On Palm Sunday when most pastors are in church preaching love, peace, and forgiveness, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are marching in the streets preaching hate, disobedience, and vengeance. Kind of makes you wonder what their Easter message will be.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi forces clashed with Shiite militiamen Tuesday in the southern oil port of Basra and gunmen patrolled several Baghdad neighborhoods as followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered a nationwide civil disobedience campaign to demand an end to the crackdown on their movement.

‘Black Friday’ is aptly named but not for the original reason, placing businesses in the black financially. It’s now more of a phenomenon which displays its dark side as opposed to an event of prosperity and the season for good will towards men. Black Friday has become nothing more than a dress rehearsal for persons likely to be involved in acts of civil disobedience and disorderly conduct, with rewards for some, heartbreak for others. An occasion for some to put up their dukes in order to purchase something they couldn’t afford in the first place. It’s an ongoing display of what we’ve become as a society and indication of the direction we’re headed in: a fool’s paradise.

PHOENIX (AP) — Four people have been arrested for blocking an intersection outside a federal courthouse in Phoenix as Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio testified inside in a civil trial.

Ever since human beings began to form themselves into communities, the relationship between government and religion has been, well, dicey. On one extreme there is theocracy; governments functioning under religious principles and laws. On the other extreme there is complete separation of church and state. Most of us live somewhere in between.

Ever since human beings began to form themselves into communities, the relationship between government and religion has been, well, dicey. On one extreme there is theocracy; governments functioning under religious principles and laws. On the other extreme there is complete separation of church and state. Most of us live somewhere in between.

Philip Gates, former Scottsdale Unified School District superintendent, was among 16 found guilty this week of trespassing on Nov. 19 at a Georgia military training center, where they say tactics are taught to foreign soldiers to suppress and torture people in mostly Latin American nations.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A United Nations official said Wednesday that Iraq's recent parliamentary elections, which have given a strong lead to the Shiite religious bloc dominating the current government, were credible and that there was no justification in calls for a rerun.

Hundreds of people demonstrated against Arizona's new immigration law on Thursday despite a federal judge's last-minute decision to block the most controversial parts of the measure, and about 50 people were arrested.

The Supreme Court says that it is corruption in American politics that gives it the right to take away rights — to tell people what they can and cannot say on TV as an election draws close, for instance.

February 4, 2005

License, registration . . . and civil rights violation? Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Thursday ordered deputies to ask traffic violators in the south West Valley to voluntarily offer fingerprints.

Martin Luther King Jr. never held public office, though he considered running for president briefly in 1967. Yet he may have been responsible for more profound change in institutions and attitudes in the United States than any American of the 20th century.

May 14, 2004

After seven years of living together, Sharla Egan and Denise Murphy intend to marry Saturday in a ceremony at Calamus Resort in Phoenix.

As the Trayvon Martin tragedy has unfolded over the last month, one thing has become clear: We are still in the infant stages of dealing with race. And pop culture adds a trivialization to his horrible death.

“The wanton annihilation of Afghani civilians by American personnel is one more reason for us to get our act out of Afghanistan and the entire Middle East, and stop trying to be the self-appointed policemen of the world.”

Last week's story of the "Panel of Firsts" at Desert Vista High School reminded me of one of my own firsts. In the late 1970s I moved to Chicago's south side to attend seminary. For the first time, I was part of a racial minority in a neighborhood that still carried the scars of racial violence that had happened a decade earlier.

Last week's story of the "Panel of Firsts" at Desert Vista High School reminded me of one of my own firsts. In the late 1970s I moved to Chicago's south side to attend seminary. For the first time, I was part of a racial minority in a neighborhood that still carried the scars of racial violence that had happened a decade earlier.

Legal filings are often dry, lifeless retellings of crimes or court cases. But a document filed Wednesday in Maricopa County by the Phoenix New Times newspaper tells a story that could be pulled from the pages of a pulp legal thriller.