Free Republic

Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other guy to die. The obit says he died because of the strain "of living in this unjust country“. An avid atheist, he studied the bible and religion with more fervor than most Christians. He had strong political opinions and followed Amy Goodman’s radio broadcast “Democracy Now.” Alas the stolen election of 2000 and living with right-winged Americans finally brought him to his early demise. Stress from living in this unjust country brought about several heart attacks rendering him disabled. But I expect it’s more what Will Smith said to his...

For Gansu’s Uighurs, Beijing’s Olympics are a world away By Anna Bodner DPA, LANZHOU, CHINA Friday, Aug 22, 2008, Page 9 Olympic fever that has swept most of China seems to have limited influence in Lanzhou, considered the geometrical center of China. For many, the 3 million inhabitant city capital of Gansu Province is still a frontier town, and while the Games’ influence is hard to miss in the city center with flags on mass display in shops and cars, hardly a trace of the Olympics can be found in the city’s Muslim quarters, where minarets tower over the roofs....

HOTAN, China - There was no sign of dissent in the bazaar, where men wove through the crowd on motorcycles with freshly butchered sheep draped behind them. But a Muslim merchant pinched his lips together with his fingers to show he could not talk freely. "The Chinese are too bad, really bad," said Hama, who added that the Chinese had broken up a protest of about 200 people last month. He put his wrists together as if handcuffed. "I can't say more or I'll get arrested." As China grapples with protests in Tibet, it also faces unrest on its Central...

/begin my translation of excerpt Interview with Mr. H and Mr. B (translator's note: both are residents in Ham-heung, N. Korea; the interview was conducted via telephone; Mr. B was out in China for a visit.) -- How do N. Korean people view Kim Jong-il? Oh, you mean 'that kid'(Kim Jong-il)? We don't care. Whenever we see 'that kid', we get mad. When 'Great Leader' (Kim Il-sung) was alive, we received some gifts, free school uniforms, and food rations. However, quite honestly, what has 'that kid' done for us? They always talk about achievements of 'that kid' on TV. It...

RUSH: In Chicago we've been following the "living-wage" argument and the Big Box Resolution, trying to keep Wal-Mart stores out of the city. (story) "The so-called 'living-wage' ordinance that would have required mega-retailers here to pay their workers higher wages was successfully turned back Wednesday as supporters on the City Council could not muster enough votes to override Mayor Richard Daley's veto. Daley, who vetoed the ordinance this week saying it would cost the city jobs and hurt people who need those jobs the most, was able to convince enough aldermen who voted in favor of the ordinance in July...

GRINNELL, Iowa - Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) said Tuesday there is "lingering resentment" among some Republicans because of his primary fight in 2000 with George W. Bush. Those feelings may complicate his decision whether to seek the presidential nomination for 2008, said McCain, R-Ariz. "If I run, and we'll decide that early next year, there's a lot of work to do," McCain said as he began a two-day visit to Iowa, which traditionally holds leadoff caucuses in January of presidential election years. "Here in Iowa there are parts of the party where there's still lingering resentment over...

China's poor pose threat to wealthy future By Chris Bowlby Analysis, Radio 4 Look at China from a distance, and those huge new skyscrapers in places like Shanghai may dominate the view. They symbolise rapid recent growth, glitzy cities and factories flooding the world with consumer goods. Look beyond, however, and another China comes into focus - where hundreds of millions still live in poverty, and where a communist government struggles with the contradictions of running a capitalist economy. Last week the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, warned the National People's congress in Beijing of "deep-seated conflicts" and promised to spend...

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Hundreds of people lined up at Mexico City's main post office on Friday, some waiting hours to buy postage stamps featuring a black comic book character that U.S. leaders have called racist. The series of five stamps released Wednesday depicts the Memin Pinguin character, a hapless boy drawn with exaggerated features, thick lips and wide-open eyes. His appearance, speech and mannerisms are the subject of kidding by white characters in the comic book, which started in the 1940s and is still published in Mexico. The stamps have become a symbol of resentment that the United States...

Note: this is a continuation of the previous post under the same title in which the malady of anger and resentment was outlined, and Part 2 offers the first step in the healing process. This post is dedicated to the spirit of Great Lent and as an exposition of the Orthodox phronema (mindset) on theological issues. A talk delivered at the Annual Assembly of the Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America, St. George Serbian Orthodox Church, San Diego, California, February 28, 2003. Resentment and Forgiveness -- Part 2 by Hieromonk Damascene 4. Forgiveness Having looked at the malady of anger,...

January 5, 2005 | Recently Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez gave Aljazeera TV an interview in which he openly disclosed his plans to lead a global "offensive war" against U.S. "colonialism and imperialism." The interview was one of those prepared events in which the questions are carefully designed to invite the answers. Not journalism but impudent advertisement. The presenter, Mr. Faysal Al-Quaim, starts by telling Chávez that he is so popular in the Arab world that, if he ran in an Arab presidential election he would "win by more than 90% of the votes" and hastened to add: "I mean a...

