Hard Labor

Beside the grassy banks of the muddy Mahaweli River, the crocodiles vanish in silent submersions when the local elephants are taken for their midday baths. As the sun passes through the white sky, the lean mahouts, barefoot and dressed only in loose-fitting sarongs, shout at beasts 100 times their size and strength, "Mahaida," "Daha," yelling at the animals to come and go in a language that only the elephants and their drivers understand. N. Muthubanda was 18 when he became a mahout 32 years ago. He started working with elephants because he could find no other job. Now, he works with a mild-tempered female named Nona who towers over him and sometimes affectionately nudges his cheek with her trunk.

A guy from a radio station called and said he was doing a Labor Day feature. He wanted to know what the worst job was I'd ever had. I was busy, so I quickly told him the worst job I ever had was answering questions from radio stations. But after we hung up, I started thinking about the question. What was the toughest thing I ever did to earn a buck? When I was a kid, I set pins in bowling alleys, which was hard, tedious labor. But it was good exercise, gave me walking-around money.

First of two parts. He was one of the first great chefs of Philadelphia - in fact, of the young nation. The chief cook in President George Washington's home here in 1790 had only one name: Hercules. In the mansion's open-hearth kitchen, where elaborate banquets were prepared, where spitted meats sizzled and "fricaseys" simmered in cast-iron pans over hickory fires, underlings scurried to execute the orders of Hercules, "the great master-spirit," according to one account, who seemed to be everywhere at once.

As the only nation to be attacked with an atomic bomb, Japan is entitled to a leadership role in the crusade against the dangers of nuclear arms. However, its authority is seriously compromised by its reluctance to take its responsibility for its deeds during World War II. Japan, in contrast to Germany, has neither acknowledged its crimes nor paid restitution to its victims. During my internment in Japanese concentration camps in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), humiliation - a Japanese specialty - was the order of the day. No eye contact with the master race was allowed.

When the results of the congressional election held last November were tabulated, something occurred that we hadn't seen since the 1950s: The Republican Party had gained control of both houses of Congress. Was this a one-time phenomenon or the beginning of a trend? At the time, most political analysts believed the public had accepted the view that big government was costly, wasteful and counterproductive. The new Congress presented a contractual obligation to reduce the size of government, both in terms of the number of programs and in terms of dollars spent.

Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, the spiritual leader of Egypt's militant Al-Gamaa al-Islamiya, also known as the Islamic Group, is incarcerated at a special hospital for federal prisoners in Springfield, Mo. Abdel-Rahman, 59, who is blind and suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure, was sentenced last year to life in prison without parole after being convicted in New York of involvement in a conspiracy that planned the 1993 World Trade Center bombing,...

Summer vacation usually means memories of beach heroics and bad sunburns. But for 19-year-old Michele Keegan, of Hamilton Township, N.J., summer brought the risk of five years' hard labor in jail and, ultimately, deportation from a small Southeast Asian country. What a vacation! Keegan and 17 others were found guilty of distributing pro-democracy leaflets in Myanmar. The country formerly known as Burma is under military rule and has for years been criticzed by some international human-rights groups.

The obits for North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il are filled with details about his weird personal habits and his country's nukes, but the history books will reveal him as one of the great mass murderers of our times. One of my most chilling journalistic experiences came in 2004 in South Korea, when I was interviewing a handful of North Koreans who had managed to escape to Seoul, and listening to the horrors they'd endured in their home country. Only a few thousand North Koreans have made it out, and they bear witness to the terrible suffering that Kim and his father, Kim Il Sung, inflicted on the North Korean population.

The William Way LGBT Community Center is telling one of the Holocaust's least-known stories - the Nazi persecution of homosexuals. It's a story of men and women who were arrested and often sentenced to hard labor for what were called indecent acts. The victims were mostly men. Some faced judicial proceedings and criminal charges. Others were simply picked up by SS officers and locked away in concentration camps. Through Friday, the center is displaying "Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals: 1933-1945," a traveling exhibition of 32 large panels featuring reproductions of historic photographs and documents.

