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Now Available! Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY Click Here to Order the Hot New CounterPunch Book by 3-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Kathy Kelly! Today's Stories June 4 / 5, 2005 Alexander Cockburn France's Magnificent Non!   June 3, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Welcome to a Has-Been Country Joseph Massad Witch Hunt at Columbia Jeff Halper The Process of Transfer Continues Tom Barry The Immigration Debate: Whose Side Are You On? Bruce K. Gagnon Bush Seeks Military Control of Space: "It's Our Destiny" Joshua Frank Bombing Iran: Facts Don't Matter Mickey Z. Deep Throat as Sideshow Gary Leupp "Peddling Lies About How They Were Mistreated" Website of the Day Tattoo on My Heart: Warriors of Wounded Knee, 1973 June 2, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts The Slave Traders of the Gitmo Gulag Forrest Hylton Bolivia: the Agony of Stalemate Mike Whitney Post-Mortem on the 4th Amendment: Warrants without Judges Brian Cloughley Anarchy in Afghanistan; Ignorance in America Mazin Qumsiyeh A Two-State Solution is No Solution Russell D. Hoffman High Tension at San Onofre Norman Madarasz "Le Jolie Mois de Mai": the Meaning of the French "Non" Norman Solomon War Made Easy: from Vietnam to Iraq David Price The Shallowness of Deep Throat Website of the Day Fallujah on Film   June 1, 2005 James Petras Beyond Hypocrisy: the Deeper Meaning of Posada Justin Delacour Framing Venezuela: US Media Bias Against Chavez Edward Jay Epstein Was "Deep Throat" a Fictoid? Omar Barghouti / Lisa Taraki The AUT Boycott: Freedom vs. "Academic" Freedom Dave Lindorff When War Goes Off the Script Kevin Zeese Reality Check: Who to Believe on Iraq War and Gitmo? Jason Leopold When Presidents Lie William S. Lind Wreck It and Run   May 31, 2005 Sen. Mike Gravel Thank You, Mark Felt: We Need a New Deep Throat David Krieger US Nuclear Hypocrisy Tad Daley The Nuclear Me-Too Club Joshua Frank Pelosi at AIPAC: Israel Comes First Richard Gott Chavez Leads the Way Norman Solomon Time to Get Serious About Impeachment Tom Segev Our Man in the Territories Walter Brasch Killing Americans with Secrecy Diana Johnstone The French "Non"     May 28 / 30, 2005 Alexander Cockburn There's Their Way or the Galloway Richard Lichtman We Wuz Framed! the Consolations of George Lakoff Sharon Smith The Road to Abu Ghraib Paul Craig Roberts Bush Opts for Civil War in Iraq Dave Lindorff Whigged Out: the Dems Have Become Merely a Vestigial Opposition Party Ramzy Baroud Muslims Were Desecrated, Not Just Their Holy Book Brian Cloughley Why Are Nukes OK for You, But Not for Us? Fred Gardner Advice from a Lawyer About Medical Pot Lee Sustar Chavez Gets Proactive Joshua Frank Isikoff Comes Clean: "Nobody in the US Said a Word, Until the Riots" Justin E.H. Smith What About the People? a Report from Romania Jackie Corr A Montana History Lesson on Assfulness Michael Kimaid Bush as Ahab Toufic Haddad Lessons from the Reversal of the AUC Boycott Justin Taylor The Fear of Paul Virilio Amir Butler Searching for a Saladin Ben Tripp Insomnia and Sarcasm Poets' Basement Albert, Engel, Davies and Louise May 27, 2005 Gary Leupp It Really is a Crusade! Daniel Estulin Infiltrating Bilderberg 2005 Kevin Zeese Iraq Withdrawal Vote: If Walter "Freedom Fries" Jones Can See the Light, Why Can't Nancy Pelosi? Robert Fisk Mubarak's Goon Squads Dave Zirin Why Pat Tillman's Parents Are No Longer Silent Website of the Day Stuckists   May 26, 2005 Yuki Tanaka Firebombing and Atom Bombing Ray McGovern Bolton, the Monomaniac Who Would Be Ambassador Arthur Mitzman Agenda for a Sustainable Europe Jack Random Afghanistan: the Forgotten Occupation Britt Bailey and Brian Tokar Big Food Strikes Back Rebecca Rush The New Banana Wars: Chiquita's Threat to the Caribbean Islands Jorge Mariscal Santiago v. Rumsfeld Paul Craig Roberts Uncovering a DOJ Cover-up: The Murder of Kenneth Trentadue Website of the Day The F Word     May 25, 2005 Camilo Mejia Prisoners of Conscience Dave Lindorff Brain Dead Democrats William S. Lind Of Cabbages, Cessnas and Kings Chris Floyd Tattoo Nation: