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Phillip is a gentleman. He folds up his limbs with poise and wears wool pants with an impeccable crease. He's prone to diatribes against misogyny. He's a "voracious reader," and has a sixth sense for "figuring people out." He has a gentle, not entirely trusting way of regarding a person. He can talk a mile, but also listens; not simply to your words, but the words between them. He radiates a wavelength that's easy to tune into.

He's 47 years old, and he's spent 21 of those years in prison.

'''

The US prison population grew eight-fold since 1970; more than 2.3 million people are incarcerated nationally. The rising numbers aren't proportional to population growth; the Pew Institute recently reported that for the first time in history, more than one in every 100 Americans is incarcerated. Don't like those odds? One in 30 men aged 20 to 34 is locked up, and that jumps to one in nine for black men. People of color make up 70 percent of the prison population, the reverse of the US race ratio outside prison walls.

The Massachusetts prison population grew by 3 percent since 2006, and overcrowding is pandemic. Two years ago, Massachusetts Department of Corrections (DOC) facilities were at 134 percent capacity. Now they've reached 143 percent. But that's merely a median ... MCI Framingham, the state's largest women's prison, is at 323 percent capacity. Only two of Massachusetts' 22 facilities are not spilling over capacity.

"Overcrowding means the facility population is greater than the design capacity," says DOC spokeswoman Diane Wiffin. "We turn single cells into doubles, provide more beds in a dormitory."

Hakim Cunningham was recently incarcerated in Massachusetts. "They were putting two or three people to a cell together," he says. "In Concord CI, they have people sleeping on the gym and rec areas in cots."

Such solutions are dangerous, says Joel Pentlarge, acting executive director of the Criminal Justice Policy Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates reforming the state's justice system. "Those cells are very small—typically under 80 square-feet. They're designed to hold only one prisoner," he says. "Those conditions escalate prisoner-on-prisoner violence."

Why is the prison population climbing, and why are people of color disproportionately incarcerated?

The relationship with Massachusetts' crime rate is tenuous; the prison population has climbed steeply since the late 1970s, but crime has wavered up and down, with peaks in the mid '70s and early '80s, and a steady decline since 1990.

Thomas Nolan, a professor of criminal justice at Boston University and retired Boston Police officer, says the rise in imprisonment corresponds with the war on drugs. "What we're seeing nationally, as well as in Massachusetts, is an incremental, long-term trend to incarcerate people, particularly for drugs," he says.

Nolan joined the Boston Police Department (BPD) in 1978, and saw the shift in national priorities play out locally. "In the mid '80s, police departments in urban areas devoted more time and attention to drug enforcement than ever before. Historically, a department goes where the federal funding goes. In the 80s it was the war on drugs, in the '90s it was community policing," he says. "In the 70s we had a small, centralized city drug department of half a dozen officers. Now, every district has its own drug unit. Roxbury even has two of them, a day shift and a night shift. And there's still a city-wide unit. So you've got 100 officers whose sole purpose is enforcement in the war on drugs."

'''

Phillip, who asked that his real name not be used, has been shooting heroin since he was 16. He grew up in Cambridge public housing. Both his parents were junkies; his mother died of AIDS in 1997, his 65-year-old father is still in a methadone clinic. His father's face is scarred from "an incident when he fell asleep on a radiator because he was so high."

"There were a couple of times when my father would come into school inebriated and tell the teacher, 'Phillip has to go, he has a doctor's appointment,'" he says. "We'd walk out, and I'd say, 'Do I really have a doctor's appointment, Daddy?' and he'd say, 'No, I just thought you'd like to get out of there.' And I'd say, 'School's what I look forward to. It's the best part of my day.'"

'''

While the percentage of people of color in Massachusetts prisons doesn't reach the national figures, they're still overrepresented. Hispanics make up 21 percent of prisoners in a state where they comprise 7.9 percent of the population. Nationally, Latinos make up 20.5 percent of prisoners, and 14.8 percent of the general population.

