Robert laurence binyon biography of barack obama

By Al Hemingway

In the early morning hours of May 2, 2011, Stealth Hawk helicopters maneuvered their way through the inky blackness toward their target, a walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, to capture or kill the person who masterminded the September 11 attacks against the United States, Osama bin Laden, code-named Geronimo. The operation, called Neptune’s Spear, was a combined effort of the entire intelligence community and carried out by a group of America’s best warriors, SEAL Team Six.

In his new book, Seal Target Geronimo: The Inside Mission to Kill Osama bin Laden (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2011, 228 pp., photographs, glossary, $25.99, hardcover), former SEAL Team Six member Chuck Pfarrer has written

a factual account of the operation that will keep readers on the edge of their seats. Not only does he give a blow-by-blow description of how it was planned, but he also gives important background information on bin Laden himself, how he became involved in terrorist activities, how he created the Sunni Islamic terrorist organization Al Qaeda, and the in-fighting between the group’s hierarchy.

Although not a religious zealot in his early life, bin Laden hated Israel and the United States for supplying them with weapons and supplies. His hatred reached a zenith during the crises in Lebanon in the early 1980s. Ironically, it was in Afghanistan where bin Laden saw his first combat, in a manner of speaking. His leadership and military skills were sorely lacking but that did not matter—it was his family’s money that people were after. Bin Laden was the son of a Saudi Arabian multimillionaire who had made his cash in the construction business.

Pfarrer uncovers the petty jealousies and in-fighting within the Al Qaeda leadership. Much of the unrest came from Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian physician who eventually rose to be the number-two man in the group. His outright lies and treachery caused the deaths of many in the group’s inne

Memories from Staff and Performers

BILL KLING, PRESIDENT EMERITUS OF MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO AND AMERICAN PUBLIC MEDIA

The beginnings of a “live” Keillor show occurred at 6:30 a.m. one weekday in the early 1970s, broadcast on classical music station KSJN. I remember waking up to somebody singing “Old Shep,” followed by the ear-piercing sound of a “glass harmonica” (someone rubbing wine glasses). Bad morning.

Garrison and I had talked about a time slot when the show might work (6:30 a.m. wasn’t the answer). We settled on Saturdays at 5 p.m., allowing a live audience, already out and about, to come and see it. It was also a time of the week when public radio had a very small listenership so there wouldn’t be an uproar if classical music was interrupted. And we further limited the damage by broadcasting only once a week.

I recall early regular broadcasts of what became A Prairie Home Companion, when the show performed in an abandoned (at least I think it was) skyway between the Mears Park building in Saint Paul and the building next door. That space accommodated about 50 people. And thanks in no small part to producer Margaret Moos’s vision of the possibilities, the show kept going. Amazing.

After a nomadic tour of available, rentable auditoriums, the show made a deal with the Dworsky family to rent the World Theater, a movie house that had long been closed. Volunteers drained water out of the basement and scraped the gum off the seats. The rent was paid by the sale of popcorn and a sub-rental to a group that wanted to show Asian-language films on weeknights.

Once the show had matured and was airing locally every week, I got a call from my friend Don Forsling — who ran WOI radio, a powerhouse FM station in Ames, Iowa — asking if they could get tapes of the show and broadcast them in Iowa. We agreed and mailed them a tape each week. That was the beginning of Prairie Home’s “network.” By 1980, I had managed the plan to conne

August 17, 2015, by Emma Lowry

In Memoriam: Legendary Civil Rights Activist Julian Bond

Julian Bond, advisory board member of the Centre for Research in Race and Rights at the University of Nottingham, had been in contact a lot over the last week as we finalised the details of his next visit to the UK with his wife Pamela Horowitz. He died on Saturday night suddenly and after a short illness. He was 75.

Julian Bond would have been at the celebratory centre of my British Academy-sponsored conference on Civil Rights Documentary Cinema and the 1960s: Transatlantic Conversations on History, Race and Rights. Julian Bond embodied the conference theme, as a co-founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and SNCC’s Communications Director from 1961-66. During his long and stellar career he was consulted on and he acted as narrator for a number of civil rights films, notably Eyes on the Prize; the documentary series which forged a new understanding of the civil rights movement for scholars and public alike in the 1980s.

Instead, the conference will take place in his honour and in his memory.

Activist, Politician, Lawyer, Writer, Poet and Educator, Julian Bond’s social activism and his long-standing service includes as Chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the oldest civil rights organisation in America from 1998 to 2010. He had been elected to the Georgia House of Representatives after the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and was re-elected to the Georgia Senate for some 20 years.

Bond was the first President of the Southern Poverty Law Centre founded by Morris Dees in 1971 and  the Centre’s tribute sums up what Julian Bond has been to so many: “We’ve lost a champion… With Julian’s passing, the country has lost one of its most passionate and eloquent voices for the cause of justice. He advocated not just for African Americans, but for every group, indeed every person sub