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Today's Stories

April 30 / May 1, 2005

Alexander Cockburn
Marla Ruzicka, Rachel Corrie and "Credibility"

Gabriel Kolko
Lessons from a Total Defeat: the End of the Vietnam War, 30 Years Later

Jennifer Loewenstein
The Disengaged: Gaza and the Fragmentation of Palestinian Nationhood

Doug Giebel
Saving Jane Fonda

Steven Erlanger
A Response to Kathy Christison, from the NYT Jerusalem Bureau Chief

 

April 29, 2005

W. John Green
Rice in Colombia: Silence on the Death Squads?

Luke Brothers
Greenwashing Nuclear Power: Nicholas Kristof, the John Stossel of the NYT

Norman Solomon
War, Aid and Public Relations

M. Junaid Alam
The Politics of Smears and Self-Absorption

Jackie Corr
The Bush Budget and Constitutionally Protected Tax Havens

Hunter Greer
Feeding Tubes and the SAT: Finally, a Use for Standardized Testing!

Sharon Smith
The New Assault on Women's Rights: Why are the Democrats Silent?

Website of the Day
Tony Blair's Election Rap

 

April 28, 2005

Omar Waraich
Blair's Poodle: the Billy Bragg Interview

Kevin Zeese
Abu Ghraib One Year Later: Have Those Responsible Gotten Off?

Dave Lindorff
Bush's Torture Tort Reform

Greg Moses
Why I'm Not Standing with the Gringo Vigilantes

Toni Solo
Nicaragua on a Dollar a Day...Forever?

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Republican Dole Drums; Democrats in Doldrums

Werther
George Will Revises the Vietnam War

 

April 27, 2005

John Ross
Pope Ratzo and the Hucksters of Death

Joshua Frank
DeLay, Abramoff and Israeli Militias

Ray McGovern
The Bolton Affair: More Than Meets the Eye

Mark Donham
Government Pettiness and Wetland Destruction

Dan Smith
Bush's Iraq Poker: Hold, Fold, or Raise?

 

April 26, 2005

Dave Lindorff
Church Sex Trumps Torture and Murder

Alevtina Rea
Magic of the Yellow Emperor

Greg Moses
The Senator and the Narc Pirates of Highway 281

Joshua Frank
Horowitz's Gang of Ghouls and Cowards on Ruzicka

Diana Johnstone
The French are At It Again

 

April 25, 2005

Uri Avnery
The Persecution of Vanunu

Alison Weir
The Okrent Perversions: How the NYT Minimizes Palestinian Deaths

Lee Sustar
Labor Loses a Hero: the Strong Life of Dave Yettaw

Leonardo Boff
A Liberation Theologist on Ratsinger: a Pope of Fear and Centralized Power?

Gary Leupp
Bush's Bully: the Career of John Bolton

 

 

 

 

April 23 / 24, 2005

Alexander Cockburn
Time's Buried Hitler Cover

Gary Leupp
The Anti-Japanese Demonstrations in China

James Petras
Elections for Democracy or Empire?

Harry Browne
Springsteen's "Devils and Dust"

Fred Gardner
The Custody Threat

Ron Jacobs
The Desterrados of Colombia: They are not Collateral Damage

Elizabeth Schulte
Why Backing Democrats is Pulling the Anti-War Mvt. to the Right

Chris Floyd
Oil, Guns and Banks

 

April 22, 2005

Saul Landau
The Kinky Moralists: Missionaries Forever

Kevin Zeese
Dean Backs the Iraq Occupation

Joshua Frank
Earth Day Paradox: Enviros vs. Nature

Mike Whitney
God's Rottweiller: Pope Ratzinger's Pie-in-the-Sky for the Masses

Michael Flynn
Wolfowitz on Top of the World

Lee Sustar
The One-Sided Class War

Website of the Day
Bitter Greens

 

April 21, 2005

Bill Quigley
The Church Picks Its Ashcroft for Pope: a Catholic Worker Response to the Rise of Ratsinger

Dave Lindorff
Bush's X-Files

Jason Leopold
Drilling and Spilling in ANWR: Worse Than the Exxon Valdez?