"It's not that these people are more likely to commit an offense," says Nolan. "They're just more likely to get caught and subsequently incarcerated."

National figures from 2000 indicate whites make up 72 percent of all drug users, yet blacks are five times as likely to get arrested on drug charges.

Their neighborhoods are policed more, according to Nolan. "Law enforcement is concentrating its efforts in communities of color," he says. "Historically, that's where law enforcement has devoted its resources. Law enforcement is going to tell you they go where the crime is, and it would be fruitless to focus elsewhere."

The BPD failed to respond to questions about their policies.

Katrina Christensen, a coordinator with the Cambridge Needle Exchange, says economic prejudices exist as well. "There's a stigma on a person sleeping on the street," she says. "There are many professionals out there who use, and people say, 'Oh, that's OK. They're doing well.' Well, what does that mean? That someone who's struggling to get by is useless?"

Pentlarge says the mentally ill are also more susceptible to getting mixed up in the criminal justice system. "When we closed down mental institutions in the '80s, prisons became the place of last resort for the seriously mentally ill," he says. With 15 suicides in the last three years, Massachusetts has the highest prisoner suicide rate in the country. Last year, the DOC hired suicide prevention specialist Lindsay Hayes to do an independent review of the phenomenon. Diane Wiffin says the DOC has implemented most of Hayes' recommendations.

Pentlarge insists prisons aren't designed to deal with mental illness. "A person might be seriously delusional," he says. "The prison's first response is to put them in solitary, which is where the majority of our prisoner suicides occurred."

'''

Phillip started using because everyone around him was. But he couldn't afford it. "A lot of drug addicts resort to stealing to support their habit," he says. "The effect of the heroin will wear off, and it's a serious drag. When heroin addicts withdraw, they become ill."

In 1979, Phillip was convicted of armed robbery. He walked into a store, and the clerk welcomed him perkily. "I thought, 'I can't believe I'm about to do this. This isn't me.' I pulled out the gun, and she freaked," he says, dragging his fingers down his cheek. "It's hard for me to live with the fact that I traumatized this woman. I wasn't going to hurt her, but she didn't know that." He squats on the floor, placing his hand by his face. "She was just like this. It stays with me."

He went to prison when he was 17, and grew up inside those walls.

'''

In 1994, the Gun-Free Schools Act mandated that states adopt legislation requiring the one-year expulsion of students who brought drugs or weapons to school. Massachusetts' statute allows for permanent expulsion and doesn't require any alternative education for expelled students.

Amy Reichbach, an advocate with the Massachusetts ACLU, says such measures are used mostly at schools with few alternatives. "Schools are under-resourced, and may not be able to offer counseling and the extra costs of different educational needs," she says.

Since the busing riots in the 1970s, Boston public schools have Boston School Police in their halls. Today, they employ 84 such officers, who don't carry weapons but have full arrest powers on school property.

Reichbach says transgressions the school traditionally dealt with are now met with harsher penalties or given to law enforcement. "There's a perception out there that this just affects kids bringing weapons," she says. "But they can get expelled for other misbehavior, like disorderly conduct. They can get arrested for disturbing a school assembly." Any student facing criminal charges (including offenses that occurred off school grounds) can also be suspended.

Tami Wilson studies this "school-to-prison pipeline" at Harvard's Charles Hamilton Institute. "This is happening more often than we think, though it varies by school district," Wilson says. "Five urban school districts in Massachusetts with a large population of children of color, immigrants and children eligible to receive free lunch were responsible for 103, or over half, of all school exclusions." Students of color make up approximately 20 percent of the state's student population, but represent over 55 percent of school exclusions. The state's dropout rate has also risen, reaching 3.8 percent.

In Massachusetts, 70.4 percent of prisoners never completed high school.

