Insight
When she was a child growing up in Anniston s West End, Alice Faye Cleveland played under this tree in her neighborhood. She says,  At that time, West End was a community of the working poor. Today, it feels dead.  Photo: Stephen Gross/The Anniston Star Deep roots: Woman carries happy memories and painful scars of her Anniston childhood
There are many reasons why one remembers the old neighborhood of youth. Nostalgia seems to be part of the human condition. There are precious memories etched in our minds that lodge no other place. For many of us who lived in Anniston’s West End, there are also other memories that foretold a future filled with illness and pain.
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Photo: Special to The Star Ending the terror: Alabama activists reflect on domestic violence prevention
When the group started its mission, it was still legal in Alabama for a man to rape his wife. A boyfriend beating his girlfriend was, as the saying goes, somebody else’s business or — even more chilling — a family matter. A police officer could arrive on a call, see a battered woman and terrified children and still have to get back in his car and leave because the victim was too scared to admit that the person who was supposed to love her was beating her instead.
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One poll Alabama doesn't need
Southern football fans are accustomed to seeing Southeastern Conference teams dominate the national rankings. Four of the top 10 in last week’s measure. But SEC states also hold five of the top 10 spots in another ranking that’s less likely to make the evening news
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Gito Antonio, on his small rice farm near the Mozambique town of Nampula. Photo: Special to The Star One man's global view: Blogging from the Mozambique field
In 1990, the streets of Nampula, Mozambique, would have been deserted. One of Africa’s most under-reported and bloodiest conflicts, Mozambique’s civil war was quietly raging. Renamo, a rebel militia financed by apartheid-ruled South Africa, might have been on patrol. Bands of soldiers traded the town back and forth, demanding more food and women each time. An estimated 900,000 were killed and 4 million dislocated.
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The Pentagon s reversal in February of an 18-year-old policy now allows the media to photograph coffins of war dead as their bodies return to the United States, but only if the families of the dead agree. Still, the controversy remains: What images of war should be shown to the American public? Photo: Courtesy, Department of Defense/Associated Press Images of war, again: The eternal controversy over what we can see
Last Sunday, The Star published an Associated Press article about the death of U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard in Afghanistan. Imbedded AP photographer Julie Jacobson’s hurried, mundane-looking photograph of the wounded soldier on the ground being helped by a member of his unit has stirred much controversy.
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Bernard 'You're gonna make it': Marine Joshua Bernard, ambushed, wounded, became another casualty in a deadly month in Afghanistan
DAHANEH , Afghanistan — The pomegranate grove looked ominous. + The U.S. patrol had a tip that Taliban fighters were lying in ambush, and a Marine had his weapon trained on the trees 70 yards away. “If you see anything move from there, light it up,” Cpl. Braxton Russell told him. + Thirty seconds later, a salvo of gunfire and RPGs — rocket-propelled grenades — poured out of the grove. “Casualty! We’ve got a casualty!” someone shouted. A grenade had hit Lance Cpl. Joshua “Bernie” Bernard in the legs.
2 months ago | 0 0 comments | 4 4 recommendations | email to a friend
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Journal entries of AP photographer in Afghanistan
These are excerpts from journal entries by AP Photographer Julie Jacobson while she was embedded with U.S. Marines in Afghanistan’s Helmand province before and after the death of Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard on Aug. 14, 2009. The date at each heading refers to when Jacobson wrote her entry, not necessarily to when the events took place.
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Wasteful session: What's the problem? It's the Constitution
by Craig Babb
Special to The Star
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The state Legislature's special session is expected to approve some "fix" for Jefferson County's fiscal crisis. While essential in the near term, this is bad news for the county long term, for all residents of Alabama, for the educational system and for democracy. What most of us don't understand, but must, is that the underlying reason that this special session had to be called in the first place is Alabama's anti-democratic and dysfunctional 1901 Constitution.
Inside the soul of a runner
by Phillip Tutor
Commentary Editor
3 months ago | 1 1 comments | 7 7 recommendations | email to a friend
A runner's path is often solitary, barren, without a final destination. Yet, runners embark on that path over and over and over again. Their Baptist-like devotion, strong, undaunted, is profound. They don't run to something, they say. They run to be something, to reach a plane of higher emotion or camaraderie. Some seek their inner zen, a release for an unseen element of their soul.
The can't-do Blue Dog Democrats
by Harold Meyerson
Special to The Washington Post
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Watching the centrist Democrats in Congress create more and more reasons why health care can't be fixed, I've been struck by a disquieting thought: Suppose our collective lack of response to Hurricane Katrina wasn't exceptional but, rather, the new normal in America. Suppose we can no longer address the major challenges confronting the nation. Suppose America is now the world's leading can't-do country.
Weight of the state: What Alabama's obesity rate says about its economy and future
by Laura Tutor
Features Editor
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The adage in Alabama public policy — or public opinion, for that matter — used to be "Thank God for Mississippi," accompanied by a sheepish glance to the west. Wherever Alabama lagged in national rankings, it could usually count on Mississippi playing No. 50 to Alabama's No. 49.
20 bloody years of Bashir rule in Sudan
by Rebecca Tinsley
Special to The Star
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It has been 20 years since Omar al-Bashir and the fundamentalist National Islamic Front seized power in Sudan. Although not as notorious as his friends and fellow tyrants, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe or Col. Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, Bashir is unique because he is the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Southern discomfort: How white Southerners navigated their 'Americanness' during the Civil War-era South
by Paul Quigley
Special to The Star
4 months ago | 1 1 comments | 7 7 recommendations | email to a friend
The impending Fourth of July holiday is not likely to generate much anxiety. A day off work, a family picnic, fireworks — what could there be to worry about? But it has not always been such a stress-free holiday.
Lessons to learn — for teachers, too
by Laura Tutor
Features Editor
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They were clustered casually around library tables, but it was clear the teachers were in class. Ignore the fact that it's June, many of their students were at the pool and Alabama is just entering its summertime swelter. Last week, the school's teachers gathered for a common rite of summer: professional development training in which they work on the techniques that will make them more effective teachers in the fall.
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