, the lands, the roads and every thing, but it seems that I was so humble on my expectations, every thing was different starting from Natzarim junction a long to Gaza city, to the destroyed houses, offices, streets, buildings, play grounds, even worship places, the mosques where we found peace and security.
With friends like these
Sherine Bahaa
KHALED AMAYREH, the Al-Ahram Weekly correspondent in the West Bank was arrested Sunday evening by the Preventive Security Forces (PSF) in Hebron. He was released after two days. Amayreh, 52, lives in Dura, 12 miles southwest of Hebron and has worked as the Weekly correspondent since 1997, as well as for a number of other media outlets.
He has a BA in journalism from the University of Oklahoma and an MA in journalism from the University of Southern Illinois. For a long time, he suffered, as do all Palestinians in the occupied territories, being confined by the occupation to his home village.
Not long ago, he was prohibited by Israeli forces from leaving Hebron at an Israeli checkpoint, detained and released only after being threatened for his courageous articles documenting Israeli crimes in the Weekly.
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