When I was a freshman in high school I had to read Charles Dickens’, “A Tale of Two Cities”. It has been my favorite book ever since because of it’s handling of politics, religion, misinformation, the rule of the mob and on the flip side, friendship, loyalty, love for one’s neighbor and the willingness to lay down one’s life for a friend. My all time favorite rendition in movie form is the 1935 version with Ronald Colman, but I remember a miniseries back in 1989 from Masterpiece Theatre, starring an aloof and seemingly lost James Wilby as Sidney Carlton. (He was really good!)

The thing I remember most about that movie was an explanation by Alistair Cook, the master of ceremonies for Masterpiece Theatre at that time, about the Bicentennial Bastille Day Celebration in 1989 in Paris in which many foreign heads of state were invited to attend and review the parade, including the Prime Minister of England at the time, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher. He said that when Mrs.Thatcher quipped that “all the French Revolution produced was a cart full of headless corpses and a tyrant,” apparently referring to a quote by Edmund Burke who wrote the scathing, Reflections on the Revolution in France, she was relegated to the third row of foreign dignitaries. I’ll never forget when Alistair Cook said that before she left, the ever gracious Mrs. Thatcher handed President Mitterand a parting gift, a beautifully bound copy of, “A Tale of Two Cities.”

Honor killing perpetrators welcomed by society, study reveals

“Murder becomes inevitable when honor is at stake and turning to murder in such a situation is seen as a respectable act by the society.”

Three British Muslims admit bid to bomb Heathrow and Commons with liquid explosives

They planned to use powerful hydrogen peroxide liquid bombs disguised as soft drinks to bypass airport security, jurors were told. The devices would be assembled by injecting the chemicals into plastic soft drinks bottles and detonated using a battery from a camera flash, it was claimed.

Darfur defector confesses

“…he was instructed by a senior government figure to recruit Islamic Arabic speakers from the north of Sudan, then personally led 5000 horsemen in a murderous campaign against black southerners who did not share their religion.”