One of the most solid news sources The Oakland Press has been fortunate enough to have worked with is Israeli investigative journalist David Bedein, who we discussed Monday.

For this past Sunday’s editorial on the Palestinian Refugee camps, Bedein sat down with The Oakland Press Editorial Board and literally spread out on a table his information on the camps and the Hamas ties to them.

Some Hamas documents blatantly admitted the terrorist group’s ties to the camps, officially run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Bedein didn’t just throw out theories and speculation, he had hard documents to back up every statement and allegation. He also had maps that supported his view that the refugees were being told that they would eventually be moved back to their ancestral homes in Israel. Many of those homes no longer exist and to resettle in Israel would literally mean killing Jews, but that doesn’t seem to be much of a qualm for Hamas.

The journalist even had current Palestinian road maps that accurately showed the highways throughout the area.But one thing missing — the designation of Israel as a nation.

And the money for all of this activity comes in large part, from the United States.

You may not like what Bedein revealed but there is no way you could argue with his facts.

That’s why we wrote the editorial.

Just like good news stories, accurately written editorials also require good sources.

Israeli investigative journalist David Bedein is an example of one of those sources. He was used in writing yesterday’s (Sunday, July 24) editorial on Palestinian refugee camps and the possible influence that the terrorist group Hamas has on them.

You could say he is prejudiced because he is from Israel but he also keeps a close eye on the Israeli government and is the essence of what a true, ethical journalist should be.

Just look at some of his credentials.

Bedein is a community organizer by profession, a writer, and an investigative journalist. In 1987 he established the Israel Resource News Agency, with offices at the Beit Agron International Press Center in Jerusalem. He serves as director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.

He has also reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Jerusalem Post, and the Jewish World Review. For four years, Bedein was the Middle East correspondent for the Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010.

Bedein has covered controversial Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna.

Also, he was active in the Israeli peace movement for 17 years and has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, the New Israel Fund, and United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Say what you will, you can’t argue with his accomplishments.

Florence "Peggy" Anderson of Waterford Township is a feisty octogenarian who is probably one of the most loyal Democrats the party would ever want.

She is adamant and outspoken about both local and state Democratic political figures and issues. And she’s rightfully proud of her strong views. While that’s enough to qualify her as the subject of a news story, that’s not the reason I’m writing about her.

Amid all of the bluster that she can produce in support of her views, she is truly one of the most open-minded and fair individuals I’ve ever met.

Oh, she will argue or fight hard for what she believes in, but she also will respect an opposing view. She may not agree with you but if you present your side logically and fairly, she will accept your position.

In other words, she is the ultimate example of a person who believes in freedom of speech.

I respect and admire her for many reasons. She’s experienced much in her 85 years on this earth. Born in St. Joseph County, about 30 miles from Kalamazoo, Florence, as she says I can call her, grew up on a farm.

“My parents were democratic farmers, they were Soapy Williams fans,” she says. “I was a depression kid, born in 1926. My grandmother made our clothes but we had food because we grew all our own and we raised chickens.

“We didn’t have electricity or running water and burned wood to stay warm. We pumped our water with a wind mill.”

Florence certainly knows what it means to get a long on less and is obviously no stranger to hard work.

Her first job was at age 9 on a mint farm, where she worked for $1 a day. She still had to go home and help milk the cows.

In high school she took a Commercial Education course and graduated at age 16.

She got a job with the War Department, working from 1943-46. She came to Pontiac in 1946 and married her husband, Bob, in 1947.

They remained married for 60 years, until Bob’s death about four years ago. They had two sons, four grandchildren and she was blessed with her first great grandchild when she was just recently at age 84.

She and her husband moved to Waterford in 1972. Florence is a retired state employee who worked at the former Clinton Valley Center. She also worked for six years for the Pontiac School District.

She says she is a decedent of George Read, one of the signers of the Constitution and so politics runs deep in her family.

“I really think that I was born with political genes,” she says.

In a time when I have received so many calls from readers who have threatened to cancel their subscriptions because they don’t like a particular view expressed on the Opinion Page, Florence has been wonderfully refreshing.

She’s not afraid to let us know when she thinks we’ve missed the mark on an editorial. There have been times when she has loudly and at length told us why a particular editorial was just not right.

But by the same token, she will call and let us know — in equally vibrant and vocal terms — if she agrees with an editorial or likes a particular feature that was published.

She scolds us when she thinks we’ve erred but praises us when she believes we’ve done something good. And most important, whether she agrees with us or not, she continues to be a loyal reader.