Kathleen Christison
Sharon's 92 Percent Solution: How the Misperceptions Roll On


April 20, 2005

 

April 20, 2005

John Ross
Lopez Obrador: Mexico's Would-be Mandela (Part Two)

Kevin Zeese
Halliburton: Poster Child of the War Profiteers

Uri Avnery
The 100 Days of Abu Mazen

Website of the Day
The House that Jack Built

 

April 19, 2005

Jean-Guy Allard
An Exclusive CP Interview with Ricardo Alarcon on One of the World's Most Notorious Terrorists: "Is Posada Still Working for the White House?"

Dave Lindorff
What's Good for Canada is Good for GM: Health Care Costs and Job Flight

Neve Gordon
Before the Law: Israel's Military Justice System in the Occupied Territories

Brian Concannon, Jr
Immaculate Evasions in Haiti

Murray Hudson
Chemical Warfare Over Tennessee: Aerial Spraying of Deadly Pesticides

Frank B. Ford
Poem for Marla Ruzicka

Monty Python
Memo to Pope Rat

Michael Dickinson
Cardinal Sins

Paul Craig Roberts
Outsourcing the American Economy: a Greater Threat Than Terrorism

Website of the Day
Strindberg and Helium


April 18, 2005

Linda Schade / Kevin Zeese
The Carter-Baker Commission: Corporate Conflicts of Interest

John Ross
Mexico's Would-Be Mandela Stares into the Darkness

Brian McKenna
Dow Chemical Buys Silence in Michigan

Mike Whitney
The NYT in Fallujah

Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi Peace in Tatters

Dave Zirin
Straight Outta High School: Jermaine O'Neal, Race and Hip Hop

Eli Stephens
The Killing of Nicola Calipari: a Math Lesson

Harry Browne
War and Elections in Britain and Ireland

Website of the Day
A16: Photos of the World Bank Protest

 

April 16 / 17, 2005

Alexander Cockburn
Message in a Bottle: How Coca-Cola Gave Back to Plachimada

Mark Dow
The Art of Jailing: Inside America's Immigration Gulag

Omar Waraich
Blair's Accountability Moment: Lesser-Evilism Grips Britain

Robert Buzzanco
How I Learned to Quit Worrying and Love Vietnam and Iraq

Sherry Wolf
Bitches' Liberation? Whatever Happened to the Struggle for Women's Liberation?

Fred Gardner
The Pharmaceuticalization of Marijuana

Ron Jacobs
Free Speech with Permission Only: a Tale of Two Universities

Mark Weisbrot
CAFTA will Further Depress US Wages

John Pardon
The High-Tech "Competitiveness" Smokescreen

Yoshie Furuhashi
Debtors of the World Unite! How Dems Went to Bat for the Credit Industry

Mike Roselle
Cubicle of Doom: the Death of Environmentalism?

Ralph Nader
Scientists or Celebrities?

Ramzy Baroud
Gaza: the Line of Memory and Despair

Jackson Thoreau
Barbara Bush: We Should Have Pulled the Plug on Our Daughter

Michael Dickinson
"Imagine" and the Koran: Listening to Lennon in Istanbul

Richard Neville
Shaking the Walls of TwinWorld™

Poets' Basement
Albert, Engel, Curtis, Ford and Gaffney

Website of the Weekend
Rebel Angel

 

 

April 15, 2005

Brian Cloughley
Diplomacy, Bush Style: Boorish Bolton & Arrogant Rice

Bill Glahn
No Child Left a Dime

Mickey Z.
One Zimbabwe or Another: an Interview with Greg Elich

Stephanie McMillan
Fear and Art: Feds Raid Another Exhibit

Josh Mahan
Victoria's Dirty Secret

David Russitano
Will the Real Minutemen Please Stand Up?

Jorge Mariscal
Rodolfo Gonzales: the Passing of a Legend

Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales
"I am Joaquin"

Tom Reeves
Students Rise Again in Québec

 

April 14, 2005

Karyn Strickler
Red States Rebellion: Montana vs. the Patriot Act

Pat Williams
The Flattened Economy of the Rocky Mountain West

Jessica Pupovac
What You Should Know About Bank One's New Daddy

Joshua Frank
Contradictions of the Anti-War Mvt.

