Poster commemorating 1st anniversary of execution of Troy Anthony Davis . (courtesy of NAACP) From the time he was first placed on trial for the murder of Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1989 until his death by execution one year ago, September 21, 2011, more questions than answers have tended to accumulate where the case of Troy Anthony Davis was and is concerned. As far as any observers––including such trained onlooker as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Amnesty International, and Color of Change–– have been able to tell, Davis was not executed because he was proven guilty.  He was executed because technicalities of applied legal practice and questionable choices in regard to his defense failed to confirm his innocence. For the average person, such a distinction is murky at best. For Troy Anthony Davis––and for an as yet undetermined number of individuals––it literally meant the difference between life and death. ...

                                  Author Philip Roth in New York City . (Reuters file photograph) In his September 7, 2012, “Open Letter to Wikipedia,” acclaimed author Philip Roth made an appeal to the editors of Wikipedia. Posted in his blog for The New Yorker , he asked them to correct a statement he identified as misleading in the site’s article on his novel, The Human Stain . Roth––whose literary honors include a Pulitzer Prize, American Book Award, and Man Booker International Prize––stated the following: “ The entry contains a serious misstatement that I would like to ask to have removed. This item entered Wikipedia not from the world of truthfulness but from the babble of literary gossip—there is no truth in it at all.” He noted further that he had attempted through an official interlocutor to address the issue but was informed that site administrators required “secondary source...

President Barack Obama with 1 st Lady Michelle Obama and other U.S. political leaders at 1 WTC in New York (photo by Jewel Samad and AFP Getty Images) “Democracy does not have to be a blood sport . It can be an honorable enterprise that advances the public interest.”      ––f ormer U.S. President Bill Clinton When former U.S. President Bill Clinton made the above statement at the 2012 Democratic National Convention on September 5 in Charlotte, N.C., he was referring to the intensely negative elements that have made their way into the current presidential election campaign. He could, however, have been discussing almost any kind of attempt to resolve major differences where individuals choose to rely on brutality or guerrilla decontextualization as opposed to civility and communication. Imagine the many possibilities of what life might, could, or would be like for so many today if Osama bin Laden had developed a different perspective on how best ...

                               ( Photo of late actor Michael Clarke Duncan by Ethan Miller for WireImage ) Since his emergence during the 1980s and 1990s as a master of horror and suspense, author Stephen King has enjoyed popularity among a racially diverse reading audience. His popularity among African Africans likely ticked up a notch when his novel The Green Mile was made into a movie in 1999 and the late Michael Clarke Duncan brilliantly brought King’s character, John Coffey, to awe-inspiring life. Duncan, who died September 3, 2012, at the age of 54 from complications following a heart attack suffered in July, received an Academy Award nomination for the role. Moreover, he actually won the Saturn Award, Black Reel Award, Broadcast Film Critics Association Critics’ Choice Award, and Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for his performance. The accolades that rained upon...