Abu Ghraib as Normalcy Brian Cloughley The Stench of "Progress": the Torture and the Lies Continue Lenni Brenner The Plot to Stigmatize My Book on Nazi-Zionist Collaboration Sean Cain A Review of Naomi Klein's "The Take" Karl Shepard Extinction, Kansas and "Intelligent Design" John Ross Sweet Revenge at Terminal Island Website of the Day SWARM the Minutemen     May 24, 2005 Dave Zirin Palestine's Big Visitor: Not Laura, but Ronaldo Michele Bollinger Criminalizing Abortion in S. Carolina: Why Did Gabriela Flores Go to Jail? Winslow Wheeler The Pork War Uri Avnery Wagner at the Holocaust Memorial Michael Donnelly Behind the Green(back) Curtain Joshua Frank Chavez's Economy: Is It Sustainable? Stephen Dunifer The Folly of Media Reform Paul Craig Roberts Is Bush a Sith Lord?     May 23, 2005 Esther Sassaman / Thomas Nagy An Exclusive Interview with George Galloway Mike Whitney Free Jose Padilla: Three Years in Prison, Not a Shred of Evidence Ramzy Baroud Fallout from a Forged War: Battling Windmills While Iraq Burns Michael Dickinson Pictures at an Exhibition: Censoring the "Carnival of Chaos" Walter Brasch In Praise of Bob Barr Dick J. Reavis The Newsweek Scandal: an Unmentioned Detail Maria Tomchick Galloway and the US Press Norman Solomon Let's Play "Media Jeopardy" Kevin Zeese Inventing a Pretext for War: an Inte4rview with James Bamford Website of the Day Drawings of Darfur: Genocide Through Children's Eyes     May 21 / 22, 2005 David H. Price CIA Skullduggery in Academia Gabriel García Márquez My Visit to the Clinton White House, Bearing a Message from Fidel on Terrorism Oren Ben-Dor To Create Academic Freedom in Israel, a Boycott is Needed Gary Leupp Nights in White House Satin with Jeff Gannon Laith al-Saud An Anatomy of the Iraqi Resistance Elaine Cassel Bush and the Angry God: Twilight of Secular Democracy in America? Greg Moses The Saints of Mischief and Halliburton Fred Gardner Martyring Dr. Carol Wolman Dave Lindorff The GOP's Police State Alan Maass Uzbekistan's Karimov: Bush's Favorite Terrorist? William Blum The American Myth Industry Tom Crumpacker Send Posada Carriles to Venezuela Niranjan Ramakrishnan Newsweek: a Contest of Hypocrisies Doug Giebel The Grand Illusion Evelyn J. Pringle No Child Left Unmedicated: TeenScreen, State-drugging and Suicide Carolyn Baker Spiritual Abuse by the Religious Right Chris Floyd Justice in JebWorld Frederick B. Hudson Black and Gay?: a Review of "Brother to Brother" Ben Tripp Him Talk Plenty Long Time: Busting the Filibuster Poets' Basement Davies, Engel and Louise     May 20, 2005 Dave Lindorff Newsweek and White House Hypocrisy Kevin Zeese As Insurgency Increases, New US Military Recruits Fall Paul de Rooij "Private": a Film in Search of a Cliché Christopher Brauchli How Insurance Companies Exploited 9/11 Mark Engler Triumph Over Debt? Joshua Frank Bush to Dine with Porn Star Robert Jensen TV Talk, No Evidence Required Jeffery R. Webber Bolivia Erupts     May 19, 2005 Bill Forman An Interview with Alexander Cockburn Stan Goff Hey, Democrats, Listen to Galloway and Learn Something Neve Gordon From Ghettos to Frontiers: What Will Happen After Israel Withdraws from Gaza Michael Dickinson The Trouble with Menwith: Tagging British Peace Activists Karyn Strickler The Texas Nexus: How Racial and Political Gerrymandering United Andrew Freedman Nazi Science at NIH Paul Craig Roberts The Politics and Economics of Outsourcing     May 18, 2005 Jean Bricmont Vive La France? Laura Carlsen Bush's Posada Carriles Quandry: an Anti-Cuba Terrorist is Still a Terrorist Mike Whitney The Secret Raids of Alberto Gonzales: 10,000 Swept Up Joshua Frank Flushing the Koran: Why Newsweek Got It Right George Galloway Thusly, I Humiliated Norm Coleman (and Christopher Hitchens) Manuel Garcia, Jr. Writing Tickets for American War Crimes Dwight D. Eisenhower How the GOP will Destroy Itself Dave Lindorff The Plot to Make the PATRIOT Act Even Worse May 17, 2005 Mickey Z. GIs Behaving Badly Petuuche Gilbert The People of Acoma Still Fight to be Free Paul Craig Roberts Lies That Kill: Why Isn't Bush in the Dock? Ramzy Baroud The New Palestinian Uprising Robert Jensen / Pat Youngblood