Kudos to Colorado librarian Susan Oakes for bringing this innovative program to inmates and their children:

Arapahoe County librarian Susan Oakes provides a small bright spot for some of the prisoners and their families. For 25 years, she's been finding ways to inspire people to read, and five years ago she started Begin With Books, in which Arapahoe County Jail inmates have a chance to share reading with their children. "I don't believe these children should suffer for any of the choices their parents have made," Oakes said.

Depending on inmates' level of privileges, they can select books to send home, record their voices reading the books, or call home during story time. Inmate Sean Bolsinger's son was born in August. The program enables him to be involved from behind bars.

A few weeks ago, Oakes learned that those programs had won her a prestigious award. She's one of 27 librarians across the country to receive the 2003 New York Times Librarian Award.

We hope librarians reading this post will bring the program to their communities.

The Milwaukee Sentinel has endorsed John Edwards for President.

Democrats in Wisconsin and elsewhere owe much to Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont and candidate for the presidential nomination of their party. Perhaps more than any other candidate in the race, the long-running Dean has set the thematic framework and identified the critical issues in the coming battle with President Bush. Those themes and issues by now are familiar to voters: the conduct of the war on terrorism, justification for the invasion of Iraq, globalization and the loss of manufacturing jobs, outsourced services, health care costs and coverage, tax cuts skewed to America's most prosperous citizens and a deficit-burdened fiscal policy.

For Democrats, then, the challenge is to nominate the man who can take his party's common vision for the nation and convince voters that it offers the right course for America. That man, in our judgment, is Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. We urge Democrats to vote for him in Tuesday's primary.

Meantime, we invite Wisconsinites to take an unblinkered look at Edwards - and not because Kerry lacks the right stuff to be president. Quite the contrary: Kerry would be a formidable nominee if Democrats choose him. But we believe Edwards would be more than Kerry's match to lead his party in November. It's true that Edwards cannot touch Kerry's distinguished military record or his long career in public life. Kerry, 60, has served in the Senate for nearly 20 years; Edwards, 50, was elected for the first time in 1998. But that also means Edwards does not carry as much baggage for his opponents to exploit.

The paper praises Kerry and Dean, but gives its reasons ("The Two Americas" message primarily) for going with Edwards. It's a good analysis and we recommend reading the entire article.

The Guardian reports that Saddam's trial is two years away. The delay is due to the Iraq special tribunal for crimes against humanity which will not get underway until October or November. The tribunal will try some Ba'ath party officials first.

"I think it will take two years to get to Saddam being tried," said Salem Chalabi, one of the architects of the court and a nephew of the influential Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress.

The need to select and screen judges, prepare courts and establish well-guarded jails to hold the suspects have led to delays. "There are frustrations," said Mr Chalabi. The court has to balance the demand of most Iraqis for a rapid show trial of Saddam and his deputies with the need to establish an impartial model for the new judiciary.

"It is a balance that we have to work here between trying to protect defendants' rights and meet international standards of due process of law and the wish of the Iraqis for quick vengeance," said Mr Chalabi.

Update: In other Saddam news, the Iraqi Governing Council is seeking to strip Saddam of his POW status.

We can't even believe this is true, but it is. Junior Allen stole a black and white tv set in 1970. A North Carolina judge sentenced him to life in prison.

Mr. Allen, now 63 years old, has now been in prison 33 years for stealing that tv set. Last week, the North Carolina Parole Commission denied him parole for the 26th straight year. Here's more on the case.

Let this man go home.

The British Sun is running a story with the photo of the former intern who allegedly claims she had an affair with John Kerry. Her name is Alex Polier and the paper says she is not keeping it a secret and that she says it occurred in 2001.

Now that Kerry has categorically denied the affair, it better turn out to be a tall tale--otherwise, we think he's in trouble. On the other hand, Kerry knows far more about this than we do--and we think he's smart enough not to lie and think he wouldn't be found out--so we're believing Kerry at this juncture that it didn't happen.

[link via Counterspin.]

