Free Republic

Ghetto poverty has troubled white consciences. But a gulf just as deep and persistent separates middle-class and poor blacks, reports Paul Harris in Atlanta Sunday October 9, 2005The Observer It was once a street so rich and central to black America that Atlanta's Auburn Avenue was known simply as 'Sweet Auburn'. It was the site of America's first black-owned daily paper and first black radio station. It was here Martin Luther King was born. It was here King preached freedom from the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church.In the 1960s, as the civil rights struggle raged, Sweet Auburn was wealthy and...

NEW YORK - Former New York Times Executive Editor Howell Raines has has written a column for the The Guardian in London excoriating John Kerry [related, bio] as ``pompous'' and ``ponderous,'' and saying he looks like the character Lurch from the ``Addams Family'' TV show.      ``The TV camera is an X-ray for picking up attitudinal truths, and Kerry's lantern jaw and Addams Family face somehow reinforce the message that this guy has passed from ponderous to pompous and is so accustomed to privilege that he doesn't have to worry about looking goofy,'' Raines wrote. ``It's as if Lurch had gone...

China says it is cutting 200,000 troops from the People's Liberation Army as it moves to change the world's largest army into a more modern and streamlined military machine. Chinese leaders have long recognised the need to trim down and sharpen up a 2.5 million-strong force that has traditionally relied on sheer weight of numbers. This year's American-led invasion of Iraq, with its use of precision firepower and information technology, has only served to remind them just how far behind they are. The latest cuts, announced last week, will focus exclusively on China's ground forces, according to Dr David Shambaugh,...

Every major campaign against AIDS in Africa has been based on the premise that heterosexual sex accounts for 90 percent of transmission in adults. Yet safe-sex efforts have not stopped the spread of the epidemic, which now affects 30 million people. Economic anthropologist David Gisselquist therefore suspected that HIV might be spreading primarily by another route. After analyzing 20 years of epidemiological studies, he and his colleagues concluded that unsafe injections, blood transfusions, and other medical procedures may account for most AIDS transmission in African adults. Their analysis indicates that no more than 35 percent of HIV in that population...

BERLIN (Reuters) - A 73-year-old man who used an air raid siren to stun his wife into submission has had it confiscated by German police.   "My wife never lets me get a word in edgeways," the man identified as Vladimir R. told Mannheim police. "So I crank up the siren and let it rip for a few minutes. It works every time. Afterwards, it's real quiet again." A police spokesman said neighbours had complained at the noise from the 220-volt rooftop device, believed to be an old-fashioned air raid siren. Rosina, Vladimir's wife of 32 years, said she sometimes...

Lagos: A Muslim court in northern Nigeria has ordered that a 45-year-old man's leg be amputated as punishment for doing the same to his wife. The Upper Sharia in the town of Bauchi made the order against Adamu Hussaini Maidoya, who cut off the right leg of his wife, Amina. He accused her of infidelity, after "over exposing" herself to a doctor to get an injection. Judge Alhaji Abdu Yerima ordered that the convict's right leg be amputated at the knee and that the person or doctor who executes the sentence should not administer anaesthetic or painkillers. The judge quoted...

<p>TORONTO, Canada (AP) -- The cremated remains of 80-year-old Edna MacArthur from Alberta have been presented to her family in the form of a diamond stone, the first delivery of this kind in the world, a funeral services official claimed Tuesday.</p>

Things were a lot simpler before Osama bin Laden replaced our own Muhammad Ali as the face of Islam in this country. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, many Americans, myself included, have been wrestling with the question of what to make of the religion of Islam. Is it, as President Bush says, a "religion of peace" that has been perverted by extremists? Or is it, as some conservative Christian leaders assert, a force for evil? The Rev. Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, has called Islam "a very evil and wicked religion." He later explained he was condemning Islamic extremists,...

<p>In the weak light of dawn Wednesday, Rep. John Thune clung to a narrow lead in the U.S. Senate race that the traditional Republican West River stronghold had delivered late the night before.</p> <p>Three hours later, however, Sen. Tim Johnson was re-elected by a 528-vote margin.</p>

Democrats Pledge Cooperation After Defeat WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats "suffered a disappointing defeat" in Tuesday's congressional elections and will work with Republicans to get things done, a rookie Democratic representative said on Saturday. Reuters Photo However, he criticized President Bush (news - web sites) for underfunding education. "As hard as humanly possible, Democrats will seek bipartisan achievement to get things done by working with the Republican Congress and this President," Kendrick Meek, a newly elected U.S. representative from Florida, said in the first Democratic radio address since Tuesday's elections. Beating Democrats in key races, Republicans regained control of the Senate...

