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• Anti-war activist's works banned at prison camps

Don't tiptoe around the words `Muslim' and `terrorism'

O n the evening after Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan shot 43 people at the Fort Hood military base, CNN's Larry King Live invited the TV psychologist known chummily as Dr. Phil to help the audience understand what might have motivated Hasan to open fire, killing 12 of his fellow soldiers and one civilian and injuring 30 others. Dr Phil enlightened viewers with pseudo-scientific speculation about how war stress would cause someone to ``snap.''

President Obama urged Americans not to rush to judgment before we had the facts, but most of the non-right-wing media did exactly that, all but settling on a diagnosis for Hasan, an army psychiatrist, as the victim of stress acquired by listening to the terrible stories told by his patients and worrying about his own deployment.

Treading lightly

Outrage director sad we're still debating gay rights

Although the documentary Outrage focuses on present-day politicians and the battle for gay rights, there's a reason why director Kirby Dick decided to cede the film's final scene -- and its last word -- to the late Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay people elected to public office in the 1970s.

''There's something very inspirational about the vision of this man from 30 years ago saying that this whole debate would be over if everyone just came out,'' Dick says. ``I find it sad that, three decades later, we're still having this discussion, and there's still a need for this film. I'm appalled that all Americans still don't have full civil rights.''

According to the argument that Dick lays out in Outrage , which opened Friday at the Gateway Cinema in Fort Lauderdale, some politicians have backed anti-gay legislation despite their being gay -- and the national news media has played along, failing to report on their hypocrisy.

Anti-war activist's works banned at prison camps

Professor Noam Chomsky may be among America's most enduring anti-war activists. But the leftist intellectual's anthology of post 9/11 commentary is taboo at Guantánamo's prison camp library, which offers books and videos on Harry Potter, World Cup soccer and Islam.

U.S. military censors recently rejected a Pentagon lawyer's donation of an Arabic-language copy of the political activist and linguistic professor's 2007 anthology Interventions for the library, which has more than 16,000 items.

Chomsky, 80, who has been voicing disgust with U.S. foreign policy since the Vietnam War, reacted with irritation and derision. "This happens sometimes in totalitarian regimes,'' he told The Miami Herald by e-mail after learning of the decision.

House OK's cruise safety bill

An effort to boost federal oversight of the $40.2-billion cruise industry moved closer to becoming law Friday when the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill requiring cruise lines to improve their crime reporting and safety procedures.

It's the first time such a bill has made it to a House vote despite repeated attempts. The measure must still be approved by the Senate.

JUSTICE SERVED

Film at FIU's Muslim Film Festival explores virginity issue in Islam

Faitha got her first kiss at 28. But it wasn't on the lips.

Rather, her fiancé gave it to her on her hand.

Then he broke up with her -- out of fear that the kiss diminished Faitha's purity.