September 8th, 2010

Henry: Strict Muslim law is very distant concern

By REG HENRY
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Americans live in the Home of the Brave but sometimes you would never know it from some of their preposterous fears. Every so often, a new fear will circulate among the public like a bolt of electricity to thrill people with imaginary dread.

When I went on vacation this summer to Westport, Mass., the fear du jour was sharks, an old reliable source of panic. One was seen (supposedly) a mile out to sea, and the lifeguards closed the local beach. At that distance, the shark is unlikely to have noticed this closure, but if it did, bubbles would have come out of its smiling mouth indicating laughter.

What wusses these mortals be. It's sharks one day, bedbugs the next, various types of flu every other year and so on. These alarms take a demonstrated danger to people and blow the risk out of all proportion.

But my award for most overblown fear this summer goes to the threat of Shar ...

September 8th, 2010

Erbe: For many, no good political options

By BONNIE ERBE
Scripps Howard News Service

Americans are souring on the political system in the good old US of A and it's easy to understand why.

Former President George W. Bush led the Republican charge to overspend which, combined with a credit system collapse, landed us in an economic trough. Democrats took over as the economy was crashing and spent even more to resuscitate. Now that stimulus money has been spent and the economy isn't holding the charge that supporters of the stimulus package hoped for.

No wonder Americans are upset with the party in power. But from where I sit, that does not mean voters should boomerang back to the party that got us into this financial mess in the first place.

We need major political reform to offer voters more explicit and more reliable choices. I'm beginning to think that in today's hyper-high-tech world, two parties may not be enough. Hence, the success of the Tea Party, whose ...

September 8th, 2010

Editorial: Putin cites FDR in justifying possible 3rd term

An editorial / By Dale McFeatters
Scripps Howard News Service

With references to precedents in Western politics, Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, is dropping increasingly heavy hints that he will run for a third term as president in 2012.

If one accepts the popular Russian proposition that even now he is the country's de facto president, Putin will have led Russia for just shy of a quarter century, assuming that he also runs for a fourth term.

Russia's constitution bars its presidents from a third consecutive term. When Putin came up against that limit in 2008, he rather remarkably broke from the tradition of Russian leaders ignoring or changing laws they find inconvenient.

Instead, he handpicked Dmitry Medvedev to be his successor. Medvedev was easily elected and instantly named Putin his prime minister, from which post he seems to effectively run the country.

Putin's official position i ...

September 8th, 2010

September 8th, 2010

De la Isla: Seeing red when world collide

By JOSE de la ISLA
Hispanic Link News Service

The story about the true color red is one of many subtopics in an upcoming 90-minute PBS television program, "When Worlds Collide."

The documentary is about the century after Columbus' first contact with a whole new, previously unknown continent and what it meant to Europe and to New World people after 1492.

The program is co-written and narrated by journalist, author and performer Rub‚n Martinez.

"It's a story that matters today above all others," says Martinez. "And as a result, the nature of identity and ethnicity was dramatically transformed right down to our own times."

So relevant is it that he brings his own twin daughters into the picture to illustrate his point. They are, like many people, of mixed ethnicities. In the New World, the term mestizo has evolved. It is the term applied to talk about the continuing merger of people through marriage and birth, resul ...