Update: Alex Polier's former classmate writes this article saying it is most improbable that Alex and Kerry had an affair. [link via Unfair Witness]

Update: Wait a minute. Wasn't John Kerry battling prostate cancer in 2001? How was he having this hot 2 year affair?

Kerry's father died of prostate cancer. From an August 1, 2002 AP article (available on lexis.com):

The legal team that stepped in weeks before Kevin Cooper's scheduled execution and won him a reprieve is made up of an unlikely group:

Condemned murderer Kevin Cooper might be dead today if it weren't for an unorthodox dream team of lawyers -- a commercial litigator, a former White House special counsel and a corporate trial lawyer -- who stepped in just weeks before his scheduled execution and won him a rare stay.

"Maybe that's our strength as a team," said attorney Gregory Evans, whose usual clients are Fortune 100 CEOs. "Maybe because we're not criminal lawyers day to day, when we took a look at this case we could see very quickly that Mr. Cooper did not receive a fair trial and might be an innocent man."

Evans, along with former White House special counsel Lanny Davis and litigator David Alexander, took over Cooper's defense in December after their San Francisco-based firm Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe -- one of the nation's top corporate legal law firms -- agreed to provide the legal services pro bono.

The ABA's Death Penalty Representation Project is always looking for litigators in big firms to pitch in and represent those on death row. So many death row inmates have no counsel for their final appeals. If you're in a big firm, or know someone who is, think about it. The rewards are tremendous. You may save a life.

President Bush is making progress. He's gone from not reading newspapers to reading the sports section:

I was just as surprised as the Yankee fans and the Boston Red Sox fans when I opened up my paper today," President Bush, the Rangers' former owner, told NBC at the Daytona 500. "It, obviously, is a big deal. ... A-Rod's a great player and the Yanks are going to be a heck of a team with him in the infield."

Thanks to Rooftop Report for the heads-up.

Quite a few readers have written us tonight to say they are unable to post comments. We've been banning IPs of spammers, and may have banned too broad a group so we'll try to fix it. If you didn't post an ad for a diet pill or other medication, you haven't been banned. We haven't banned anyone for content in weeks. Thanks for your patience.

[Looks like we banned a blank number--which blocked everyone. If you are still having problems, send us an email.]

Several months ago, we wrote of a terrible practice in Minnesota in which indigent clients were forced to pay between $50 and $200 for a public defender. More details are here. We're glad to report that the Minnesota Supreme Court this week struck down the mandatory fees which had been passed by the Legislature.

In a unanimous ruling, the seven-justice court said the fees violate the U.S. Constitution's Sixth Amendment protections. Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz wrote that the law imposing the fees was clearly written to require their imposition. The court refused to build in discretion, as the state's lawyers requested during oral arguments.

"The co-payment statute clearly and unambiguously provides that a defendant shall pay a co-payment fee, which may be collected under the provisions of the Revenue Recapture Act. This construction does not give rise to ambiguity, much less discretion," Blatz wrote.

Mary Beth, of Wampum Blog, is running for the Maine State Legislature.

I am now officially running for the legislative seat in this new district, renumbered as 116.

The challenges we Mainers face, underfunded schools, cuts in critical services, devastating job losses, an exodus of our young people, unsupported small business and skyrocketing health care costs, have led me to conclude my experience and energy is better served AS the candidate at this time, rather than my managing the candidate, as I've done for the past twenty years.

In addition, Portland is represented in Augusta by eight House and two Senate seats. Currently, these are held by nine Democrats and one Green Independent. All ten legislators are male. I'm the only woman, and only person of color, running from the largest, most ethnically diverse city in Maine. Sadly, in a city with the first openly lesbian mayor, we haven't sent a female representative to Augusta since 1998. I hope to start a new trend.

There's a paypal donation link over at Wampum. Good Luck, Mary Beth!

Looks like the Right will stop at nothing. Remember the photo splashed all over tv last week of Kerry standing next to Jane Fonda? It was doctored. She wasn't even at the event.

Check out this column on the Iraq Intelligence Commission - this country needs and deserves an investigation--not a cover-up.