In the last years of his life, Renoir had arthritis so bad that a brush had to be strapped to his hand so that he could paint. When asked why he continued to work in such conditions he replied, "The pain passes, but the beauty remains."

The small, but ethnically diverse, town of Deerfield, Illinois, has recently been propelled into the the spotlight by news that seniors of the local high school are being required to read an award-winning play by a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright

Two recent cases have once again focused the spotlight on two very different but closely related controversies: the one having to do with the place of religion in public buildings and the other with the role of art in those very same buildings.

After yet another humiliating defeat, the once mighty Israeli forces have retreated from Gaza under a whithering bombardment of international condemnation, their mission ending once again in failure.

George W. Bush has become synonymous with intelligence failures. He was wrong about WMD and Al Queata in Iraq and a host of other vital topics but nothing sums up his failure of intelligence quite so well as his taste in art.

Although "group punishment" is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions, the Israelis have cut off supplies of chlorine to Gaza which are desperately needed to help purify the water supply of the 1.5 million residents.

Still smarting from their ignominious retreat on the Lucas Cranach poster, the guardians of public morals at the London Transit Authority have banned yet another poster for being "offensive." This time it's an ad for a new play called "Fat Jesus."

Officials at the London Transport Authority have beat an ignominious retreat in the face of world wide ridicule and agreed to put up posters depicting a 16th century nude painting intended to advertise an art show at the Royal Academy

So far of the 775 prisoners held without rights in Guantanamo the US Government has admitted that the 420 of them were innocent people wrongfully detained. How do we know that they were innocent? Because they were released without charge!

The New York Times has just released a story suggesting a romantic link between Republican Presidential hopeful John McCain and lobbyist Vicki Iseman back during the Senator's first run for the White House in 2000.

The recall last Sunday of 143 million pounds of tainted beef has once again turned a spotlight on the topic of why we have Federal regulations on food safety and what happens when anti-government ideologues have charge of the government.

The largest statue of Jesus in the world, which stands atop the 2,296 foot tall Corocovado mountain overlooking Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, was struck by lightening last Sunday. .

Several years after a Federally funded study found that conservatism was a mental disorder a Right Wing psychiatrist has released a book, timed for the election cycle, claiming the same things about Liberals. Are we to believe that this is a coincidence?

Officials at the London Transport Authority, which runs the subway system, have refused to display a poster depicting a 16th century nude painting intended to advertise an art show at the Royal Academy because they said it was too overtly sexual.

Since its opening, the Guantanamo concentration camp has been a shame and humiliation to the US, sparking widespread hatred of America and prompting many countries that were once our allies to refuse cooperate in the "war on terror."

Tennessee State Senator Doug Henry waxed nostalgic over good old- fashioned rape during a recent debate over attempts to amend the state constitution to say that it does not guarantee the right to abortion or require funding for abortion.

An ever rising number of senior Republican Congress-persons are deciding not to run again next November. Growing public hostility towards Republican "values" coupled with a decline in campaign contributions has prompted many to get out while they can.

The report of a special team of investigators, appointed by the Israeli government, to look into that country's 2006 war in Lebanon has concluded that that conflict was a "large and serious failure" for the country's once famous armed forces.

The Tasmanian Devil, the small furry creature from Australia, not the cartoon character, is in danger of being driven to extinction by a transmissible form of cancer that appears to be spread by facial tumors.

Last night marked the first of the lasts for the waning presidency of George Bush--his last State of the Union speech. The announcer called "The President of the United States" as Bush started for the podium. He might as well have said "Dead man walking."