In the history of Voicebox, never has an issue attracted such an avalanche of comment as the death penalty for murderers of children. The videotaped abduction of Carlie Brucia in Sarasota, Fla., combined with the shooting death of third-grader Faheem Thomas-Childs in Philadelphia, obviously have galvanized the debate. We received more than 150 calls, running about 5 to 1 in favor of the death penalty. Here is a selection: V. Weisman Malvern Any predators that pursue our children and instill fear in our lives and the lives of our children absolutely should lose the right to live.

The obits for North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il are filled with details about his weird personal habits and his country's nukes, but the history books will reveal him as one of the great mass murderers of our times. One of my most chilling journalistic experiences came in 2004 in South Korea, when I was interviewing a handful of North Koreans who had managed to escape to Seoul, and listening to the horrors they'd endured in their home country. Only a few thousand North Koreans have made it out, and they bear witness to the terrible suffering that Kim and his father, Kim Il Sung, inflicted on the North Korean population.

There are several ways for a coach to prepare his team for a bowl game. He can play the role of warden, closely monitoring the players' movements, restricting them to the team's practice facility and hotel while treating the entire experience as a week or more to be spent at hard labor since, obviously, the objective is to win, not to have fun. The other extreme is to turn your kids loose, to let them enjoy the sights and sounds of the area and to...

OUR SOCIETY is continually in denial about how the crime being perpetuated by our youth has affected us over recent decades. It reflects the exponential growth in teen parents since the early '90s. From these undereducated, illiterate parents come the truant, ignorant, belligerent, insolent, dumb scofflaws and criminals who we now see mugging and maiming innocent people on the streets. Poor parenting, and not so much poverty, as some may believe, is the root cause of these behaviors.

He was one of the first great chefs of Philadelphia - in fact, of the young nation. The chief cook in President George Washington's home here in 1790 had only one name: Hercules. In the mansion's open-hearth kitchen, where elaborate banquets were prepared, where spitted meats sizzled and "fricaseys" simmered in cast-iron pans over hickory fires, underlings scurried to execute the orders of Hercules, "the great master-spirit," according to one account, who seemed to be everywhere at once.

The William Way LGBT Community Center is telling one of the Holocaust's least-known stories - the Nazi persecution of homosexuals. It's a story of men and women who were arrested and often sentenced to hard labor for what were called indecent acts. The victims were mostly men. Some faced judicial proceedings and criminal charges. Others were simply picked up by SS officers and locked away in concentration camps. Through Friday, the center is displaying "Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals: 1933-1945," a traveling exhibition of 32 large panels featuring reproductions of historic photographs and documents.

AS THE Thanksgiving holiday approaches, our minds wander to idyllic images of Pilgrims and Indians peacefully sharing a feast in celebration of the fall harvest. On Thursday, as we break bread with family and friends, let us take some time to reflect on the fate of Native Americans in the centuries that followed the first Thanksgiving. This nation was founded on the principles of inalienable human rights and civil liberties. It would appear, however, that at first those guarantees applied only to those fortunate enough to have been born white European-Americans.

In the history of Voicebox, never has an issue attracted such an avalanche of comment as the death penalty for murderers of children. The videotaped abduction of Carlie Brucia in Sarasota, Fla., combined with the shooting death of third-grader Faheem Thomas-Childs in Philadelphia, obviously have galvanized the debate. We received more than 150 calls, running about 5 to 1 in favor of the death penalty. Here is a selection: V. Weisman Malvern Any predators that pursue our children and instill fear in our lives and the lives of our children absolutely should lose the right to live.

They sit in endless rows on the floor of the searing Sonoran Desert, silent squadrons of grounded aircraft from another time and place. Built for war on distant battlefields, they now slowly rot in the sun, these old fighters, bombers, helicopters and transports. About 5,000 craft in all, $27 billion worth of metal and electronics, covered in a clingy white preservative to shield their interiors from the sun. A bus taking tourists through the "boneyard" here at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base slows next to a stubby-winged, bullet-shaped plane.