The Real Story Behind ThanksgivingDid you know that the first [Plymouth Colony Pilgrim's] Thanksgiving was a celebration of the triumph of private property and individual initiative?William Bradford was the governor of the original Pilgrim colony, founded at Plymouth in 1621. The colony was first organized on a communal basis, as their financiers required. Land was owned in common. The Pilgrims farmed communally, too, following the "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" precept.The results were disastrous. Communism didn't work any better 400 years ago than it does today. By 1623, the colony had suffered...

"The creation of the United States of America is the central event of the past four hundred years." Thus does Walter A. McDougall of the University of Pennsylvania begin the first volume of his acclaimed new American history, Freedom Just Around the Corner (HarperCollins).Not surprisingly, this central event has evoked a wide range of opinions. Tens of millions of immigrants have voted with their feet to slough off prior allegiances and join the boisterous experiment that makes "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" its official goal.The result has been an astounding success. "We dominate every field of human endeavor...

11:39am 04/15/04 Snow says Bush would eye tax simplification in 2nd term By Greg Robb WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- The Bush administration would try to pass legislation simplying the tax code if President George Bush is re-elected in November. "I'll commit we're going to be addressing Congress with new proposals on the code," Snow said in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Philadelphia, according to Reuters. The flat tax merited some discussion as part of the effort, Snow said. The White House will have to take steps to change the Alernative Minimum Tax, which is capturing more and...

Over the past few weeks, Democratic pretenders to the presidential throne have attracted media attention by calling for the repeal of President Bush's tax cuts, especially those tax cuts that supposedly benefit the rich. The theme espoused by the tax increasers is that the rich don't pay their "fair" share. To demonstrate this perspective, let's take a quote from a recent editorial by Rahm Emanuel, a Democratic congressman from Illinois and a senior policy adviser to President Clinton: " ... the very wealthiest Americans, those in the top 1%, had in 2001 the largest share of the nation's total after-tax...

<p>September 5, 2003 -- The father of a soldier killed in the ambush in Iraq that Pvt. Jessica Lynch survived is furious she's getting a $1 million book deal.</p> <p>"I don't have a problem about her writing about her life, but when it involves not only my son, but of the others injured, wounded or killed, why should one person make money over the deaths of other people?" said Randy Kiehl, the father of Army Spc. James Kiehl, who was killed in action.</p>

Jessica Lynch Biography Hits Racks In November'I Am a Soldier, Too' To Be Written by Bragg By Linton WeeksWashington Post Staff WriterTuesday, September 2, 2003; Page C01 "I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story" will go on sale in November at bookstores, discount warehouses, truck stops, gift shops, grocery stores, pharmacies, PXs and just about everywhere else across America. The authorized biography will be written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Rick Bragg and published by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House. Sonny Mehta, Knopf's president, will make the official announcement today. "Jessica Lynch has captured the hearts...

Slain Soldier's Father Criticizes Lynch's Book Deal Kiehl Says Lynch Is 'A Profiteer' POSTED: 9:02 AM CDT September 4, 2003 COMFORT, Texas -- The father of a Comfort soldier killed in an ambush in Iraq that former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch survived said that Lynch's million-dollar book deal will taint the memory of the soldiers killed in the ambush. "Pretty severe, isn't it?" Randy Kiehl (pictured, left), the father of Army Spc. James Kiehl, said in an exclusive interview with KSAT 12 News Wednesday from his home in Comfort. "That she makes money off the death of my...

NEW YORK (AP) — Jessica Lynch, the former prisoner of war whose capture and rescue from an Iraqi hospital made her a national hero, has agreed to a $1 million book deal with publisher Alfred A. Knopf. "Many folks have written, expressing their support for me and for the thousands of other soldiers who serve their country," Lynch said in a statement issued Tuesday by Knopf. "I feel I owe them all this story, which will be about more than a girl going off to war and fighting alongside her fellow soldiers. It will be a story about growing up...

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN JUNE 01, 2003 15:05:28 ET XXXXX PAPER: TROOP RESENTMENT GROWING IN IRAQ **Exclusive Newsroom Development** There is growing resentment and declining morale in the Army's 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq, the NEW YORK TIMES is planning to report in Page One splashes on Monday. MORE Newsroom sources tell DRUDGE how the paper is hoping to get back on the news track after its recent troubles with a controversial, high-impact report to be filed by Michael Gordon. The Army's 3rd Infantry's tanks are the ones that drove into Baghdad and stayed. But the division has been...

ICONOCLAST DAILY NOTEBOOK.... European Chic: Haute Hypocrisy, Cowardice and Corruption.... February 28, 2003: As many recent media reports from the Continent have confirmed, America hating among the European elite (left-wing politicians, government bureaucrats, journalists, broadcasters, educators and policy wonks) has deteriorated into a near blood sport. Appeasement of (pardon me, make that "constructive engagement with") the most loathsome dictators and murderous regimes has become a diplomatic way of life. And within the European Union, elitist bureaucratic whim has become a haughty substitute for representative democracy. The Old Europeans (Britain sometimes excepted) continue to lecture America about it's cowboy diplomacy, its...

<p>LEWISTON, Maine (AP) A letter by Mayor Larry Raymond aimed at slowing the influx of Somalis to Maine's second-largest city has sparked confusion and resentment among members of the immigrant community.</p> <p>An estimated 1,060 Somalis have moved to Lewiston from elsewhere in the United State over the last 20 months, according to one city official.</p>