What more could we ask for, other than to have a few thousand more subscribers like Florence.

Medical Marijuana continues to be in the news and the developments continue to prove that we are right in our editorials that call for the state to clarify the regulation.

While well-intentioned, the law is difficult to enforce because of the confusing and conflicting regulations.

It has created conflict between local law enforcement agencies, who only want to make sure the substance doesn’t fall into the wrong hands, and proponents of medical marijuana, whose goal is to relieve the pain of people suffering from chronic illnesses.

Neither side is wrong. You can’t blame the police for wanting to keep the substance out of the hands of young people and those who aren’t legally entitled to use it. And you have to sympathize with those distributors who are merely trying to help ailing individuals.

What continues to be ironic is that the state law conflicts with federal regulations against the use of marijuana.

So, what’s typical is that the recent response from Washington that was supposed to clarify the situation — didn’t.

In a policy memo from Deputy Attorney General James Cole at the U.S. Justice Department, it was stated that “people who cultivate, sell or distribute marijuana, and those who knowingly facilitate such activities, are in violation of the Controlled Substances Act, regardless of state law.”

Thank you Washington.

Again, it just shows that the state legislature is going to have to clear up the confusion over medical marijuana distribution.

Readers sometimes seem to be a bit confused about the difference between the Sound Off column items and regular letters to the editor.

Both are ways people can express their views but there is one major difference. We require letters to the editor to be signed and we run the name of the home town of the author. Also required is such information as telephone numbers and specific home addresses. We don’t publish the latter information but we do need it for our records.

On the other hand, Sound Off callers don’t have to leave anything but their home town. The anonymity obviously makes these individuals feel more comfortable than those writing letters.

It’s always good when people stand behind their views by allowing us to run their name and home town. But by the same token, we understand the desire of some readers to remain anonymous.

There are some benefits if people wish to sign their letters. They get up to 250 words to express their views while Sound Off callers are allotted only a few sentences.
Also, it’s more likely that the letter will run sooner because we run letters daily while the Sound Off column appears only on Saturdays and Mondays.

You can argue which option to a reader is better — staying anonymous with Sound Off items or writing a letter to the editor. But the bottom line is that we have readers who support each one, so we try to accommodate.

Class reunions are very common this time of the year and so earlier this month we gave a “Thumbs Up” in our Darts and Laurels column to the Pontiac Class of 1951, which observed its 60th class reunion.

It was felt that 60 years is an exceptionally long time for people to maintain such high school relationships, even if they are only renewed briefly every five years.

However, as we found out, the Class of 1951 isn’t the only one that is proud of its longevity.

Thanks to the Darts and Laurels feature, we got a call from Ellen Reynelles of Pontiac, who informed us that her Class of 1936 was going to celebrate its 75th reunion tomorrow (Saturday, July 16) at Ginos Restaurant in Keego Harbor beginning at noon.

She rightfully noted that although the Class of 1951 deserves credit for its 60th reunion, “the class just sounds so young to us in the Class of 1936.”

I can’t argue with that. When Ms. Reynelles class graduated from high school, the Class of 1951 members were just 2 and 3-year-old toddlers.

Ms. Reynelles says the Class of 1936 originally had about 300 members. She says there are 16 members who are known to still be alive and may attend tomorrow’s reunion.
However, after all these years and with their classmates in their early 90s, they have simplified the party.

“We don’t buy green bananas, so no reservations have been made,” Ms. Reynelles says. “We’ll just order from the menu.”

The focus obviously is not on the food but on socialization and camaraderie.
In fact, because all of the class members don’t want to waste time or miss out on keeping up with their high school friends, they’ve changed the reunion format a bit.

“We used to just meet every five years but these later years we’ve decided five years is too long, now we meet every year,” Ms. Reynelles says.

May they continue to meet for many more years.

The Darts and Laurels feature of The Oakland Press is a small column that appears on Saturdays.

But it seems to have some big readership — and we’re glad.

For those of you have haven’t noticed, we run four, one or two sentence items with a “Thumbs Up” or Thumbs Down” icon. As they imply, we’re saying that something is good or bad. It’s a short, brief way to give credit where credit is due or to scold a person or a group that we believe deserves chastising.

The items that draw the judgment were stories that appeared sometime during the past week or occasionally, the week before. They don’t have to be front page stories, any item in the newspaper on any page is fair game for inclusion in this feature.

