A "Terrorist" gets a fair trial

Dear friends,

The link below is to a piece that was written by a very dear friend of mine who is a longtime and well-traveled journalist out of Philadelphia. His name is Elmer Smith. He writes for and serves on the editorial board of the Philadelphia Daily News. Actually, aside from having a personal relationship with a number of writers from that newspaper, I actually have a long history with the Philadelphia Daily News,

You see, back in the Fall of 1978, a couple of months after Joe Frazier brought me from New England (where I was a top amateur boxer) to Philly, in order to make me a pro fighter, I was in a tv commercial promoting/marketing the Philadelphia Daily News...

It was aired regularly in Philadelphia and the surrounding area television markets, for well over a year. The players in that commercial were myself, Joe, and Willie "the Worm" Monroe. Willie, in fact, a legendary middleweight, was the only fighter to ever really beat Marvin Hagler. Marvin himself was an occasional gym buddy of mine. That is, when the roof of our gym was leaking, or my stablemates and I just needed sparring, Goodie Petronelli, Marvin's lifelong trainer (coach), would let us come down to their gym in Brockton to work out. Our leaky-roof gym, by the way, was shown on television, over a period of several years, at the beginning of each episode of "Spenser for Hire" (which starred the late Robert Urich and our good brother Avery Brooks - who later drew even greater "fame" in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine tv series)...

The link below, once again, shows Elm Smith's combined wit and wisdom, that, in my biased opinion, reveal him to be the best male journalist in America (and I am including Paul Krugman of the New York Times in my pool of great ones). In any case, the piece here is about the recent prosecution of Osama bin Laden's former driver. It raises questions about what many Americans may believe, regarding equality, dignity, and justice. And at least to me, it also makes me wonder exactly where the "War on terror" presently is, much less where it is going.

Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20080808_Elmer_Smith__Lovers_of_our_Constitution_can_t_feel_good_about_this_trial.html?adString=pdn.news/local;!category=local;&randomOrd=080808021908