Jerzy Mankowski
Jeffrey Sach's Millennium Plan: a View from Poland

Talli Naumann
Right-to-Know in Mexico

Antony Loewenstein
The Aussie Press Under the Empire of Murdoch

Virginia Rodino
Challenging the Empire: Tactics for the Anti-War Movement

Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
Bush's Vision of Arab Democracy vs. Two Reports

Website of the Day
The 13th Moon: Women Poets Read for Peace in Portland

 

 

April 13, 2005

Maria Carrión
Bolton in the Western Sahara

Mike Whitney
Fighting Torture with Art: the Abu Ghraib Paintings of Fernando Botero

Terry Jones
Let Them Eat Bombs

Dave Lindorff
A Sickening Error

Nathaniel Livingston, Jr.
Ethnic Cleansing at Air America

Kurt Nimmo
Israeli Nuclear Blackjack with Iran

Don Fitz
Battling Dengue Fever with Bats and Birds: the Vietnamese Alternative to Pesticides

Tom Crumpacker
Democracy and the Multiparty System: The US and Cuban Experiences

JG
The Abuse of Haitian Kids at PS 34

Jack McCarthy
Horowitz Comes to Tallahassee

Kevin Zeese
Is God Picking a Side in Iraq?: an Interview with Rev. Sekou

Jeffrey St. Clair
How Exxon Used the Guise of Homeland Security to Purge One of Louisiana's Environmental Champions

 

April 12, 2005

John Wheat Gibson
The Goddess of Immigrants: Aeschylus, Thucydides and the Patriot Act

Kevin Zeese
The Time to Oppose a Draft is Now

Alan Farago
The Cancer Clusters of Cape Coral: Toxics Trump Democracy in Florida

Dave Lindorff
Blackout in Montgomery: Selling Social Security Destruction to White Alabamans

Ron Jacobs
Bob Dylan at the Crossroads

Nelson P. Valdes
Flashback: John Bolton's Big Lie

Dave Zirin
War Games and War Names

Website of the Day
Parents Against the Draft

 

 

April 11, 2005

Tom Barry
Negroponte and the Eclipse of the CIA

Saul Landau
Love for the Unborn and Brain Dead: Contempt for the Rest Us

Monique Dols
Scapegoated at Columbia: Smearing Joseph Massad

Phil Gasper
Burning Professors: Resurrection of a Witchhunt

Mike Whitney
See No Evil: Pope TV and the New World Media

Edwin Krales
The Origin of AIDS: an Ethical Inquiry

Paul de Rooij
Undermining Civil Society: Horowitz's Corrosive Projects

Website of the Day
Academic Freedom at Columbia: a Petition

 

 

April 9 / 10, 2005

Jeffrey St. Clair
Torture Air, Incorporated

William A. Cook
Janus at the State Dept.: Glossing Over Israel's Human Rights Abuses

Gary Leupp
My Favorite Papal Moment: a Bonfire in Peru

Alan Maass
Pope-a-Dope: John Paul 2, Death of a Reactionary

Laura Carlsen
Democracy Sinking in Mexico

Joe DeRaymond
Death and Displacement in Colombia

Nikolas Kozloff
Bush Rebuffed in Venezuela (Again)

Dave Lindorff
The Price of Oil and the Bush Dollar

Greg Moses
Growling at Hallliburton

Fred Gardner
Southern Station Session

Justin Smith
The US Prison System: a Hesitant Defense of the Not-Quite-as Bad Old Days

Ron Jacobs
George Bush's True Religion: From Bob Jones to Jim Jones

M. Junaid Alam
No Intelligence Failure in Iraq; Political Failure in the US

Ira Kay
West Point's Bad Geography: the Conqueror's Warped View of the World

Elizabeth Schulte
From McCarthyism to COINTELPRO: the Ongoing War on the Left

Jackie Corr
Stranger in a Strange Land: What Bush Didn't See in Montana

Christopher Brauchli
From Darfur to Iraq: Crime Without Punishment

Leslie A. Fiedler
On Saul Bellow: "The Age of the Jewish-American Novel is Over"

Ben Tripp
Pocket Furniture

Poets Basement
Lamantia, Engel, Louise, Albert and Curtis

Website of the Weekend
Military Free Zones

 

