In his career as a CIA analyst, Ray McGovern was responsible for preparing the President’s Daily Brief for Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. He was about as far from being an anti-war activist as you could get . But this weekend he’ll be in North Carolina speaking against the war in Iraq. And […]
Patrick O'Neill
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1 murder, 2 murderers, 1 execution
Like so many death row inmates, Patrick Moody has lots of horror stories from his youth. Moody’s 11 years on Central Prison’s death row sound like a step up from the years he spent in his own home at the hands of abusive parents. Moody, who was sentenced to die for the 1994 murder of […]
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Student activists meet at NCCU
David Cooper clicks a button and up pops a slide of a mountainscape. The only problem is that a big chunk of the mountain’s top has been blown off. “It’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen in your life,” Cooper says as he steps back from a screen that displays photo after photo of what […]
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Phyllis Tyler, 1917-2006
More than 20 years ago, when I was serving a federal prison sentence for an anti-war protest, I was contacted by Phyllis Tyler who wanted to tell my story in The Spectator. Tyler wrote a regular column for the tabloid, but instead of writing the piece herself, she asked my friend, Durham lawyer Alex Charns, […]
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Bob Brown, activist and inspiration, dies at 72
When meeting Robert Brown for the first time, you were immediately taken aback. His deep, raspy voice was unique; his smile genuine. But it was his words that kept you rapt. As he spoke, the depth of his life was revealed in all of its wonder. After a few minutes, you knew that Brown was […]
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Raleigh activist gets 90-day sentence
Unmoved by her expression of solidarity with the poor and oppressed peoples of Latin America, a federal magistrate on Tuesday sentenced Raleigh activist Gail Phares to a 90-day prison sentence stemming from her arrest last Nov. 20 in a protest against the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas (SOA), since renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute […]
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‘The state once again failed him tonight’
Maybe News & Observer editorial page editor Steve Ford was trying to use reverse psychology on Gov. Mike Easley when he opined Jan. 15 that Easley “would not allow a man who pretty clearly grew up with an impaired brain to be executed. Would he?” It was a nice try Steve, but last Friday, Perrie […]
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The CIA–and 14 protesters–on trial in Johnston
If a house is on fire and its occupants are crying “Help us,” it would not be a crime for a would-be rescuer to kick in the door to save those inside. In legalese, that’s known as the defense of necessity: An insignificant infraction of the law is overlooked if the lawless act is done […]
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Raleigh activists march to Guantánamo
Cubans were amazed last month to see a group of 25 U.S. citizens marching with banners along roads on the eastern end of the island leading to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, where the United States has been holding suspected terrorists, some for more than four years without due process. For four days, […]
Posted inMusic
Three hundred bells–one instrument
Forget the image of a hand-bell choir as middle-aged church ladies donning white linen gloves, stiffly ringing a few small silver bells on Sunday morning. The Raleigh Ringers take bell ringing to a whole new level. With 16 ringers wielding more than 300 bells, the RRs are to hand bells what NASCAR is to the […]