A Clutter of News

J. Michael Sharman

Spring cleaning time is here, which is a good reason to move out the clutter of news articles that have piled up without ever sprouting a full column for themselves.

April 2007 is the 400^th birthday of the jury trial in America. The colonists’ boats had barely left England on their voyage to Jamestown when John Smith was arrested for conspiracy to mutiny. The Virginia Company’s orders were opened when they reached shore and it was found that John Smith had been named as a member of the ruling council of the colony, and therefore he was supposed to take charge. He promptly sued Edward Wingfield for libel and won 200 pounds in damages from the jury of his Jamestown peers. 1

Hugo Chavez was in a re-election contest for the Venezuelan presidency last fall. Just to be sure that Chavez freely and fairly got most of the votes, Rafael Ramirez, the president of the state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela (which also owns CITGO) told his company’s workers that Chavez was the “maximum leader of the revolution” and if any employee “doesn’t feel comfortable with this orientation [he] will have to cede his place” for someone who does support Chavez. 2 

Chavez won the election, and one week before being sworn in  for a third term which ends in 2013, he gave a speech announcing he was creating a “socialist republic of Venezuela… and nothing and no one can prevent it.” He also announced he was nationalizing the nation’s electric and telephone utilities, and would be asking the National Assembly to grant him greater powers to bypass them and legislate by executive orders. Chavez also said he would not renew the broadcasting license of the 50 year-old private television station which was basically the nation’s only opposition voice. 3

Down Mexico way, the state of Michoacan is having some serious gang problems. Gunmen dropped into a nightclub just long enough to throw five severed heads onto the dance floor. Another pair of heads were planted in front of a car dealership. Nineteen police chiefs  and commanders have been executed. The response has been predictable: In just one town, 18 of 32 police officers quit when faced with the choice of corruption or execution. 4

Good news. The Chevrolet Montana sport pickup truck is a great-looking compact work vehicle powered by a 1.8-liter, four cylinder Flex-powered engine, allowing it to run on an 80% gasoline/20% ethanol mixture, ethanol only or gasoline only – whichever is available and cheapest. It averages 35 mpg on the highway. Bad news. It’s sold in Brazil, and not in the U.S. 5

And the price of gas is increasing faster than other goods. From 1997 to 2007, the cost of a gallon of milk produced by farmers has increased 22%; a movie ticket produced by Hollywood has increased 43%; and a gallon of gas produced by OPEC has increased 88%. 6

Even OPEC wants to diversify its energy sources. Six of the Arab OPEC members in the Persian Gulf region announced they are thinking about forming a joint nuclear program – for peaceful purposes only, of course. 7

In other nuclear program news, the FBI and the secret service of former Soviet Georgia arrested 50 year-old Oleg Khinsagov, a fish and sausage dealer, with 100 grams of highly-enriched weapons grade uranium wrapped in a plastic bag in his jacket pocket. An undercover Georgian agent posing as a Muslim told Khinsagov he was working for a “serious organization” and Khinsagov was selling him the uranium for US$1 million as a “sample” of the larger uranium supply which he claimed to have. The amount of uranium seized from Khinsagov was exactly twice the amount used to annihilate Hiroshima in 1945. 8

In domestic news, in an interview with Hillary Clinton, NBC’s Meredith Vieira asked her to comment on her reputation for being “strident, cold, scripted, phony.” Sen. Clinton’s reply was that, “I’m the most famous person you really don’t know." 9

The Washington Post blasted Insight magazine for following up on a tip and doing an article (called “scurrilous” by The Post) reporting that Obama’s full name is Barack Hussein Obama and that his elementary school years were spent in an Islamic public school in Indonesia. The tip came from Hillary Clinton’s camp. 10

Maybe Obama can celebrate the 400^th birthday of the jury trial in America by following John Smith’s example.

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By J. Michael Sharman Click here for bio and archived articles