Columns
| FROM THE HEARTLAND |
 Movie Review: Holly
by Bob Fitrakis
To the credit of producers Guy Jacobson and Adi Ezroni, “Holly” is not “Pretty Baby.” Although it’s a movie about child prostitution, there’s no nudity, sex, or violence or Hollywood glitz. The gritty and realistic feel of the movie and the sordid world of child sexual trafficking results from the fact that it was shot on location in Camodia, with many scenes filmed in actual brothels.
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 Al Gore inches toward Solartopia
by Harvey Wasserman
Bit by bit, Al Gore seems to be inching toward a Solartopian view of a future that must be completely sustainable in green energy. This week he advocated getting to an electric power system that is "carbon free" within ten years.
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 Did Columbus cops shoot and jail the wrong man?
by Martin Yant
The bewitching hour of midnight is historically viewed as a time of bad luck, and that certainly proved true for David Kibble on June 19, 2004. Because of an unfortunate intersection of unrelated events just after midnight that evening, Kibble was shot and seriously wounded by a Columbus police officer and ended up in prison for a crime the physical evidence and witness statements suggest he didn’t commit.
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|
NATIONAL |
 Will the United States really bomb Iran?
by Alexander Cockburn
"They're about taking out the entire Iranian military." This particular spine-chiller comes from Alexis Debat, excitingly identified as "director of terrorism and national security" at the Nixon Center. According to Debat, the big takeout is what the U.S. Air Force has in store, as opposed to mere "pinprick strikes" against the infamous nuclear facilities.
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 Column 86: Black Radio Entertainers
by Thomas Fleming
Jazz owes a lot of its popularity to the
phonograph, going back to the early days, when
Thomas Edison invented the musical box that
brought jazz to people who lived outside of the
areas where jazz musicians played. Through
phonograph records, they could hear the music of
such people as "King" Joe Oliver. He was the
first of the legendary great trumpet players to
come out of New Orleans, the city where most
experts in the field say that jazz originated. Jazz
was played in the whorehouses in that city, and
Louis Armstrong credits Oliver as being one
person from whom he learned his style of playing
trumpet.
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 Molly Ivins (1944-2007)
by Molly Ivins
Molly Ivins, the liberal Texas columnist best known for her down-home humor and biting wit, passed away on Jan. 31, 2007. We at Creators Syndicate are deeply saddened by this loss to us individually and to newspaper readers around the world.
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 Racializing Obama
by Dr. Manning Marable
From the beginning of Barack Obama's quest for the Democratic presidential nomination, there were African-American critics who accused him of not being "black enough." Ironically, some of those questioning his ethnic credentials were neoconservatives, or apologists for the Republican Right Wing.
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 Obama and the progressive base
by Norman Solomon
A reasonably evenhanded biography of Barack Obama, published last year,
describes him as "an exceptionally gifted politician who, throughout his
life, has been able to make people of wildly divergent vantage points see in
him exactly what they want to see." The biographer, David Mendell, reports
that "the higher he soared, the more this politician spoke in well-worn
platitudes and the more he offered warm, feel-good sentiments lacking a
precise framework."
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 SATIRE: 'Who Would Jesus Debate?' Leaked White House Transcript
by Lee Waters
PRESIDENT BUSH: Dammit, Turdblossom, I told you these debates were wrong. Why do I have to answer to some liberal homosexual Senator. Why does Dick have to sit with that wimp ambulance chaser. It sends a mixed message. It tells people we have a system whereby God’s leaders are subject to questioning.
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