Truthdig - Reports - Fatherhood, Muhammad Ali and Moral Courage: "I went down to first class on the airliner to find the man who had floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee. Ali is still a big man, dwarfing those around him. I knelt so I could look him right in the eye and told him I considered him a hero not for his world championship title fights but for having the moral courage to refuse induction into the Army during Vietnam. Ali’s hand shook with tremors as he extended it to me; he nodded. He has a hard time speaking now but I could see he was moved by what I had told him. His battle of conscience has ended; for many of us those battles are still to come. "
Broken Spring? : Information Clearing House This is a sequel to my June 2011 article, ‘After the spring’, on the upheavals in the Arab world. It is an article that has been painful to write, because it brings bad tidings and offers a pessimistic analysis of the upheavals, at least in the short term, in a number of Arab countries. The outcomes and potential outcomes of these uprisings have also acquired new, very significant dimensions. These include a complex entanglement with the accelerated preparations for a possible attack on Iran, and a poisonous, sectarian aspect that could have the consequence of ripping Syria and the Middle East apart.
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