If I were Ralph Nader (and given the number of people screaming at me about stabbing Kerry in the back I sometimes think I am), I'd get on the plane to Palestine and Baghdad, and spend less time on ballot access fights with lawyers working for the Democrats.

There are about six weeks left to run in this campaign, and Nader, the outsider candidate, needs to finish off with a bang, not a whimper. The Democrats have got him stuck in the trenches, running from one courtroom to another. It's the only campaign they know how to fight. They can't sell Kerry. Their hearts aren't really in it anyway, but when it comes to stopping people from being able to vote for Nader, they're firing on all cylinders.

Organized labor can't get Kerry to promise working people more than a hike in the minimum wage to $7, but here's the SIEU putting $70 million of its members' dues into the Kerry campaign and deploying hundreds of organizers across the country, working 24 hours a day to keep Nader off the ballot. It's tying Nader down. He's fighting 21 legal cases in 17 states, and as Nader himself concedes, "The ballot access has drained our time and our resources."

Dear Editor:

I believe that the 9/11 Commission, while necessary, has missed the forest for the trees; by focusing on the single-event attack, and not on the history of the Western powers’ Middle East and Third World foreign policies.

Pope John Paul II, along with many high-ranking Catholic leaders, has written extensively on how we should fight against terrorism, intelligently and morally, and not simply via repressive and punitive military operations. I quote the Pope as follows: “It is essential that the use of force, even when necessary, be accompanied by a courageous and lucid analysis of the reasons behind terrorist attacks.” One can follow Papal and Holy See views on this, and most vital issues of our day, by reading zenit.org.

In my own study of the Middle East’s history over the past century or so, I have come across some disturbing realities. In reading David Fromkin’s scholarly treatise on the time just after World War I, entitled, “A Peace to End All Peace,” I was quite

Patti Smith is the high priestess of NY Punk. In a world where Avril Lavigne and Christina Aguilera are considered rebellious, thank god Patti can still come around and remind them they’re not. I would love to see these MTV darlings go on TRL and proclaim that, “Jesus died for someone’s sins, but not mine.” That was the opening line of Smith’s iconic 1974 release, Horses. Thirty years on, Patti is using Trampin’ as a sounding board for an American revolution of a different kind.

From the first guitar riff, you know the album is gonna rock. The opening track “Jubilee,” is a bit of a barnyard stomp with Patti in a two tone chant declaring, “We will never fade away /Doves shall multiply /Yet I see hawks circling the sky.” The band underscores Patti’s fading utopian dreams with a psychedelic jam of tight blues and swirling guitars.

In “My Blakean Year,” Patti pays homage to every Beat poet’s hero William Blake. The minimal guitar scratching and deliberate underproduction is brilliant. Patti fades out with the repeating lines, “Embrace all that you fear /For joy shall conquer all despair /In my Blakean year.”

Bob Fitrakis is at his best when he writes about George Voinovich at his worst. Catching Voinovich at his worst was not that hard when the former “frugal” Cleveland mayor and future “moderate” U.S. senator held statehouse ethics hostage as Ohio’s governor in the 1990s. So it’s not surprising that The Fitrakis Files: The Brothers Voinovich and the Ohiogate Scandal — the fourth compilation of the Columbus State Community College professor, lawyer, activist, and talk-radio firebrand’s writings — is probably his best.

That’s not to say the first three Fitrakis Files — Spooks, Nukes & Nazis; A Schoolhouse Divided; and Free Byrd & Other Cries of Justice are not exemplary. How could I say otherwise when I co-wrote some of the entries in the Byrd book? But The Brothers Voinovich and the Ohiogate Scandal rises above the others because the Voinovich clan and the brownshirts who did their bidding made such easy targets as they turned statehouse sleaze into an art form.