TWO WINGS OF THE SAME BIRD?
"Puerto Rico and Cuba are two wings of a bird -- they receive flowers and bullets in the same heart, wrote Lola Rodriguez de Tio, the Puerto Rican poet and separatist, in 1893. The verse immortalizes the bond between her native and adopted islands, the last two Spanish colonies in the New World. Like Rodriguez de Tio, I am a Puerto Rican in Cuba, where I've lived for the past two years."
(ORLANDO SUN SENTINEL)

C-MURDER FOUND GUILTY
"Rapper Corey Miller, better know as C-Murder and the younger brother of mogul Master P, was convicted of second-degree murder yesterday in Louisiana. The conviction carries an automatic life sentence."
(ROLLING STONE)

MEDIA FLAP
"Carlson gave out a number, but it was for the Washington bureau of Fox News, CNN's bitter rival. The bureau was deluged with calls. To get back at him, Fox posted Carlson's unlisted home number on its Web site. After his wife was inundated with obscene calls, Carlson went to the Fox News bureau to complain. He was told the number would be taken off the Web site if he apologized on the air. He did, but that didn't end the anger. In an interview with The Washington Post, Carlson called Fox News 'a mean, sick group of people.'"
(FINDLAW)

COLIN POWELL STATEMENTS GO UNCHALLENGED BY MEDIA
"If New York Times editors were interested in correcting the record, all they would have to do is re-print a correction they ran over three years ago (2/2/00): 'A front-page article yesterday... on Iraq misstated the circumstances under which international weapons inspectors left that country before American and British air strikes in December 1998. While Iraq had ceased cooperating with the inspectors, it did not expel them. The United Nations withdrew them before the air strikes began.' "
(FAIR)

COURT RULES RIGHTS NOT GARBAGE
"The New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled Monday that garbage is private, even when it has been put out near the street for collection.
The 4-1 decision runs counter to rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and high courts in most other states. But the court said New Hampshire's constitution provides a stronger expectation of privacy than the U.S. Constitution."
(FREDERICKSBURG FREE LANCE-STAR, unearthed by Paul Whitehurst)

UP IN SMOKE
"Police say 59 pounds of marijuana disappeared from a police evidence room and may have been inadvertently burned, forcing prosecutors to drop charges against three Houston men."
(HOUSTON CHRONICLE, unearthed by Bill Messick)

IT'S IN THE CARDS
It seems that friends and foe alike are spoofing the Iraq playing cards.
A Russian newspaper can't keep enough in stock of the deck featuring the Bush royal family. It includes Bush as the Jack of Hearts, Laura Bush as the Queen of Hearts and National Security Advisor Condolezza Rice as the Queen of Diamonds. The pack contains 36 cards, the number of cards in a traditional Russian deck, and each suit has a particular meaning. The hearts are called the 'family' and feature the Bush family and their trusted friends."

A notoriously idiotic Frenchman's version of the cards is less Bush-friendly. "'I found it completely indecent to present a manhunt as a game,' said Thierry Meyssan, the man behind the French deck. 'We thought this card game would allow us to ... explain why we consider the government of George Bush a threat to international security.' "
(CHANNELNEWS ASIA AND CNN, Illustration from ChannelNews Asia)

ANNAN CHALLENGES US POLICY
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan warned President Bush Tuesday that his doctrine of pre-emptive military intervention posed a fundamental challenge to the United Nations and could lead to the law of the jungle.
(FINDLAW)

BUSH UN SPEECH A BOMB
"The invasion of Iraq, to them, remained a dangerous act of unilateralism now beset by intractable problems."
(NYT)

JUSTICE CONCEPTS IN THE YEAR 2003:
CLERIC ARRESTED BECAUSE HE MIGHT HAVE DONE SOMETHING WRONG
"Investigators are looking into the possibility that he was sympathetic to prisoners there and was preparing to aid them in some undetermined way. 'That's the fear and the suspicion that the Army is pursuing,' the second law enforcement official said."
(NYT)

GOVERNMENT DOPE ASSAILED
The department was compelled to begin direct distribution in July, following an Ontario court order this year that said needy patients should not be forced to get their cannabis on the streets or from authorized growers, who themselves obtain seeds or cuttings illegally. ...
The government dope also came under fire Monday from Canadians for Safe Access, a patients' rights group that is pressing for supplies of safe, effective marijuana. Laboratory tests indicate the Health Canada product has only about three per cent THC - not the 10.2 per cent advertised - and contains contaminants such as lead and arsenic, said spokesman Philippe Lucas of Victoria.
(CJAD, unearthed by Paul Whitehurst)

SEATTLE VOTE TRIES ENDRUN AROUND FED MARIJUANA POLICY
In a sharp rebuke to White House Drug Czar John Walters, Seattle voters overwhelmingly passed Initiative 75 today, ordering Seattle police and prosecutors to make arrest and prosecution of adults possessing marijuana for personal use their lowest priority. With 97 percent of the vote counted, the measure was winning by a margin of 58.6 percent to 41.4 percent."
(MARIJUANA POLICY PROJECT, unearthed by Paul Whitehurst)

CNN REPORTER'S COMMENTS DRAW FIRE
CNN star reporter Christiane Amanpour has stirred a media hornets' nest by claiming US television networks, including CNN, were "intimidated" by the Bush administration in their coverage of the war in Iraq.
Amanpour said she believed that journalists "did not ask enough questions, for instance, about weapons of mass destruction" -- adding that the issue of those alleged weapons "looks like this was disinformation at the highest levels."
(HERALD SUN, unearthed by CubaNews Digest)

CUBA EDITORIAL
The United States, and South Florida, have too much at risk to sit on the sidelines until events spin out of control. Instead, U.S. policy-makers must seek opportunities now to guide, sway and encourage groups, enterprises and institutions to adopt forward-looking approaches that embrace democratic and marketplace driven ideas.
(SUN SENTINEL, unearthed by CubaNews Digest)

"QUINCE" DOCUMENTARY PLANNED
Through her production company, Nuyorican Productions, multimedia star Jennifer Lopez will try her hand at producing a documentary, tentatively titled ''Los Quinces,'' for HBO later this year, according to Variety. The film will chronicle one week in the life of a Cuban-American teen and her family in Miami, focusing on their preparations for the lavish debutante ball that, in Cuban tradition, marks a girl's transition to womanhood on her 15th birthday.
()
(ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY)