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The National Council on Organized Resistance is a gathering of liberals, progressives, and anarchists. This year they were joined by a select group of conservatives from across the D.C. area who posed as radicals and went undercover.

It's a brilliant Sunday morning, but the sunshine deceives. Step outside and the air is frigid, still below the freezing point. South University Avenue looks like a mirage in the windy cold. The winter just refuses to give up. The detritus of our national day of alcohol abuse - pardon me, St. Patrick's Day - litters the streets and yards of campus. Cracked green knickknacks are blown about. Partially-filled beer cans roll down South U. One block away, the Campus Chapel on 1236 Washtenaw Avenue opens its doors for Sunday service. On campus, the sacred and profane maintain an uneasy...

As war protesters marched toward Arlington Memorial Bridge en route to the Pentagon yesterday, they were flanked by long lines of military veterans and others who stood in solidarity with U.S. troops and the Bush administration's cause in Iraq. Many booed loudly as the protesters passed, turned their backs to them or yelled, "If you don't like America, get out!" Several thousand vets, some of whom came by bus from New Jersey, car caravans from California or flights from Seattle or Michigan, lined the route from the bridge and down 23rd Street, waving signs such as "War There Or War...

If there was a danger to the dark side that welled in music in the 1960s, it was perhaps best represented by what happened to one of its icons, Beatle John Lennon.  His was a life that symbolized, and took to an extreme, the spiritual struggles -- and confusion -- of a generation.  As previously reported [click here for story], after years of casting about -- swerving as a youth from Christianity to agnosticism to atheism and then all the way to Eastern meditation -- the famed songwriter settled, in the end, on the occult, as sort of a harbinger...

<p>WASHINGTON -- Convinced this is their moment, tens of thousands marched Saturday in an anti-war demonstration linking military families, ordinary people and an icon of the Vietnam protest movement in a spirited call to get out of Iraq.</p> <p>The rally on the Mall unfolded peacefully, although about 300 protesters tried to rush the Capitol, running up the grassy lawn to the front of the building. Police on motorcycles tried to stop them, scuffling with some and barricading entrances.</p>

Focus On: Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transgendered Persons ( 825 KB, 2pp) Teaching Tolerance or Attacking Religion: How far can schools go in teaching tolerance for gays and lesbians? Safe Schools for Everyone: An interview with Kevin Jennings, founder of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) School Employee's Guide to GLBT Issues The Safe Zone: Links to bullying resources, a brief glossary of bias terms, and a downloadable poster NEA believes that a great public school is a fundamental right of every child—free from intimidation and harassment, and safe for all students, including those who identify as...

In a story unusual even for a soap opera and believed to be a television first, ABC's "All My Children" this week will introduce a transgender character who is beginning to make the transition from a man into a woman. The character, a flamboyant rock star known as Zarf, kisses the lesbian character Bianca and much drama ensues. The storyline begins with Thursday's episode of the daytime drama. There have been a handful of post-surgical transgender characters in television shows, including a college professor in the 2001 prime-time CBS series "The Education of Max Bickford" and a model in the...

PARIS (AFP) - The Church of Scientology provides for several kinds of wedding ceremony for its followers, but according to the most traditional the husband "may promise to provide her (his wife) with "a pan, a comb, perhaps a cat." US actor Tom Cruise and actress Katie Holmes will provide perhaps the most high-profile Scientologists' wedding to date this weekend. And according to unconfirmed reports in the Italian media, American Scientology leader David Miscavige will fly in from Los Angeles to preside over the event. According to the Scientologists' book "The Background, Ministry, Ceremonies and Sermons of the Scientology Religion",...

Drudge Siren: ALLEN'S REVENGE: EXPOSES RIVAL'S NOVEL WRITINGS; UNDERAGE SEX SCENES

Scientists are planning to create a "frankenrabbit" by fusing together human cells with a rabbit egg. It is hoped the "chimeric" embryos, which would be 99.9 per cent human and 0.1 per cent rabbit, could lead to breakthroughs in stem cell research which could one day cure diseases such as Alzheimer's or spinal cord injury. The embryos will allow scientists to perfect stem cell creation techniques without using human eggs. "If we learn how to do this with animal eggs, we should be able to have more success with human eggs, and I'd much rather know that if we were...

One woman said she received an e-mail threatening to cut her 7-year-old son open and stuff him with poison. A man said he was showered with glass as people smashed all the windows of his home and overturned his wife's car. Many others said they were besieged by screaming protesters outside their homes at all hours, deluged by threatening phone calls, and sent pornographic magazines they had not ordered. The trauma that employees of Huntingdon Life Sciences and other companies say they experienced at the hands of radical animal rights advocates is on display during the federal court trial of...

