Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Post Standard's News Quiz---Speaks Volumes

To: John O Brien
Subject: Your paper reached a new low today.

Your paper reached a new low in the quiz today, perhaps you could send thisto who is responsible.

It's obvious, from the coverage of Dr. Dhafir's trial, that Post-Standard employees need urgently to read this book: "The War Against CivilLiberties: How Bush and Ashcroft Have Dismanted the Bill of Rights", by Elaine Cassel's. Pub: Lawrence Hill 2004. The book is dedicated: 'To the lawyers who fight on the front lines in the war against civil liberties andthe judges who have the courage to defend the Constitution.

'Cassel, a practicing attorney and a professor of law and psychology,describes exactly what has happened to the justice system since the war onterror and the Patriot Act-a very scary book. Made even more scary byknowing how your newspaper has been a willing accomplice in peddling the governments accusations, without any consideration to evidence or truth.

In the book there is a short piece on Help The Needy and the people who have been charged in relation to the case. Now that the author realizes Dr.Dhafir is the person who founded Help the Needy in Syracuse, she will updateher civil liberties watch website with information from the trial.

What your paper has done to Dr. Dhafir during this trial is unconscionable.You should be trying to make amends instead of taking your insensitivity tonew lows. Please put my website address: www.dhafirtrial.net on the frontpage of your paper each day this week. It is the least you can do.

Katherine Hughes.

Katherine was responding to Saturday's quiz in the editorial page and question number 6. Every Saturday the paper prints a news quiz about events of the past week to test the readership's retention:

6. Rarely heard phrases: Match the quotation with the speaker:
a) "It's good to get back the wampum."
b) "The students are bereft."
c) "He is a crafty and calculating person."
d) "I want to dance, but I can't. I shy."
1) Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz, the Hamilton College professor who invited Ward Churchill to speak.
2) Kafi Ahmed of Syracuse, after casting her vote in Detroit for the Iraqi election.
3) Tadadaho Sid Hill, spiritual leader at the Onondaga Nation.
4) U.S. Attorney Michael Olmstead, prosecuting in summation of the government's fraud and tax-evasion case against Rafil Dhafir.
Answers: 1) b. 2) c and d. 3) a. 4) b. 5) All of them. 6) a-3, b-1, c-4, d-2. 7) Photo caption: False