By SAUL LANDAU - July 19/20, 2008

Carlin (71) and Helms (86) -- polar opposites of US culture -- died within weeks of each other. Carlin taught critical thinking through stand-up comedy. Helms represented unquestioned authority -- of the past. Lest anyone think Helms was always dour and serious about his love for all things reactionary, those who knew him told stories of his inventive sense of humor. This included the “good old boys” sense of humor.

George Carlin, comic, anarchist, 1937-2008: Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, Cocksucker, Motherfucker, Tits [otherwise known as "The Seven words you must never say on television"].

Utah Phillips, a seminal figure in American folk music who performed extensively and tirelessly for audiences on two continents for 38 years, died Friday of congestive heart failure in Nevada City, California a small town in the Sierra Nevada mountains where he lived for the last 21 years with his wife, Joanna Robinson, a freelance editor.

On Wednesday February 27, 2008, a homeless Aboriginal man was found frozen to death in a downtown stairwell.

By Peter Symonds | World Socialist Web Site

The death of former Indonesian dictator Suharto on Sunday at the age of 86 has elicited a stream of tributes from world leaders and in the international press. There is something both disturbing and ominous about praise for a man who was responsible for the murder of at least half a million people in the 1965 coup that brought him to power and the deaths of another 200,000 following the 1975 Indonesian annexation of East Timor.

CTV News

The woman behind the landmark lawsuit for residential school survivors died Thursday in what police are calling a "suspicious death."

The successful suit could be more than $5 billion and is believed to be the largest class-action settlement in Canadian history.

[Peter] Cadogan ... never became part of the PR-driven world of the slick modern pressure group. His life was a long quest for injustices to resist, and philosophical principles upon which to base his resistance. He agitated against nuclear weapons, the Biafran war and Stansted airport, moving from hardline communism to a peaceful utopianism based on the ideals of William Blake.

Remembering His Death, Celebrating His Life

On October 9, 1967, 40 years ago today, Che Guevara was assassinated in Bolivia by his CIA-assisted and -directed captors.

He told the frightened soldier who was sent to execute him in the small room where Che lay, seriously wounded: “I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man."

With deep sadness verging on despair we are sorry to have to say that one of our closest and dearest ‘Friends’, David Brophy, on Monday July 9 brought his own life to an end. Dave was one of our founding members and for years was a tireless driving force behind our efforts. He inspired many people as a non indigenous person who understood and practiced an ethical relation to indigenous peoples and a supportive role in their struggles. He made a difference in the struggle for a better world, a saner way of living in balance with nature, a society based on bonds of trust and justice.

Honoring a patriot, democrat and anti-fascist.

Let's remember who the Fundamentalist, Christian, Televangelical, Moral Majority rockstar Jerry Falwell really was over the past several decades by examining some of his own thoughts and words. May we learn to transcend such divisive, disdainful discourse.

It seems perverse for the man who ordered military action against his nation’s parliament to be hailed as the father of Russian democracy, but in some eyes [Boris] Yeltsin could do no serious wrong: he may have been a bit of a monster, but he was a monster who devoured communism and usually obeyed the west.

There is something about the way human nature works that evil closer to home always seems to have more of an impact then any foreign war. On Monday morning 32 students at Virginia Tech were murdered by a lone student, Cho Seung Hui. He was 23 years old and in final year [of] English.

""God made mud. God got lonesome. So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!" "See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars." And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around. Lucky me, lucky mud. I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done. Nice going, God. Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have. I feel very unimportant compared to You. The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and look around. I got so much, and most mud got so little. Thank you for the honor! Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep. What memories for mud to have! What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met! I loved everything I saw! Good night." - The Last Rites of the Bokononist faith (Written by Kurt Vonnegut, jr., from "Cat's Cradle")

"Tanya [Reinhart] was a brilliant and creative scientist...She was [also] one of the most courageous and honorable defenders of human rights whom I have ever been privileged to meet. As all honest people should, she focused her attention and energy on the actions of her own state and society, for which she shared responsibility including the responsibility, which she never shirked, to expose crimes of state and to defend the victims of repression, violence, and conquest...She will be remembered not only as a resolute and honorable defender of the rights of Palestinians, but also as one of those who have struggled to defend the moral integrity of her own Israeli society, and its hope for decent survival."

--Noam Chomsky