Janice is a sixtysomething Election Day volunteer. She and about six other silver-haired ladies work in my old polling place in Santa Monica, California. Every two years or so, they set up shop in an old surf shop and sit behind a long table with stacks of unpunched ballots and a master list of all registered voters in the district, checking people in, crossing them off the list, handing them their ballot and, every so often, doling out oatmeal cookies and lemon squares.Outfitted in their tennis dresses and sun visors, they cheerfully herd their electorate through the American rite of...

The greatest challenge for a woman in Asia today is to simply survive through a normal life span. From birth — and even before birth — to death, a burden of oppression follows her through all the stages of her life, threatening her very existence. What would it be like? Imagine living as a woman in Asia … There is no rejoicing on the day you are born. To your parents’ and relatives’ deep disappointment, you are a girl. Boys are highly valued in your Asian culture and much more desirable than girls, because they are a sort of...

With six weeks to go, Republicans appear to hold a slight edge in this year's fight for control of the House, according to interviews with politicians and analysts around the country and examinations of local polls. Republicans have about 10 more seats safely in their hands than the Democrats do. So even if they won fewer than half of the approximately 40 races that are truly competitive, they could still keep control of the House. That unusually small number of competitive districts means that the Democrats have fewer opportunities to achieve the net gain of seven seats they need to...

Mike Webster, who was the kind of football player who treated pain as if it were an insignificant pest, was considered indestructible by many of his teammates. He was a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1974 to 1988 and played the frenetic and extremely violent position of center. Known as Iron Mike because he played six straight seasons without missing an offensive down, Webster endured numerous shots to the head, sustaining multiple concussions, but seldom took a game off.When Webster died Tuesday, at age 50, in the coronary care unit of a Pittsburgh hospital, much of the focus was...

Reparations: A different perspective Though in principal I disagree with the concept of one man paying for another man’s transgressions, especially ones transgressions that happened a long, long, time ago and had nothing to do with myself or my family. My family came over to the states in the 1880’s, we never owned slaves, did not own land or had servants, maids or butlers. I have about as much to do with slavery as I have to do with the Gettysburg address. I have come to the conclusion that reparations should be paid to those who’s can demonstrate their ancestors...

More than 10 per cent of the Norwegian work force is receiving disability pension. Only in the Netherlands is there a higher percentage of recepients of disability benefits, Aftenposten reports. At the end of June, there were well over 288,000 disability pensioners in Norway, the highest number ever. (Pop. 4.5 mill.) Social Security Director Arild Sundberg says to Aftenposten that it is a problem for our society that there are so many disability pensioners.

Job Bias Case Tests Religious Privacy Rights A case percolating in federal court in Washington, D.C., poses a tangled question that few federal courts have ever grappled with: Can a worker's claim of job discrimination trump the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of religion? The unusual issue arises in a case in U.S. District Court against The Washington Times, which through various subsidiaries is owned by the Unification Church, founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Pamela Johnson, a personnel specialist for the newspaper from 1989 until 1998, is alleging that she received a much lower raise than a co-worker...

The Israelites had settled in the blessed land, Palestine.  They ruled for a long time.  They had a vast kingdom.  Allah, the Almighty chose many prophets from among them.  They followed the Holy Book, the Torah.  The Prophet Dawud (peace be upon him) and his son Prophet Sulaiman (peace be upon him) won great popularity as kings and commanded high respect.  Their followers believed in God and led noble lives.  As the time passed by, they began to pay less attention to the teachings of God.  They forgot the Divine favours.  They made alterations in the Holy Book according to...

SANFORD -- Calling it the most malicious crime he's seen in 25 years on the bench, a judge on Friday sentenced a former TV repairman to life in prison for shooting his estranged wife twice and pouring acid on her face. Stephen Herrick Smith, 53, said he did it because he suspected she had begun a romance with someone else. When rescuers got to Teresa Peterson the day she was attacked, Nov. 11, 1998, she was on the floor of the couple's home near Casselberry, bleeding from the gunshot wounds and blind from the acid. Deputies said smoke was rising...

Just because you don't think you have a mind-control chip in your brain doesn't necessarily mean that at this precise moment 10 white men aren't seated at a round table in an ice palace 500 miles beneath the Arctic Circle controlling your every thought. I mean, they could be. And George W. Bush could have orchestrated the events of 9-11. And an American man jailed in Canada, ostensibly on credit-card fraud charges, could really be a former intelligence officer who warned jail guards last August of the planned "terrorist" attacks. And Osama bin Laden could have met with a CIA...