Aaron Tanaka, of the Boston Workers' Alliance (BWA), a nonprofit for underemployed workers, sees crime as a product of poverty. "About 12,000 Boston youth aren't in school," he says. "They don't have options in the mainstream economy, so they get involved in illicit activity, like drug trade or sex work."

'''

Phillip's done several stints since his initial sentence; mostly petty thefts and drug charges. "You always come out worse than you came in," he says. "You come out with so much anger, your self-esteem plummets because you're used to being treated like you're worthless, like you have no value. People talk like I'm an evil, vile human being."

Now he's homeless. He can't get public housing or a job with his record. "Idle time for a drug addict is very dangerous," he says. "You can imagine."

'''

Pentlarge says the state must find alternatives to incarceration. "Part of the reason we've so overcrowded is we're treating a disease as a crime," he says. "If we treated it like alcoholism, we'd ultimately save some money."

Nolan thinks there's been a shift in societal conception. "People lose their sense of relativity. We panic when we see the number of homicides reach 60, but forget that in the '80s, it hit triple digits," he says. "We have a harsh and punitive attitude toward those who violate laws. I think we should be targeting addiction and everything that goes along with it. Prisons serve no purpose other than warehousing people and taking them off the streets for a period of time."

Approximately 97 percent of prisoners face eventual release. A 2006 report from Brandeis University estimates at least 39,700 people in the state are in critical need of drug treatment, but aren't receiving it. The Pew Center recently found that in the last 20 years, Massachusetts' spending on corrections grew 127 percent, compared to a 21 percent increase for public higher education. For every dollar spent on a state college, 98 cents is spent on prisons.

The governor's extensive bond bill plan for infrastructure repairs includes $2.5 billion for prison repairs and expansions. It's in committee right now, but results are due in June. Rep. Carl Sciortino Jr., D-Medford, backed a bill placing a moratorium on prison construction for the next five years, and creating a committee to investigate incarceration trends. The bill's essentially dead for the session.

Wilson says that her final report on Massachusetts' school-to-prison pipeline will offer alternatives to punitive measures. "We're looking into restorative justice and peer mediation programs," she says. "Say a student commits some type of offense. Instead of shipping them off, they'd have to own up to what they did. An apology is made, and students work together to find ways to rectify the situation. It's more of a healing process, it's inclusive and the offense itself is addressed."

Such approaches to criminal justice exist in many court systems worldwide, and are being explored in some US states. Colorado, Kansas, Arizona, Delaware, Florida and Tennessee have passed legislation allowing for out-of-court reparation programs, particularly for juvenile offenders. No such legislation exists in Massachusetts.

For now, Wilson is focusing on the statistical landscape of the problem. "But as we look at data, it's important we make the connection that these are actual people with real potential," she says.

'''

Phillip is still using. Over the course of the interview at the Cambridge Needle Exchange, he verged from tangential diatribes, to holding his eyelids open with his fingers, to scratching his arms, looking around the corner.

He says he'd like to get clean and councel other junkies. But it's not so easy.

"It's a mess of a life," he says. "You're defeated without hope. But I have hope."

The Milky Way Lounge could close down as early as August, when its 15-year lease on the Jamaica Plain location is up. After that, the rent is scheduled to go up by 85 percent. Mayor Menino, apparently a fan of bowling, wrote to the Milky Way's landlord requesting a temporary negotiated lease for the "iconic symbol of Jamaica Plain." Hipster bowlers, get in as much time as you can. Even if the Mayor's letter campaign is victorious, it only staves off the inevitable for another year. MINUS 1

Underground fires were all the rage (har har) last week, with manholes ablaze in Harvard Square and in Dorchester on Friday. An NStar contractor in Dorchester was treated for minor burns, and no one in Harvard Square was hurt, in spite of the fact that Au Bon Pain (oui oui!), Cambridge Savings Bank and Harvard's Holyoke Center all caught on fire. MINUS 1