For example, someone convicted of a crime would, understandably get a “Thumbs Down.” Sometimes we give the negative digit to groups, such as municipal governing bodies that don’t seem to act in the best interest of its citizens. For example, if we had a story on a government unit wasting tax dollars, then it would get an appropriate “Thumbs Down” on Saturday.

More common, however, are the “Thumbs Up.” You’ll easily notice that of the four items presented, usually only one is a “Thumbs Down” while the others are “Thumbs Up.” The positive gesture is given to individuals who have earned special honors or done something outstanding or groups that have similar claims to fame.

We usually don’t hear from readers unless they adamantly disagree with one of our items or if they believe we left someone or a group out that deserves recognition.

On Friday I’ll discuss how one positive item has led to a second, equally positive one because of reader feedback.

I frequently get calls from people wanting to get a letter into “tomorrow’s newspaper.”

Their reasons are legitimate enough. Usually their topic involves some breaking news or something that is happening two days from now and they want to get a one-day jump on it.

While we like to accommodate, most of the time we have to say that we can’t do it.
Although The Oakland Press is a daily newspaper, some pages, such as Opinion Page, must be processed early so that the entire paper meets all of its publishing deadlines.

The Opinion Page is usually laid out two days ahead of time. Some times the pages are put out even earlier. It makes it easier for the copy desk to efficiently process all of the news, features and sports pages.

Admittedly, we occasionally can substitute a last minute editorial and we do make corrections on the next day’s page. But to place a letter on the page would involve literally tearing it down and rebuilding it, a time consuming process that involves several people.

Normally, a letter to the editor doesn’t get published for a week or two, depending upon when it came in and how many letters must get in before it.

But even if there were good reasons to get a letter received one day in the next day’s paper, for logistical reasons, we are forced to decline the request.

I received an email this week from a reader, now an ex-subscriber, who said he was canceling his subscription because he didn’t like an opinion that was published on the Opinion Page.

Now I’m the first to concede that I can’t argue with someone’s opinion, although I don’t have to agree with it.

But it does frustrate me when people use the lame excuse that they don’t like an opinion expressed to cancel the newspaper.

The Opinion Page is just that — a forum for opinions. Our readers have varying and often diametrically opposing views on various subjects. The Opinion Page is intended to be forum for the readers to express their views.

We try to run the opinions as they come in but we can't orchestrate when we get them and what we get. So, sometimes we get letters in favor of a certain issue and none opposing it. That doesn't mean we're taking sides, it only means those are the only views we've received to date. Normally, opposing views are eventually submitted and run in as timely a manner as possible.

Consequently, if any member of a specific group wishes to express an opinion, we'll be glad to publish it, provided they are residents of Oakland County and meet the other, basic requirements, such as the 250 word length, no use of profanity, etc.
Occasionally we will run opinions from people outside the county but because of space limitations, we must restrict the opinions published.

The balance in a newspaper comes in the stories that are on the other pages and how they are written, not on the Opinion Page. The balance on the Opinion Page comes in trying to publish all views in as timely a manner as possible, even if you disagree with the views. Some people seem to forget they are opinions and that's what the page is called - The Opinion Page.

One of America’s basic rights is freedom of speech, which means people have a right to disagree.

If you must cancel your subscription, cancel it because you don’t like the stories that are published or the cost of the publication.

But to cancel the newspaper because you disagree with what one person may have said on the Opinion Page just doesn’t make sense. It’s almost un-American because people are entitled to their opinions.

Please join me online at theoaklandpress.com at 2 p.m. Wednesday, July 6 for a live chat about President Barack Obama’s Twitter Town Hall meeting.

If should be definitely interesting. The President will take questions via Twitter and answer them verbally.

During the meeting you will be able to discuss with me how the town hall session is going. Do you like what he is saying? Do you think he is gaining any more public support, etc.? It will be a very open format on The Oakland Press website. You can chat questions and/or comments. I’ll respond and give you some insights of my own.
The President’s Twitter account has 2.25 million followers. We can’t come close to that, although the Oakland Press does have over 5,300 and I have about 815.
Getting a question through the President will be probably harder than winning the lottery. Your chances are much better with getting a message to a staffer at The Oakland Press — and we’ll appreciate it more!
To join the chat, go online to theoaklandpress.com and click on the news section and look for the story about the President’s Twitter town meeting.

While White House has regularly communicated via Twitter, this is the first Twitter town hall. It may be a big bust but we’re going to look in and follow it and we hope you will too.