The third annual run supporting Prisoners Of Conscience takes place Saturday October 2nd, 2004.

I will never again look at an orchid in the way I did prior to reading Robert David Clark's novel, "Flowers of the Dinh Ba Forest." A fictional story about the Vietnam War, the plot oscillates between the American soldiers and the Viet Cong, and the villagers who were caught in between those two warring sides. Full of eloquent beauty, alongside guttural words that can only repulse, but ring true, the book made me laugh and cry several times. As is often the case with Vietnam stories, borne of experience only the Vets truly can understand, the book exemplified how often Vets knew in war, that there, "everything meant more than it ever would back home."

Those who claim that Israel does not allow freedom of the press, should consider how journalists are treated in the Palestinian Authority. While Israel has the largest number of media outlets in the mideast (3rd largest in the world after New York City and London) and explicit rights of freedom of press guaranteed under Israeli law, not a word of copy, or radio broadcast, or television show is allowed unless government authorities in the PA give the okay. And they DON'T give the okay if the news is critical of Arafat.

This short article by Khaled Abu Toameh documents the case of a journalist who has fled the PA with his family after receiving death threats from one of the groups under Arafat's wing.

The call for proposals for the National Conference on Organized Resistance on February 3rd through February 6th, 2005, in Washington, DC!