Dear Colleagues,

As part of our mission as a affiliate of the National Association of Black Journalists, we are charged with the job of monitoring how African-Americans are presented in the news media.

I believe the editorial cartoon that appears in the Columbus Dispatch dated, August 4, 2005 is both insensitive, in incredibly poor taste and offensive to the memory and legacy of Bill Moss.

While many of us may have differed with Mr. Moss and some of his tactics, neither his basic honesty nor his commitment to bettering the lives of children in the Columbus Public Schools has ever been called into account.

I noted the day that Moss passed away, WBNS-TV on it's 6:00 pm news program featured in it's report by Maureen Kocot a file tape of Moss wearing military fatigues and banging his shoe on the table during a Board of Education meeting.

I criticized Mr. Moss for that act in a column I wrote, but to make that one act the most significant act of his life by both the Dispatch and WBNS does not seem accidental to me.

To All Who "Got Up On The Bus", and our attorneys, which includes Bill and Ruth Moss... Thank You for being an important part of my life!  In the passing of Bill Moss, God gains a great worker, and we will carry on stronger with Bills memory.  As for our trip on the bus, I have so many good and powerful memories.  Ruth, Judith, myself and so many others were dancing and singing along with Will B in Layfayette Park.  Bill speaking to the crowds about the huge injustice we were living in Ohio.  I only wish I had gotten to know Bill better, knowing of him for years, knowing him personally this year. 

My last conversation with Bill was at the entrance to the Rhodes Tower, where the office is located for our (so called) Attorney General for the State of Ohio, Jim Petro.  I was the lone protestor to bring to the city's attention that Petro had put fines and sanctions on our hero Attorney's... Bob, Clliff, Pete, and Susan.  I spoke to many that day about the happenings with the election and the attorneys.  I had made arrangements to give Bill photo's of our DC trip.  He met me there in front of Petro's office.  He wore a big smile when he saw me with my sign....

"We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality." So wrote Lord Macaulay back in 1830. With this bracing dictum in mind, let's go back to the July 28 firing by The Miami Herald of Jim DeFede.

Why was Defede fired? On Thursday, the columnist was called on the phone by former Miami City Commissioner Arthur Teele Jr. Defede had known him for many years. Teele had just been indicted on federal mail fraud and money laundering charges, and a male prostitute was claiming that Teele had enjoyed his sexual services and used cocaine with him.

As Defede listened to the distraught Teele, he says he realized that the man was in a very bad way. "The idea that he might be thinking suicide was in my mind. I wanted to get what he was saying down -- to preserve what he was saying -- so I pushed the record button."

Like wolves among sheep, America's Plutocracy preys on the weaker and less fortunate members of society. Since America's founding, they have leveraged their economic power to dominate the government and the media, the vehicles through which they advance their avaricious agenda. In early American history, they employed an imperialistic foreign policy to ensure the expansion of US boundaries and interests. Along the way, they virtually annihilated the Native American population. Once they had attained as much of the North American continent as they were able, they used “Manifest Destiny” and the “Communist threat” as rationalizations to invade other nations (i.e.The Philippines) support ruthless dictators in other nations (Augusto Pinochet in Chile) who have tortured and killed millions. Recently, legislation favoring corporations over workers and consumers has sharply diminished the power of labor unions and opportunities for small entrepreneurs, while historically, corporations have maimed and killed their employees and their customers with hazardous working conditions and unsafe products.