 

April 8, 2005

Rob Eshelman
Made in Palestine: the First Exhibition of Palestinian Art in the US

Hom Raj Acharya / Sally Acharya
The Elephant in Nepal's Parlor

Felice Pace
A Golden Opportunity for Justice on the Klamath

Neve Gordon
Israel is the Key to Iraq

Mike Whitney
The Economic Tsunami: Coming Sooner Than You Think

Don Monkerud
God's Shock Troops: the Religious Right and US Foreign Policy

Adam Engel
The Code of Frank Conroy

Vicente Navarro
Opus Dei and John Paul II: a Profoundly Rightwing Pope

Website of the Day
Mountain Justice Summer

 

 

April 7, 2005

Joshua Frank
The DeLay Scandal Isn't a Partisan Issue

Yitzhak Laor
Racism by Any Other Name

Alan Maass
Tug of War with Terri Schiavo

Steven Sherman
An Open Letter to Daniel Okrent: Why the Times is Not "Assertively Left"

Dave Lindorff
Bush's Potemkin Town Meetings

Gerry Adams
The IRA Should Change from "Volunteers" to "Activists"

John Chuckman
Hanoi Jane and the City of God

Michael Dickinson
Two Weddings and a Funeral

John Ross
Lost and Found in the Arizona Desert

Website of the Day
Genetically-Engineered Small Pox?

 

 

April 6, 2005

Peter Camejo
The Crisis in the Green Party

Kevin Wehr
The Eco-Terror Hoax: Domestic Security and the Culture of Fear

Matt Vidal
Bush's Legacy: Dead Bodies, Dead Wrong, Dead Logic

Robert Creeley / Bruce Jackson
On the Subject of Company

Nikolas Kozloff
Chavez's Oil Gambit

Sea Shepherd Crew
Attack of the Hak-a-Piks

Brenda Child
Ojibwe Have Dealt With Grief Before: From Boarding School Abuse to School Shootings

Terry Eagleton
The Pope with Blood on His Hands

David Swanson
Why the Media Can't Read the Banktuptcy Bill

Cindy Ellen Hill
On the Lists: What's the Patriot Act in Belfast

Website of the Day
The New Nike?

 

 

April 5, 2005

Jim Connolly
The Pope Who Revived the Office of the Inquisition: an American Catholic on the Papacy of John Paul II

Paul Craig Roberts
"Partnering" the Destruction of the American Economy

Gary Leupp
Bombing the Malwiya Minaret

Dave Lindorff
The Grassroots Resistance to the Patriot Act

Ron Jacobs
The Terrorism of War

Dan Smith
Riding the Dragon, Soaring on the Eagle: US Economic Decline and the Rise of China

Mark Engler
John Paul II's Economic Ethics: Moral Values and Global Capitalism

Richard Oxman
Bono for Pope

Greg Moses
Narcowars vs. Civil Rights

Website of the Day
Impeach Cheney and Bush

 

 

April 4, 2005

Kevin Zeese
Liberals and Neocons for a Draft

Paul Craig Roberts
American Rot: When Opposing Voices Do Not Oppose

Larry Birns / Sarah Schaffer
Bush's Arms Sales Hypocrisy

Karyn Strickler
Blood on Ice: Seal Pup Slaughter on the St. Lawrence

Joshua Frank
The Minuteman Project: Paramilitaries on the Border

Michael Dickinson
It's Too Late Now for John Paul II to Repent

Surendra R. Devkota
Ending the Deadlock in Nepal

Derrick O'Keefe
Haiti, Yesterday and Today: an Interview with Laura Flynn

Uri Avnery
Djinn in the Box

Website of the Day
Libby, Montana: America's Most Toxic Town?