Pinning the Blame on Newsweek Stan Cox Poisoning Patancheru: the Severe Side Effects of India's Drug Industry Dave Zirin American Anthem: Ozzie Guillen and Fining for Freedom Diana Barahona Reporters Without Borders Unmasked Website of the Day Revolutionary Flower Pot Society May 16, 2005 Michael Gillespie The Family Released a Statement: Death Notices for the Warrior Theocracy Jason Leopold BP Stains the Arctic Jesse Muldoon How Many Schools Left Behind? Norman Solomon Media and the War: "The Bombs in Iraq Explode at Home" Robert Cray Twenty Patrick Cockburn Iraq is a Bloody No Man's Land Website of the Day Bolton's Divorce Papers: She Took It All Away, Including Most of the Furniture   May 14 / 15, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Join the 14 Per Cent Club! Saul Landau Lessons from Vietnam: Wars Kill Empires as Well as People Gary Leupp Whither Yale? Towards the Imperial University JoAnn Wypijewski The Glory that is Lockhart, Texas Ben Tripp The Wayward Airplane: a Cautionary Tale Brian J. Foley Was Jesus Gay? Tom Barry Bolton the Eavesdropper Mitchell Verter Barbarous Oaxaca: Indigenous Rights Groups Meet the "Law of the Club" Mike Ferner War on COs: Army Files Additional Charges Against Kevin Benderman Dan Smith Perceiving Darfur Mark Scaramella Death with Pitfalls Don Fitz Mommy, Is This a Finger in My Rice Puffs?: Splicing Human DNA into the Food Chain Diane Farsetta PR Industry Imitates Big Tobacco: the Senate's "Fake News" Hearings Michael Dickinson Soldier Crawling: Military Conscription in Turkey Ron Jacobs The Jackson State Murders Fred Gardner "Hydroponics? 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Lind Reality Gap: the Myth of US Invincibilty Jack Random The Dubious Wisdom of George W. Bush Gary Leupp Douglas Feith Bares His Soul to Jeffrey Goldberg     May 11, 2005 Patrick Cockburn The Rise, Fall and Rise of Ahmed Chalabi: King of Jordan to Pardon His $300 Million Bank Swindle Kevin Zeese The Occupation Gets More Saddam-like Every Day Christopher Brauchli Coffee, Tea or Torture?: A One Way Ticket to Uzbekistan Zalman Amit The Collapse of Academic Freedom in Israel: Tantura, Teddy Katz and Haifa University Robert Shull Carte Blanche for the Terror Cops: Senate Gives DHS Power to Waive All Laws Mike Whitney God, Gays, and George Bernard Shaw Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Anti-Arabic Week at a Southern High School Norman Solomon Political Bluster and the Filibuster   May 10, 2005 Richard Drayton The Imperial Mythology of WW II: an Ethical Blank Check Dave Zirin Steve Nash's Brilliant Year: Anti-War Hoopster Wins NBA's MVP Jackie Corr The Medicare Catch: Mrs. O'Hara's Windfall Dave Lindorff Silence of the Scams: Economists on China Michael Donnelly From Roadless to Clueless: the Great Stillborn Eco Victory Reza Fiyouzat Nomadic Abstracts Scott Parkin Taking Direct Action Against Halliburton Stephen Babcock The Burden of Knowing Better Alan Farago Florida, Water and Lobbyists Michael Neumann Naomi's Courage Website of the Day One Nation Under Plagiarism   May 9, 2005 Louis Proyect Shilling for Chevron: Jared Diamond, Greenwasher Robert Fisk "Mission Accomplished": the Occupation, Year Two Kevin Zeese Concientious Objection on Trial: the Court Martial of Keith Benderman Joshua Frank Kerry Bashes Gay Marriage Sasha Kramer A Mother's Day Call for Justice in Haiti's Prisons Andrew Wimmer Create and Resist Jeffrey Webber Back to the Streets in Bolivia? Jeffrey St. Clair Straight to Bechtel   May 7 / 8, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Who Beat Hitler? Gary Leupp Biblical Prophecy and Christian Zionism Saul Landau Pope Torquemada: Purges, Pedophiles and Cover-Ups Joe DeRaymond Autumn of the Revolutionary: Another Look at Daniel Ortega Daniela Ponce Seeing Chile in Nepal Heather Williams Hollywood Does Enron Gregory Elich Zimbabwe's Fight for Justice Anis Memon To Cuba and Back John Chuckman The Peculiar State: "Criticism of Israel is a Form of Anti-Semitism" Mike Whitney Hard Right Rage Against the Truth Ron Jacobs Re-Reading "Born on the Fourth of July" as the Iraq War Grinds On Colin Kalmbacher Whither Disorder? Ann