We keep hearing that Iraq is not Vietnam. And surely any competent geographer would agree. But the United States is the United States -- still a country run by leaders who brandish, celebrate and use the massive violent capabilities of the Pentagon as a matter of course.

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     Almost fifty years ago, during the same autumn JFK won the presidency, John Hersey came out with “The Child Buyer,” a novel written in the form of a hearing before a state senate committee. “Excuse me, Mrs., but I wonder if you know what’s at stake in this situation,” a senator says to the mother of a ten-year-old genius being sought for purchase by the United Lymphomilloid corporation. “You realize the national defense is involved here.”

     “This is my boy,” the mom replies. “This is my beautiful boy they want to take away from me.”

Earlier today I spoke with a Chief on the East Coast that he heard through the "Indian Grapevine" that Vernon Bellecourt had passed. I called a friend to see if he had heard and he hadn't. I didn't post anything since it was unconfirmed, and out of respect for the family, they should be the ones who made the announcement.

In that time I reflected on the men and women of the American Indian Movement who in their Youth began the struggle for Native rights in Minneapolis. Then South Dakota, Oklahoma, Colorado, Oklahoma and so on. It was a prairie fire that frightened the government. It was also the fire that captured the imagination and spirit of young boys such as myself. I was 12 years and just been placed in a children's home and the house parent asked me what I thought about what the Indians were doing on TV. It was the scene of the BIA takeover. I had not a clue as to what it meant. Unfortunately, I hadn't heard the name of Lehman Brightman or the occupation of Alcatraz.

It isn't often that a Senator changes how I see the physical world, but Larry Craig did. Connecting through the Minneapolis airport for the first time since his arrest, I had to use the facilities, and wondered, "Is this the one?" They should put up a plaque. Or name it the Larry Craig Memorial Men's Room. After sitting down, I became hyper-aware of my surroundings, now that I knew the secret foot-tapping codes. Not wanting to inadvertently create an incident, I kept looking at the sides of the stalls and worrying that if I sat slightly too widely, the vice cops would come charging in.

Then I realized that I'd have to sit painfully widely to reach someone else's stall. And without gorilla arms, it would take a contortionist to reach beneath the divider accidentally. With my newfound awareness I've noticed the same in other restrooms as well. In fact, in three decades of flying and using airport men's rooms, no one has ever reached under my stall. Reassured, I'm now able to do my business as usual and head off for my flights.

As the Free Press goes to press, the Antioch College Alumni Association has raised $12 million in donations and pledges in an effort to keep the socially-conscious college from closing next year.

Mysteries still surround Antioch's rapid and poorly explained closing. The Board has bizarrely turned to the "marketing, branding and public relations firm" of Simpson Scarborough to peddle the closing decision.

SimpsonScarborough CEO Christopher Simpson previously worked as an editor and writer for the notoriously right-wing Washington Times – a newspaper owned by Rev. Sun Myung Moon. The dark side of Moon, a self-proclaimed Messiah, is well-documented in the public record. A 1977 congressional report placed Moon on the payroll of the Korean CIA. Moon also has financial ties to former CIA Director George H.W. Bush.

Simpson also previously served as press secretary for the infamously racist U.S. senator, Strom Thurmond. How did the planned demise of America's most socially liberal and activist college end up in the hands of a marketer with such strong right-wing credentials? Revolution Online first raised this question in a July 31, 2007 posting.

When the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite on Oct. 4, 1957, American horizons darkened with self-reproach and fear. Sputnik was a shock to the system. "The fact that we have lost the race to launch the satellite means that we are losing the race to produce ballistic missiles," the influential columnist Walter Lippmann wrote. At a diplomatic party, when an official in the Eisenhower administration commented that Sputnik would be forgotten in six months, Washington's famed hostess-with-the-mostest Perle Mesta shot back: "And in six months, we may all be dead."

Yet we all know the fabled story line: A resilient America rose to the challenge and bested the Soviets in space. A dozen years after its propaganda perigee, the United States landed a man on the moon. And the nation's zeal for cutting-edge technology continues to shape the American experience.

But the triumphant story line bypasses a shadowy continuum of the last five decades.