Man Says Sex With Kids a Sacred RitualBy Associated PressAugust 3, 2006, 5:00 AM EDTCLEVELAND -- A man accused of sexually assaulting nine boys with physical or mental disabilities told a judge that having sex with children is a sacred ritual protected by civil rights laws. Phillip Distasio, who said he is the leader of a church called Arcadian Fields Ministries, represented himself at his pretrial hearing Wednesday. He is charged with 74 counts including rape, pandering obscenity to minors and corrupting another with drugs. "I'm a pedophile. I've been a pedophile for 20 years," he said in Cuyahoga County...

About 25 revelers celebrated their freedom of speech and welcomed the Fourth of July on Monday night with the "2nd Annual Old Time American Flag Burn." Around a burn barrel at Seabright State Beach, organizer Brent Adams, 41, of Santa Cruz, declared flag burning not a protest, but a celebration of the Constitution's First Amendment. "It seemed like a good idea to burn some flags just because we can," added fellow organizer Sha Lar, 32, of Santa Cruz. The festivities were especially relevant after a constitutional amendment allowing Congress to ban flag desecration died in the Senate last week. That...

Today: June 28, 2006 at 3:16:29 PDT Transgender Community Finds Acceptance By LISA LEFF ASSOCIATED PRESS SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A clash between police and patrons of an all-night diner here 40 years ago was once a forgotten footnote in history. For members of the transgender community, though, it was the start of their slow march toward widespread acceptance. Sparked by the riot, San Francisco activists started their own civil rights movement - three years before the more famous clashes at New York City's Stonewall Inn. A dedication this month of a granite anniversary marker at the site of the...

From square dancers to mothers and daughters on motorcycles, Portland's gay community celebrates Thousands of Portlanders turned out to watch and cheer as the Portland Pride 2006 parade, thousands strong itself, wound its exuberant way through downtown Sunday. Several dads spent their Father's Day proudly carrying banners with the Portland contingent of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. "Dads for lesbians," read one marcher's placard, "You always have a home," read several others, and "Our kids are great just the way they are." Thirty motorcycles ridden by Dykes on Bikes led the way, followed by a color guard...

Elissa Kane, left, and Lynne Lekakis, of Albany, N.Y., who were married in a Unitarian ceremony but were denied civil marriage licenses by the Albany City Clerk, wait outside the Court of Appeals in Albany, N.Y., Wednesday, May 31, 2006, for the state's highest court to hear four cases on gay marriage. Lawyers for gay couples seeking the right to marry in New York plead their case before the state's top court, hoping to reverse a string of losses in lower courts. (AP Photo/ Jim McKnight)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Conjoined twins were born to a Wisconsin woman Wednesday at the Washington Hospital Center. Angie Benzschawel, 25, of Sheboygan, gave birth to the twin boys, named Mateo and McHale, who are joined at the lower back, hospital spokeswoman Lynn Cantwell said. The twins then were taken by ambulance to Children's National Medical Center. "They came this morning and they cried when they were born and they are now at the Children's National Medical Center in critical but stable condition," Cantwell said. She said the babies were at the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit, but she declined to...

AT FIRST glance, they could be any ordinary family, enjoying an evening stroll on the beach at sunset. But to one-and-a-half-year-old Anna, the two women holding her hands are Mummy and Mama. She will never know more than a few details about her father, a sperm donor - and her lesbian mothers believe the happy and loving childhood they are providing for her is enough. Helen and Leanne, from Edinburgh, paid £350 to conceive Anna through donor insemination. It was a difficult and emotional process but they are delighted with the results and are planning another baby soon. Their joy,...

CLEARWATER - Matt Feshbach believes he has super powers. He senses danger faster than most people. He appreciates beauty more deeply than he used to. He says he outperforms his peers in the money management industry. He heightened his powers of perception in 1995 when he went to Los Angeles and became the first and so far only "public" Scientologist to take a highly classified Scientology program called Super Power. Where in L.A. did he do this? "Just in Los Angeles," is all Feshbach will say. Super Power is that secret. Under wraps for decades, Super Power now is being...

Owning pets could become a thing of the past in Silicon Valley. No, cats and dogs aren't being banished from the California high-tech haven. But Santa Clara County, Calif., officials are considering an upgrade in the status of pet owners. The animal lovers would be pet guardians, not merely owners. The county Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote on the issue Tuesday. Officials saying being called a pet guardian should get people to be more responsible with their furry friends. The measure would change all references in county legal documents, but would not change any of the owners' responsibilities....