A phony bomb threat at Boston University's Mugar Memorial Library prompts a two-hour evacuation, and the arrest of the student who told a librarian she had a bomb. She was carrying a cardboard box that held a cuckoo clock, a framed picture and newspapers ... scary stuff. MINUS 1

Barbara Walters discloses her affair with US Senator Edward Brooke, D-Mass., which apparently lasted several years in the 1970s, while Brooke was still married and serving his second term and Walters was a rising star at NBC. Why should we care? Because Walters has a book to sell! And Brooke's response to the ancient scandal? "I have had a lifetime policy of not discussing my personal and private life ... with the notable exception of what I wrote in my recently published autobiography, Bridging the Divide: My Life." Classy. PLUS 2 book deals.

"Big Brown" wins the Kentucky Derby. He's unstoppable, apparently, so don't get in his way. PLUS 1

Albert Hoffman, the chemist who invented LSD and went on the world's first documented acid trip, dies at 102. Too bad he was Swiss; that would've been some Irish funeral. MINUS 1

Carmen DiNunzio, aka the "Cheese Man," the reputed second-in-command for the Boston branch of the New England mafia, faces federal charges for attempting to bribe an undercover FBI agent (posing as a state official) in 2006 to secure a $6 million contract, providing fill for the Big Dig. Kinda cool to know the city you live in is like the setting for some seedy detective novel, right? MINUS 1

Dedham's Museum of Bad Art is expanding to a second location; the basement of the Somerville Theater, next to the bathrooms (of course). PLUS 2

THIS WEEK'S TOTAL: EVEN

LAST WEEK'S TOTAL: MINUS 8

"I think he thought he was speaking in Italian ... Either that or he was making shadow puppets."

---Dot Joyce, spokeswoman for Mayor Tom Menino, on a photograph of her boss flashing gang signs (sort of) with Special Teamz at the 2005 Boston Hip Hop Festival. 5.1.08

"Howie hates the race because it reminds him that some people can run 26 miles faster than he can come up with an original idea for a column."

---Burn! Tai Irwin, formerly of WRKO, WFNX and WZLX, on Howie Carr's Boston Marathon column in the Herald. Irwin wrote this in his Herald blog, which disappeared on 4.30.08

Wielding crimson sickled Soviet flags and sporting red armbands, 100 demonstrators gathered around the Bandstand in Boston Common on Thursday to participate in the May Day Rally in support of immigrant workers' rights. In between frolicking beneath the pink, blossoming elm trees and romping around the springy green lawn, the activists took in some Bolivian folk music and several impassioned speeches outlining the travails of modern-day laborers.

May Day, or International Workers' Day, is observed worldwide in recognition of the labor movement. David Schaich, secretary of the Boston chapter of Socialist Party USA, said it's also considered a day of general protest. "May Day is the historical holiday of the left-wing social movements. Since Socialism has been an integral part of that, we had to come down," he explained as he manned the Socialist Party booth.

In the US, May Day has been linked with the fight for immigrant workers' rights. In 2006, for "A Day Without an Immigrant," more than a million people marched all over the US to showcase the importance of immigrants on the economy.

David Rohrlich, a mathematics professor at Boston University, attended to protest Massachusetts' treatment of migrant workers. "I support this specific rally opposing raids on immigrants. What happened in New Bedford was disgraceful," he said, referring to the March 2007 Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid of Michael Bianco, Inc. in New Bedford, where 361 undocumented workers were arrested. Most of the workers were women with young children, and the state was blamed for breaking up families.

William Leonard, a Socialist Workers Party member attempting to run for state senate, tried to rally support for his campaign. In Massachusetts, the Socialist Workers Party doesn't have official ballot status, so he needs to collect enough signatures to get himself on the ballot.

"I just want to say: Stop raids. Stop deportation. Legalization for all immigrants!" Leonard railed.

The event's real entertainment was provided by a second group of protestors who showed up to antagonize the May Day rally-goers by shouting anti-illegal immigration jeers, like, "We don't want to support your illegitimate babies," and wielding contentious and paradoxical signs reading, "Stop Illegal Immigration! Save the American Dream."

The May Day enthusiasts took the bait and a shouting match devolved into a sing-along duel. A scruffy rally attendee with a guitar began a confrontational round of "This Land is Your Land." The anti-illegal immigration protestors retaliated by bellowing the chorus of "Born in the USA."

Dennis Coull, a former teamster, was the opposition's head cheerleader. Clutching a megaphone and flanked by two-dozen burly followers (and one guy in an Uncle Sam outfit), he explained, "We're just protesting the illegal alien march around Boston. We're a bunch of patriots showing up today to debate."

"B" Sanders, a more belligerent immigration protestor who declined to give her first name, agreed. "I shouldn't have to do this," she said, donning a slogan-covered sandwich board. "We want the laws enforced. That's it."

Daniel Becker, 21, is a Tufts senior and co-founder of Students at Tufts Acting for Immigrant Rights (STAIR). "Unfortunately I think what they're mobilizing around is a scapegoat," he said of the anti-illegal immigration protestors.

Genevie Gold, 21, is a co-founder of STAIR. "I think it's important to make sure people know we haven't forgotten the issue of immigrant rights," she said. "At this time the movement is in a bit of a lull, but we need a viable solution."

Maria Christina Blanco, 30, a community health worker, brought her eight-year-old daughter to see the spectacle. They made their pro-immigration T-shirts the night before and were eating ice cream cones as they watched the show. "This is an election year, and immigration for a long time has been a scapegoat for all the problems in this country," she said. Her daughter's father is a migrant worker from Mexico. "Last year we started to see workplace raids. The federal government wants to expand this ... the whole country is going to be a militarized war zone. Is Massachusetts going to accept that?"

We're not even touching this one ...

Dearest Dig,

Your mid-March cover gave me pause, but I stopped myself from writing to you, because, well, I don't do that anymore. For three weeks with it pinned up by my bed, I eyed that horse's ass. I have to say it now:

Horse fetishists!

Do you know how many horse-butt-molestation incidents there are in this country each year? On average, 3.2—but several more, I'd guess, go unreported. That's a lot of horse butt touching. Too much! Sure, they have lustrous, silky tails and excessively bulbous haunches—and those tarted-up circus ponies are just asking for it, obviously—but you've made a venus hottentott of an entire species. It's the "every horse" who will suffer—roaming some stretch of land, grazing, oblivious to the nearby urbanites who, pumped up on horse-butt porn, go on an equine-objectification spree all over the countryside. My god. Doesn't that just make your heart race with sympathy? I hope you and I, Dig, understand each other better.

And what about moose? Now, they're fucking hot.

xo,

A FAN

VIA POSTCARDS

Eat your heart out, Steinbeck.

Dear Dig,

Gabriel Camacho was definitely the man to go to for your seasonal worker investigative report (feature, 4.30.08). Way to go. Could you find out whatever happened to Michael Bianco, the man who hired undocumented workers under US government contract and mistreated them?

This piece is especially relevant with May Day. Thank you.

I never got into Grapes of Wrath in high school (got a "D"), but was able to appreciate it as a masterpiece in my "grown-up" years. We are reliving the migrant worker era; South Americans are the new "Okies."

Something you didn't mention was those who can afford a weekend in Martha's Vineyard or P-town are unwilling to shell out another buck per margarita in places where residents and citizens are employed. Maybe Cape entrepreneurs can put up signs reporting, "Unemployed laborers are commuted/moved here for your summer consumption pleasure."

Best,

BILL SPIRITO

BOSTON

A picture's worth a thousand of these suckers.

Dear Dig,

Tak Toyoshima's 4.16.08 "Secret Asian Man" was brilliant; in one simple, wordless strip he captured perfectly the poignant absurdity of our whacked-out "global economy." With the sad demise of the AZN cable network, there are few media outlets that feature the unfiltered, unsanitized work of Asian-American artists. Props to the Dig for giving Tak a platform.

CHARLES

CAMBRIDGE

Errata: Last week's Soapbox (4.30.08), Our Dumb-Shit Quick-Fix World, was written by the talented Brennon Slattery and not our scum-sucking news editor whose name was erroneously in the byline.

Happy Mother's Day! You didn't forget, right? Oh shit! Better ride a Dutch bike home, order some organic flowers and make a reservation at a restaurant that serves a gourmet cheese plate designed by expert cheesemongers (check Department of Commerce for more), and take her to the Art Institute of Boston's first student-run expo. After that, dump her as fast as you can and woof it to the Dizzee Rascal show. Read Faraone's article to learn how to interact with the rap star.

Here comes the written equivalent of those jerks who wave "Hi Mom!" signs behind TV reporters. Last week, at the end of a phone conversation with my mom, I said, "Love you, I shaved my head, bye." Looking like GI Jane/Britney Spears/a 12-year-old boy isn't the worst part. Nor is the temporary loss of my mother's love; she'll forgive me as it grows back. But I completely forgot I'm visiting my grandparents this weekend. Can you imagine the damage I've done? A billion organic flowers, art shows and smelly cheeses won't repair that!

So in case I don't make it past Sunday, dear, dear reader, please do me a favor next week. Enjoy the newest additions to our DOC section and the second part of our prison feature series for me.

"Hi Mom!"

HOLY SHIT! The Phoenix just discovered the MBTA, and wants you to do the same!

That's it. They've decided to introduce us to the T. In May. No further mockery is needed. Next joke, please!

A HELPFUL BIT OF ADVICE from Media Farm: It's usually best to delay splashing around in Web 2.0 until after you've graduated J-101. Otherwise, you'll get something like Sidekick writer Meredith Goldstein's attempt at recreating Ferris Bueller's Day Off –– in Boston!!! ("We managed to hit the sites he did in the movie (or at least their Boston equivalent), and we didn't even need to bring along a fringe-jacket-wearing girlfriend.")

We'll let an irate Farm emailer introduce the piece: "This is the single worst piece of video offal I think I've ever seen Goldstein generate, and she's responsible for some real stinkers." Well said, friend.

We'll quickly add that Meredith and some dead-in-the-eyes intern's thirst for "playing tourist" in town is the most succinct, poetic indictment of the Globe's lifestyle pages we've ever seen. Oh, and there's also this: The whole idea of taking a day to liberate your soul is predicated on the notion that you actually have a soul.

That said, Mark Shanahan's cameo in the video, sitting in his cube and mumbling, "I hear she's really sick," was actually kind of funny. When the guy's not writing or sitting at the same dinner table as you, he can be mildly charming. Who knew?

MEDIA FARM PICKED up the Globe Magazine this Sunday. Leafing through the Kmart circular probably would've been more entertaining.

We've been saying this for, like, two years, but apparently it bears repeating: If you're going to call a section "Tales from the City," it probably shouldn't be full of stories about whatever happened to some lady from New Hampshire at the Old Country Buffet. The idea is to connect readers with a compelling, specific sense of place, is it not? We're celebrating the uniqueness of the urban experience, right?

Probably not. Otherwise, the lead style spread wouldn't consist of a bunch of shit some girl bought at Old Navy and Target.

Still, the implication that living in the city means layering cheap, ubiquitous, mass-produced clothing tastelessly wasn't nearly as revolting as the foot-porn close-up that introduced a feature about a 61-year-old Globe copyeditor visiting the spa. And—surprise!—the prose that followed wasn't much more inviting: "If you begin your day with an Emerge pedicure, you better not have scheduled anything else more strenuous than strolling down a primrose path. Your totally relaxed feet keep whispering: 'We saw the Promised Land; why are we walking away?'"

What's more, you'd think a guy who works with grammar for a living would know better than to go dropping sentences like this on dudes' newly manicured toes: "Don't judge me till [sic] you've walked a mile in my deep-piled scented towel." Yeah. Guess that's what happens to journalism when massages and oil scrubs have left you "physically and mentally as tractable as linguini."

WE'D LIKE TO THANK the Times' Sunday Styles for putting forward the best this young generation has to offer. Really, thanks. Their Modern Love column's college essay contest netted over 1,200 responses, and apparently, the paper has decided that there's no one better suited to be the voice of young people who date other young people than a girl who, after gratuitously name-checking both Brooklyn and the East Village, drops this:

So, a few days after the chat with my mom, when I found myself downtown drinking tea with my friend Steven, I asked him what he thought about dating. He has a long-term girlfriend, and I was curious how he viewed their relationship. "The main thing," he said, "is I don't mind if she sleeps with other people. I mean, she's not my property, right? I'm just glad I get to hang out with her. Spend time with her. Because that's all we really have, you know? I don't want her to be mine, and I don't want to be anybody's."

VERY NEARLY SPEAKING OF, here's New Yorker editor David Remnick on the Miley-in-a-sheet controversy that's currently roiling in the 7pm-8pm block of network TV: "I mean, the issue of hypersexualization is a very legitimate one. And the magazines who promote that should be apologetic. Like the Atlantic. The Atlantic is very pro-child pornography."

As Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama solider on in this endless campaign, the North Carolina primary on Tuesday gave us a glimpse of what's to come for Obama, should he win the nomination. The North Carolina GOP aired an ad playing up the link between Obama and his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

"For 20 years, Barack Obama sat in his pew, listening to his pastor," the narrator intones. It cuts back to Wright saying, "and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America? No no no ... not God bless America, God damn America." The ad actually targets two other supporters of Obama, Beth Purdue and Richard Moore, who are two North Carolina gubernatorial candidates, but it's Wright who gets the most attention. "They should know better. He's just too extreme for North Carolina," the ad concludes.

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, tried to take the high road. "I don't know why they do it. Obviously, I don't control them, but I'm making it very clear, as I have a couple of times in the past, that there's no place for that kind of campaigning, and the American people don't want it," McCain said, according to the Associated Press.

But the N.C. GOP is just doing his dirty work for him. It's checking off every 3am ad, every Wright sermon, every comment on small-town America whose voters "cling to guns or religion" and every question about his patriotism. The Republican National Committee has registered domain names to use against either candidate depending on who gets the nomination, according to the New York Times. How does baracktheamateur.com or norealexperience.com sound? For Clinton, the names aren't much better: clintonisbad.com or hopelesshillary.com.

The NC GOP's Obama attack ad is reminiscent of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's attack on Sen. John Kerry when he was a presidential candidate in 2004. The ad, "They Served," features a series of men claiming to be part of Kerry's chain of command in Vietnam. "They served their country with honor and distinction. They're the men who served with John Kerry in Vietnam," the narrator says. The ad claims Kerry's anti-war stance when he came home from a short stint in Vietnam helped to demonize the other men in his platoon. "They're the men that spent years in North Vietnamese prison camps, tortured for refusing to confess what John Kerry accused them of, of being war criminals ... With nothing to gain for themselves, except the satisfaction that comes with telling the truth, they have come forward to talk about the John Kerry they know. Because to them honesty and character still matter ... especially in a time of war." Kerry was blamed for not responding to those attacks fast enough. When he endorsed Obama, he suggested Obama won't be "Swiftboated." He will, and he has been—that's politics. The question is, will Obama push back forcefully enough without abandoning his message and voters in the process?

A bizarre photograph of a woman holding a sign proclaiming "Catholic priests are predators" soiled the front page of this newspaper recently.

I am responding to the article in The Standard-Times concerning Ben Rose Field that started with this line: "State officials have confirmed that recreational use of Ben Rose Field in the city's South End is appropriate and doesn't violate any...

How to answer the question