AUSTIN, Texas -- Excuse me, but something seems to be slipping into obscurity with no media comment whatever, and as Arthur Miller wrote in "Death of a Salesman," "Attention must be paid."

The event was a modest announcement by the Office of the Special Prosecutor that there is insufficient evidence to bring a charge of wrongdoing against Bill or Hillary Clinton in the Whitewater investigation.

That story lasted exactly one news cycle, and then we dropped it like a hot rock. If that's a one-cycle story, just what the HELL has been going on for the last six years? Six years, $52 million, and there is no there there? There never was, and I'm sorry to play I-told-you-so, but I told you so. So what was this madness about?

David Maraniss of The Washington Post has this nice riff that he does about Bill Clinton as the Republicans' Moby Dick. They've had their harpoons in this white whale since '92, but they can't kill him -- he keeps dragging them to their deaths in his wake.

This year’s presidential election is between two men; George Bush and Al Gore. Anyone harboring illusions that any one else, other than these two gentlemen actually has a chance needs to retake high school American history.

Fringe candidate Ralph Nader would have you believe that he has a chance and deserves a place at the table, let alone a second look. There are two main reasons why voting for Mr. Nader is not only futile but counterproductive to the environmental movement. Allow me to explain.

A vote for Mr. Nader is a vote for President Bush/Speaker DeLay

Texas Governor George Bush lacks substantive policy experience both in the domestic and international arenas. He is anti-gay, anti-environment, anti-labor, and most of all beholden to the far right of Bob Jones. How can he be up in the polls? He has two things in his favor this year: money and Ralph Nader. Mr. Bush’s fundraising extravagance is legendary. Let’s talk about Mr. Nader.

You may have read in the Columbus Alive that the Free Press/Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism (CICJ) was the only nonprofit member of Greater Columbus Community Shares excluded from this year’s charitable giving campaign at the Ohio State University. Twenty-one organizations were let in – only one left out.

And let me stress, left. OSU administrators insist that the Freep’s editorial content has nothing to do with their bizarre and misinformed decision. After all, they were totally unaware that the Freep’s summer issue cover story attacked the OSU administration for its handling of the spring CWA strike and its indefensible invitation to U.S. Representative J.C. Watts to serve a commencement speaker.

You remember Steven Kanner, a local activist who refused dominant values, whether by riding the bus instead of a car, refusing to wear leather tennis shoes, or dreaming of working in a cooperative tofu factory. One of my best memories is going with him to Broad and High, ironing board in hand to use as a literature table. We talked with both the rich and the poor about Single Payer Health Care reform and asked them to sign our petition. Few were as faithful as he was—participating in a peace march, hosting a dinner for Simply Living friends, or supporting the Green Education Fund.

What a surprise to get his letter from Iowa City stating that he had been elected to the City Council. Steven Kanner? you ask. Yes. The only person on the council who lists his address as a basement apartment and who deliberately renewed his membership with the Democratic Socialists of America as well as the Green and Labor Parties before he was elected.

Yuppification . . . corporatization . . . bland o’rama.

What a drag it is getting older as the forces of reaction grow bolder. For a quarter century the people’s liberation front gathered at its headquarters in Columbus, Tradewinds. You entered the revolutionary space through a door under the sign of the Dragon.

On Wednesday, July 19, the Dragon breathed fire no more. Scott Solomon, lacking wisdom, evicted the store’s owner Yvette Garayalde Wyman from the legendary storefront. The late Libby Gregory, activist extraordinaire, founded the original store. It gave shelter to the Columbus Free Press when the underground newspaper was being hounded by a joint operation of the National Security Agency, CIA and FBI in the 1970’s. Indeed, there’s a certain nostalgia for the terms MH Chaos and COINTELPRO.

Perhaps it would have been a more fitting way for the store to go out being blown up by the neo-Nazi Gerhardt brothers in the early 80’s – in fact they testified under oath to plotting the bombing to destroy the progressive movement in Cowtown.