 

 

April 2 / 3, 2005

Alexander Cockburn
Death, Depression and Prozac

Jeffrey St. Clair
Trippwired

Stan Goff
A Trojan Jackass for the Anti-War Movement

John Ross
How to Change the World Without Taking Power

Saul Landau
Guns, Vitamins and God

Robert Creeley
Goodbye

Mike Roselle
Riding Shotgun with Woody Harrelson

Joshua Frank
Dead Wrong Intelligence

Fred Gardner
The Obvious Green Issue

Greg Moses
Photo ID Movement as White Privilege

Fran Quigley
The Economics of Global Poverty: an Interview with Jeffrey Sachs

Kurt Nimmo
The Strange Allure of Paul Wolfowitz

Nicole Colson
Pentagon Greenlights Murder in Iraq

Chris Genovali
Killing Grizzlies for Fun

Alan Farago
Dirty Water and Land Speculators in the Florida Keys

Lawrence Reichard
The M-19 and the Siege of Bogota

Ben Tripp
Civilization and War

Avantika Regmi
Chaos in Nepal

Lee Sustar
Off the Script in Kyrgyzstan

Ron Jacobs
Death of a Revolutionary: Vermont Loses an Honest Man

Dave Lindorff
The Black Arrow: a Review

Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Curtis, Louise, Engel and Albert

Website of the Day
O2 Collective: No Breathing Tube Required

 

 

 

April 1, 2005

Tom Barry
Michael Chertoff: Legal Storm Trooper

Rahul Mahajan
WMD Commission: Yet Another Intelligence Failure

Charlie Cray / Jim Vallette
Dancing with Wolfowitz

Dave Lindorff
News Media Anguish Over Schiavo's Death

Zeynep Toufe
The Terri Schiavo Success Story

Suzan Mazur
Pension Funds and the Price of Oil

Michael Dickinson
Shut Your Mouth or Go to Prison!

Stan Cox
Iraq Reconstruction Funds Invested on Wall Street

Ra Ravishankar
Et Tu, George?

Daniel Wolff
Patti Scialfa's Conversation with America

 

 

March 31, 2005

Sharon Smith
Leftwing Apologists for the Occupation

Ron Jacobs
Rounding Out Iraq's History

Tariq Ali
British Elections: Punish the Warmongers

Michael Dickinson
Cartoon Capers: Turkey's War on Political Cartoonists

Kanak Mani Dixit
The Struggle for Nepal's Future

Mitchell Zimmerman
The Bizarre Legal Philosophy of Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Xuan-Trang Ho
Guatemala and CAFTA: Return to the Bad Old Days?

Dave Zirin
Pay the Damn Players!

Joe Bageant
In Praise of Holy Madness

Jeff Halper
The End of a Viable Palestinian State

Website of the Day
Free Nepal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Weekend Edition
April 30 / May 1, 2005

Pot Shots

Washington State Doctor Harassed

By FRED GARDNER

Oakland, California

Paul Stanford is a longtime proponent of cannabis who runs the Campaign forthe Restoration and Regulation of hemp, based in Portland, Oregon. In recent years he has established clinics in Portland and Bellevue, Washington, at which doctors evaluate patients seeking approval to use the herb medicinally. One of the doctors in his employ, Thomas "Tim" Orvald, is a former cardiac surgeon who helped put himself through medical school at the
University of Pennsylvania by playing professional basketball. Stanford phoned with this report:

"On Tuesday, April 12, two police officers from Centralia, Washington, came to our Bellevue clinic. That's about a two-hour drive for them. Peter Leveque was working at the desk. He told them Dr. Orvald wasn't there but that he'd be there the following Monday and Tuesday, the 18th and 19th. So the officers said they'd come back on Tuesday the 19th.

"I phoned the police in Centralia on Wednesday afternoon and they said they needed to talk to Dr. Orvald in connection with a patient, but they wouldn't tell me the patient's name. I said 'There's no way I can have the patient's records if you don't tell us the name of the patient.' So finally they gave us the name. Then I reached Dr. Orvald, who wasn't at home, and told him that the police wanted to come see him on the 19th. He called it 'intimidation,' but he wasn't nervous. At about the same time, a Yakima County sheriff's deputy arrived at his house and told his wife that two detectives from Centralia were going to visit him on the 19th. Dr. Orvald says that when he got home their seven-year-old daughter ran out to tell him, 'Daddy, the police were here looking for you.'

"Dr. Orvald and his wife were upset and said they didn't want to talk to the police. That evening I called a Seattle attorney who specializes in police-misconduct cases, Paul Richmond. On the morning of the 14th -before Richmond had gotten involved- the police made calls to the Orvalds' unlisted home number and to Carol Orvald's unlisted cell phone number. Dr. Orvald answered the home phone and said yes, this was his patient, but he didn't have the file yet. I faxed it to him later that day.

