Amy Goodman faces charges for covering the private thugs' attack on pipeline protesters.

More information about that attack.

Many US teenagers are coerced into prostitution by their need for food. In poor communities, there is no other work for them. Those not sexually attractive enough to succeed that way have to resort to even more desperate measures, such as stealing food or salable items, or selling drugs.

Stealing food should not be a crime when you need it to live. Italy's court made a wise decision on that. But we are wrong to put people in a position where they need to do this just to live.

It is clear who is to blame for this state of affairs: the plutocrats that are taking an ever-larger share of our wealth and squeezing everyone else.

Lionel Shriver tears the opposition to "cultural appropriation" to shreds. If presenting the viewpoint of someone different from you were rejected, storytelling would be impossible. But even the opposition that some now demand would impoverish culture for everyone.

Here's a real example: Sikhs in the UK tried to stop a Sikh-style wedding between a Sikh and a non-Sikh. They made the claim that the Sikh religious ceremony is the property of Sikhs, so no one else has the right to hold such a ceremony. This possessiveness violates the religious freedom of others. No matter what your religious practices may be, you have no right to stop others from following similar practices.

This applies to other cultural practices, too. Before my foot injury, I enjoyed doing Croatian dances and Serbian dances, although my enjoyment of them was shadowed in the 90s when those two countries were at war. I am proud to cook Italian dishes and Chinese dishes, even though I probably don't do them quite like a good Italian or Chinese cook. I read that Iraqis in the 1960s used to cook the Persian dish fesenjan, knowing full well that it was Persian. Bravo for them — fesenjan is delicious. They are entitled to do this, and so am I, and so are you. Culture is for imitating, and obstacles to such imitation are an injustice.

There are fatuous ways to imitate. When a Mexican restaurant hands out sombreros and customers wear them, the customers are being childish, and I could criticize the restaurant for is leading them to be childish. Do they enjoy that food, or are they only using it as an excuse for a fantasy? And why should they need an excuse? If you want to fantasize about being in Mexico, go ahead, but do you really need a sombrero, or a restaurant?

It is possible to imitate a cultural practice in an embarrassingly ignorant way, or even an insulting way. But there are lots of ways to be embarrassingly ignorant, or to insult someone. That is no reason to condemn imitation.

Jim Wright forcefully condemned the pressure put on Americans to endorse all the bellicose or dangerous "responses" to the September 11 attacks. Facebook censored it, apparently for political reasons.

This shows the danger of depending on facebook.

The Trump Foundation raises money from others, not from Trump, but he lets people think that the money it hands out is from him.