Coulter and the Texas Police State, Cont. Lance Selfa Uprising in Mexico City Fred Gardner "Getting High is a Little Like Cuba" Ben Tripp Letters on Wittgenstein Mickey Z. The Mother of All Days Richard Joseph Those Patriotic Magnets Dr. Susan Block Come As You Are: Masturbation 101 Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Louise, Nettnin, Engel and Albert     May 6, 2005 Patrick Cockburn Baghdad Diary: a Week of Bombs and Blood Erin Yoshioka Another "3 Strikes" Travesty: Why is Santo Reyes Facing Life in Prison? Sam Husseini Talking with Syrians Dave Lindorff Ernie Pyle Where Are You? When Reporters were Reporters Kevin Zeese Circus Trials of Abu Ghraib: When Even the Fall Girl Can't Plead Guilty Joshua Frank An Overextended US Military? It Won't Stop Another War Dan Bacher Tribes and Salmon Win One: Bush Backs Off Trinity River Water Raid P. Sainath India's Bloody Water Wars     May 5, 2005 Carles Mutaner Is Chavez's Venezuela "Socialist" or "Populist?" Carl G. Estabrook Is There Any Hope for the Pope? Farrah Hassen The US's Syrian Obsession Kevin Zeese "Sent Into Combat Unequipped and Unprepared": an Interview with Patrick Resta Michael Leonardi May Day with an American Soldier in Rome Bennett Ramberg The Future of Nuclear Terror: Coming to a Reactor Near You Ray McGovern The Smoking Gun on White House Deceit Norman Solomon Nuclear Fundamentalism, the New York Times and Iran Nicole Colson The Back Alley Attack on Abortion Rights Brian Concannon, Jr. Clearing the Fences in Haiti     May 4, 2005 Colin Kalmbacher Ann Coulter and the Police State: Heckle a Racist, Get Arrested John Walsh Al Franken is a Big Fat Phony: Lying on Air America to Support the War Greg Moses Vigilante Wedge: Schwarzenegger Reprises "Birth of a Nation" Ali Khan Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Poised to Fall Apart Chris Floyd Ring Them Bells Linda S. Heard D-Day for Tony Blair: Bogeymen and Scare Tactics Dave Zirin The NFL, Congress and the Male Cheerleader Principle William S. Lind Fool's Paradise Gary Leupp Bolton's Proudest Moment: Breaking the UN's Anti-Zionist Resolution Website of the Day Kent State, May 4, 1970   May 3, 2005 Dave Lindorff Bush has Grasped the Third Rail, Now Turn on the Juice Brian Cloughley Halliburton's War Loot Ira Kurzban Death Squad Diplomacy: How Bolton Armed Haiti's Thugs and Killers Seth Sandronsky Towards Debtors' Prisons? Gilad Atzmon The Labour Party Isn't an Option Any More Michael Donnelly Branding Eco Collapse Alex Sanchez Chile's Man at the OAS: a Blow to Bush? Peter Linebaugh Magna Carta and May Day   May 2, 2005 Ron Jacobs Toward an Anti-Imperialist Movement Stan Goff The Case of Hasan Akbar Karyn Strickler Achieving Gender Balance in US Politics Joshua Frank Leaked UK Memo Indict's Blair's Iraq Folly Kevin Zeese Getting Out of Iraq will Prove Tougher Than Getting Out of Vietnam Vicente Navarro Pope Benedict: a Rightwing Politician       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 Lee Sustar City for Sale: Richard Daley's Chicago Saul Landau The Bush-DeLay Axis of Naked Power T.W. Croft The Undiscovered Country: the High Tide of the Neo-Con Confederacy Nikolas Kozloff Fox News v. Hugo Chavez William Blum Never-Ending Double Standards Dave Lindorff Judicial Jury Tampering in Philly Joshua Frank The Bi-Partisan Assault on Teenage Girls Doug Giebel Saving Jane Fonda Steven Erlanger A Response to Kathy Christison, from the NYT Jerusalem Bureau Chief Fred Gardner Washington State Doctor Harassed Mike Whitney Another Mad Bush Press Conference Kurt Nimmo Putin Pussyfoots in Palestine Joe DeRaymond A Short History of the 15th Congressional District of Pennsylvania Michael Dickinson Flags Mickey Z. May Day at Yankee Stadium Justin Taylor The Crawling Chaos: HP Lovecraft's Polymorphous Legacy Poets Basement Krieger, Engel, Albert, St. Clair Website of the Weekend Save Barbados's Cowpastor                                             Hot Stories Alexander Cockburn Behold, the Head of a Neo-Con! Subcomandante Marcos The Death Train of the WTO Norman Finkelstein Hitchens as Model Apostate Steve Niva Israel's Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings? Dardagan, Slobodo