Serving legal documents on high visibility persons who have been involved in international criminal acts is very difficult. However, the temptation of large honoraria for speeches in the United States tripped up a former Israeli Prime Minister who has been accused of war crimes for his involvement in the murders of ten passengers (nine were killed immediately and a seriously wounded passenger died after being in a coma for several years) on the Mavi Marmara in the 2010 Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

In a telephone press conference on October 21, the international legal team that filed the lawsuit against former Israeli Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Ehud Barak described how “legal process service” or official notification of a legal claim filed against him was done. The legal team knew Barak would be in Southern California giving three talks as a part of the Distinguished Speaker Series of Southern California and hired a commercial “certified process server” to deliver the court documents to Barak.

 We all need to thank Phil Shenon for bringing attention to the CIA’s latest position in their continuing stonewalling of the truth in regard to the JFK assassination. The new limited hang-out that Shenon helps test float in his October 6, 2015, Politico piece, “Yes, the CIA Director was Part of the JFK Assassination Cover-Up,” is acknowledgment that DCI John McCone participated in a “benign-coverup” by withholding crucially important information from the Warren Commission. Once again, we can benefit from what is normally gleaned from a limited hangout: 1) it will fill in some blanks; 2) point the way to further avenues of investigation; 3) illustrate the continued lying while admitting to past lying; 4) illuminate the real issues by its misdirection; and 5) ultimately contribute to the long unravelling leading to the eventual revelation of truth. In this case, Shenon’s latest spin on the CIA’s new limited hangout does all this and more. I say “his spin” deliberately because Mr. Shenon’s latest article in Politico1 doesn’t even accurately represent his cited CIA source.

Just who in the heck is Rick Kirk?
  If Issue 3 indeed becomes law, and you reside in Franklin County and a marijuana user, Kirk is going to be growing your legal green, selling you your legal green, and taking your monetary green.
  Kirk is one of the 20 primary investors aligned with ResponsibleOhio, the “AstroTurf” effort behind Issue 3. The Columbus-based strategy group has said it will spend at least $20 million to get the investor-backed constitutional amendment passed.
  After getting injured while trying to make the Dallas Cowboys, Kirk embarked on a career in construction and eventually founded Hallmark Campus Communities, now headquartered in the Empire Building at 150 E. Broad Street. He’s the company’s CEO and also ResponsibleOhio’s lead investor for the Franklin County potentially massive indoor grow site planned for Grove City on Seeds Road (of all places), and just off I-71.

Only a non-patriot or someone with a bit of respect for the Bill of Rights would have opposed the Patriot Act.

Only a child-hater or someone with a bit of respect for public education would have opposed the No Child Left Behind Act.

And only a genocide-supporter or someone who's fed up with endless aggressive foreign wars would oppose the forthcoming Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act from Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD).

Names can be deceiving, even when supporters of bills and of those bills' names have the best of intentions. Who wouldn't like to prevent genocide and atrocities, after all? I'm of the opinion that I support many measures that would help to do just that.

I thought Deepa Iyer's new book, We Too Sing America: South Asian, Arab, Muslim, and Sikh Immigrants Shape Our Multiracial Future, would be about positive and jarring cultural contributions from immigrants, how their literature, music, myths, cooking, clothing, and cultural practices are merging with and influencing wider U.S. culture. I think that would be a good book. Maybe someone's written it.

This, too, is a good book, and I recommend it. But it is mostly about the all-too-familiar story of post-911 prejudice, racism, violence, and police profiling and abuse, with a particular focus on South Asians. As an opponent of murder in any form, my first response to this topic is usually: Take the guns away! Hatred doesn't kill people -- hatred in people with guns kills people! But of course I'd love to take the hatred away as well and get the gun deaths down to accidents, suicides, and non-hate crimes.

I admit some uncertainty as to how we can identify a gun murder as free of hate. Here's how Iyer describes hate crimes: