Peace is their best entertainment
Ford: The holiday editorial that we'll feature on this page tomorrow, created by my accomplished colleague Jim Jenkins, notes the good fortune most of us share in being able to enjoy Christmas among friends and family.
Double shot to stop the twitching
Ford: Angels we have heard on high? Sure, and from some pretty low spots as well. None so low, in fact, as the Florida State Prison, where on Wednesday Angel N. Diaz was put to death, claiming to the end his innocence.
The beckoning finger of Uncle Sam
Ford: Fatalities among American service members in the Iraq war are approaching 3,000 in a situation that now has been categorized by some of this country's wisest heads as "grave and deteriorating."
Clear-eyed on Iraq, and pride
Ford:It can be an awkward position to be in. You warn that policies are wrong-headed, that mistakes are being made, that the situation, whatever it is, will only become worse unless people come to their senses and change course.
Prescription for safer pharmacies
Ford:When it comes to "poor devils," the images run to clanking prisoners on an old-time Georgia chain gang. Or commuters on the central North Carolina spur of Hell's Highway, otherwise known as I-40.
No gong for Mike Nifong -- yet
Ford:If the oddball election to fill the district attorney's post in Durham really was a referendum on the Duke lacrosse case, then we might reasonably conclude that the citizenry thinks Mike Nifong has no business prosecuting three athletes on charges of rape.
Elephants, donkeys, court candidates
Ford:How bad do things have to get before North Carolina gives up on the notion, flawed at its core, that elections are the best way to choose its judges? The damage can unfold along two lines.
Buffalo Cove, where donors roam
Ford:Happy must be the Tar Heel political candidate who, on one glorious day, is showered with $40,000 in campaign contributions from members of one family and their business associates and their family members -- all of whom gave to the max!
Eyes on community and character
Ford:So we're not choosing a president in the election coming up in a couple of weeks. No governor, no U.S. senator. For lots of folks in North Carolina, that sort of takes the fun out of things.
Filling those holes on the bench
Ford:In North Carolina, it almost could be said that whoever wants badly enough to become a judge has a shot at it. For better or for worse.
Honor among the lottery operators
Ford:From the Web site of big-time lottery outfit Scientific Games, we learn that not so long ago, the matter of business ethics got someone's attention.
Fighting a war with too few boots
Ford:War may be too important to be left to the generals, as is said to be the case.
Hard time, and judges' hard calls
Ford:On our occasional trips along U.S. 64 toward Rocky Mount, the sign for the Nash Correctional Institution usually catches my eye at an exit just west of Nashville.
One avant-garde art project, to go
Ford:If you've ever dined at one of those fancy "new cuisine" places -- against your better judgment, no doubt -- you've probably found yourself wondering if some of the bizarre concoctions on the bill of fare might be the chef's idea of a joke.
From Ground Zero - to Baghdad
Ford:The brunt of the 9/11 disaster in Lower Manhattan was borne, as it turned out, by people who made their homes in New Jersey.
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