and Williams CounterPunch Exclusive: 20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians Steve J.B. Prison Bitch Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber True Lies: the Use of Propaganda in the Iraq War Wendell Berry Small Destructions Add Up CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition June 4 -5, 2005 Pot Shots Don't Boycott that Taxable Commodity By FRED GARDNER The Oregon House of Representatives voted May 30 to allocate $900,000 from the marijuana program's $1.1 million surplus to meet unrelated Department of Human Services expenses. The marijuana program was created by a voter initiative in 1998. Since then, more than 10,400 patients have paid fees to register and renew. The fee was $150 when the program began but has been lowered as the surplus accrued. Today the fee is $55 ($20 for members of the Oregon Health Plan). It could have been reduced further if the legislators didn't decide to dip into the cannibucks for other purposes. How long can government refrain from taxing instead of prohibiting the marijuana industry? There would be annual savings of $7.7 billion and tax revenues of $6.2 billion if marijuana were legalized, according to a report issued last week by Jeffrey Miron, a Visiting Professor of Economics at Harvard. Underwritten by the Marijuana Policy Project, the report projects savings of $5.3 billion now spent by state and local governments -police arresting, courts prosecuting, and jails and prisons incarcerating people for selling marijuana. The federal government would save $2.4 billion by calling off its marijuana interdiction efforts. In estimating potential tax revenue, Miron uses the Drug Czar's figure of $10.5 billion spent by U.S. residents on marijuana in 2000. His assumption that legalization would not increase demand "likely biases the estimated tax revenue downward," he notes. He foresees two offsetting effects on supply. On the one hand, production might rise because "marijuana suppliers in a legal market would not incur the costs imposed by prohibition, such as the threat of arrest, incarceration, fines, asset seizure, and the like... On the other hand, marijuana suppliers in a legal market would bear the costs of tax and regulatory policies that apply to legal goods but that black market suppliers normally avoid." The report considers a range of options, from taxing marijuana like an ordinary commodity (which would generate $2.4 billion annually) to a high "sin tax" equivalent to 80% of the price (would raise $9.5 billion). Miron settles on a rate akin to the tax on alcohol and tobacco that would raise the price 50% and produce revenue of $6.2 billion per year. One of the tables shows how much each state stands to generate. The Miron report can be viewed at http://www.prohibitioncosts.org/ It states the obvious and is rife with dubious assumptions and false rigor, but it serves a purpose -to advance the political discussion. Its release by MPP June 2, along with its endorsement by 500 economists, resulted in a small spate of articles and op-eds. Milton Friedman reiterated his principled position: "$7.7 billion is a lot of money, but that is one of the lesser evils. Our failure to successfully enforce these laws is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people in Colombia. I haven't even included the harm to young people. It's absolutely disgraceful to think of picking up a 22-year-old for smoking pot. More disgraceful is the denial of marijuana for medical purposes." On the Forbes website, Quentin Hardy extrapolated from Miron's report to the possible impact of legalization on the private sector. "If the laws change, large beneficiaries might include large agricultural groups like Archer Daniels Midland and ConAgra Foods as potential growers or distributors and liquor businesses like Constellation Brands and Allied Domecq, which understand the distribution of intoxicants. Surprisingly, Home Depot and other home gardening centers would not particularly benefit, according to the report, which projects that few people would grow their own marijuana, the same way few people distill whiskey at home." The Marijuana Policy Project is spinning the Miron report to appeal to the war-on-terrorized. Their press release says, "Just one year's savings would cover the full cost of anti-terrorism port security measures required by the Maritime Transportation Security Act of 2002. The Coast Guard has estimated these costs, covering 3,150 port facilities and 9,200 vessels, at $7.3 billion total." And we can take whatever money's left in the Oregon marijuana program and send it straight to Haliburton for pipeline protection in Iraq... Nobody more patriotic than us potheads!   