Amy Goodman, the best selling advocate of a free press and an independent media,
will speak in Birmingham Saturday, September 17, at 7 p.m. in the Hill University Center Alumni Auditorium.

The distinguished journalist is co-author of the best selling book, The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers and the Media That Love Them. She is a commentator on the documentary film, “Independent Media in a Time of War” and host of the daily radio and television program, “Democracy Now.”

The auditorium is located at 14th Street South and University Blvd. There will be a reception at Bare Hands Gallery, 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., at 109 Richard Arrington, Jr. Blvd. South, and a book signing at Hill Center following program.

The event is presented by the Birmingham Peace Project and the program is free and open to the public. Donations will be accepted to assist with presentation costs and to benefit Democracy Now!

For more information on Amy Goodman, visit DemocracyNow.org.

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has issued an Action Alert against New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman for his July 22 column: “Giving the Hatemongers No Place to Hide.”

Friedman says the federal government, in the form of the State Department, should “produce a quarterly War of Ideas Report,” to “focus on those religious leaders and writers who are inciting violence against others.” He also wants the government to include “excuse makers,” which, according to FAIR, includes “a majority of Americans, according to recent polls.”

I must say I used to love reading The New York Times and admit that I have reported and written for that once great newspaper. Perhaps this entire episode can be chalked up to post-9/11/Jayson Blair stress syndrome, but I stopped reading Mr. Friedman’s columns a couple of years ago when he flip-flopped on the war in Iraq. You see he was for it and against it, sort of like Sen. John Kerry on the funding for the war, about the time I was trying to tell the national desk that something was fishy in Bush’s D.C.

The Times plans to start charging for editorial columns in September, so Mr. Friedman’s audience will no doubt shrink considerably at that time. Somehow I doubt the FAIR action alert will do any good anyway, since all the activist’s e-mails will just go unread by the management at the paper. And besides, the State Department will ignore Friedman. Why shouldn’t we?

I’m sure there were newspaper columnists all over the land who stood with McCarthy and his blacklist during the Red Scare in the 1950s. Luckily, they are long forgotten.