"His wife felt they were being harassed.

"We're convinced their purpose is intimidation. About a week before this had happened, I got a call from the patient involved. He and his wife live in a mobile home, where he was growing medical marijuana. The police broke through the door when they weren't home and confiscated it, even though his paperwork was in order and clearly posted. He phoned them to complain and was told 'We can break every window in your house if we want. You can't do anything about it.' The police said his medical marijuana wasn't legal and he couldn't have it and they were going to prosecute him.

"So he contacted the police chief and complained and filed a claim for his door and started looking for an attorney who would handle it for no money, which is kind of difficult to find. He is not sure why the police have it in for him. Before seeing Dr. Orvald he had seen another doctor who said he didn't qualify. This doctor objected to medical marijuana and had told him 'We have plenty of pharmaceuticals, there's no need to use marijuana.' The police officer who did the talking was named Ross Kenepah and he knew that another doctor had said the patient shouldn't use medical marijuana

"On the 14th Paul Richmond left a message on one of the police officers' phones saying he represented our clinic and to cancel the appointment with Dr. Orvald on the 19th and that any future correspondence should come to him. They ignored this and showed up in Bellevue on the 19th in plain clothes. I had them come into my office. They said they wanted to talk to Dr. Orvald and claimed they hadn't gotten the message from our lawyer. Kenepah did the talking. He said that for them medical marijuana was illegal and that they didn't care what the law said. I said, 'Well you know, the people voted to create this law.' And he said, 'You'll find out.'

"I said 'We've had seven thousand patients and this is the first time any police officers have come in and done anything like this.' They kept insisting on seeing Dr. Orvald and I told them they couldn't and they said, 'Well, we'll subpoena him.' I said, 'Are you going to subpoena every patient?' Kenepah said, 'If that's what it takes.' I said, 'Are you going to subpoena sick and dying people?' He kept repeating, 'If that's what it takes.' I said, 'Are you going to torture sick and dying medical-marijuana patients.' 'If that's what it takes.' He just kept repeating these phrases: 'If that's what it takes Get used to it You'll find out' That was the last thing they said: 'You'll find out.' And they walked out the door. "I don't know his rank, but Kenepah is part of some multi-jurisdictional task force called the United Narcotics Enforcement Team. Paul Richmond faxed them a letter on the 20th and instructing them not to harass us. On the 22nd he got a letter back from the Centralia city attorney saying they weren't investigating our clinic or our doctor or me, but they were investigating Joe Scott on some drug case."

California's leading cannabis specialist Tod Mikuriya, MD, attributes his legal problems to the fact that his letters of approval effectively blocked the prosecution of individuals whom local law enforcers wanted to see punished. Dr. Orvald is playing an analogous role in Washington, and evidently has incurred analogous wrath. Officer Kenepah's implication that the foray was just the start of a wider crack-down was crude but ominous.


Plain Jane

'Because people aren't stoned there.'

--Actress Jane Fonda, speaking Monday at San Francisco's A Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books, on why she lives in Georgia."

The Oakland Tribune ran this item in large type, along with a picture of Jane, who is peddling her autobiography. It was a very sad life's story from early on. For years I've regretted having written a piece about the GI movement that was less than gallant in describing Jane. A few weeks ago I heard her on 60 Minutes, describing intimate details of her scene with Roger Vadim, and I could only laugh at my own absurd sense of propriety.

So Jane sez to Leslie Stahl, "I just wish somebody had told me to shut up." In the winter of '71 I sat with this woman on a stoop on Liberty St. in San Francisco and told her not to take the FTA show to Asia and to stop supporting "movement" operations that were anti-GI. All that year Jane had been telling the world that I had influenced her, turned her on to the GI movement. But now she wouldn't hear of following my advice. I said it wasn't advice but a direct order on behalf of the American people. She said I was the most presumptuous person she'd ever met, and we parted, and I haven't seen her since.

Being ignored is preferable to being slandered (I know whereof I speak) but a little accurate acknowledgment now and then wouldn't hurt.

Fred Gardner can be reached at: fred@plebesite.com