Ricky Williams Update Ricky Williams seems to have found a relatively dignified way to return to the National Football League. Although he'll have to submit to drug tests as part of the league's "treatment program" -and generally be treated like a commodity- his comments with respect to marijuana, as conveyed by his agent, Leigh Steinberg, have not been denunciatory. Apparently Williams feels he's gotten to a place where he can do without the herb. Here's an account from the sports page of the Palm Beach Post: "He never really lost his drive to play football," Steinberg said. "He's always had a desire, a love for the game." Williams has said that he smoked marijuana to deal with his social anxiety disorder because it worked better than prescription medication. But in the past year Williams has studied holistic medicine in California and yoga in India, Steinberg said, adding that both disciplines discourage drug use. Williams has made friends within those circles who have acted as his support system and helped him 'heal his body and his mind,' Steinberg said. The yoga has left Williams strong and limber, but thin. Steinberg said Williams weighs about 195 pounds. The Dolphins listed him last year as 5-feet-10 and 226 pounds. [Their commodity is thinner.] Williams would have to serve a four-game suspension for failing a third NFL drug test last year. The Dolphins, who sought to recover bonuses paid to Williams, have an $8.6 million judgment against him for breaking his contract. Steinberg was quoted by Jason Cole of the Miami Herald: ``It may seem strange, but in all of his travels and searching, he seems to have found a way of life that helps him handle one of the issues he had with the NFL.'' Cole also quoted Marc Halpern of the California College of Ayurveda, who was not adverse to taking credit for Ricky's turnaround. ``He has found better ways of helping himself through Ayurvedic medicine and yoga.''   Sore Throat The identification of "Deep Throat," an anonymous source cited by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in some of their Washington Post stories, occasioned countless repeats of the false standard history of the Watergate exposé. It was not Woodward and Bernstein but Martha Mitchell, wife of Attorney General John Mitchell, who first alerted us to the fact that the president himself had ordered the initial break-in and was orchestrating the cover-up. All credit has been denied her. In the movie All The President's Men there's a turning-point scene in which Post editor Ben Bradlee (Jason Robards) tells the intrepid young reporters he needs corroboration, the paper can't accuse Nixon based only on the word of an anonymous source... As if the AG's wife hadn't already told Helen Thomas and others, "They may try to pin this on John Mitchell but it goes all the way to the top." In all the renewed blither about Woodward and Bernstein's vaunted tipster we didn't hear a mention of Martha. In the '80s a movie about her was in the works; but then they stopped making movies for grown-ups. If they ever resume, maybe Annette Benning could play her-a Southern belle, feisty, fatally devoted to her brute of a husband. I went to see Woodward playing Redford Dustin Hoffman played by Carl Bernstein Martha Mitchell, who really blew the whistle Never got mentioned, she got no credit on the silver screen Get back, get back in the system Martha was a crazy, drunken dame Not a nice respectable reporter Watergate shows that nothing's changed Except for a few big shots somewhere... Fred Gardner can be reached at journal@ccrmg.org