Opinion

In olden times King Midas of Phrygia made the mistake of preferring the music made by the god Pan, playing reed pipes, to that of Apollo on the lyre. Big mistake. Apollo changed Midas’s ears to those of an ass (a comment on his taste, no doubt), so the king was forced to wear his hat pulled down over his ears, and no one knew except his barber, who was sworn to secrecy. After a while the secret got to be too much for the barber, so he went down to the river and whispered it into a hole in the bank to relieve himself. But reeds grew on the spot where the barber had deposited his secret, and as the wind blew through them they whispered the secret again and again: Midas has ass’s ears, Midas has ass’s ears, Midas has ass’s ears. -more-

BOSTON — The air inside St. Paul’s Church next to Boston Common was sultry on Monday, laden with east coast humidity and heat from national progressive politics. United States Rep. Dennis Kucinich from Ohio and several featured speakers including Reverend Jesse Jackson, James Zogby, President of the Arab-American Institute, Margaret Prescod of Pacifica’s KPFK and co-coordinator of the Global Women’s Strike and actors Mimi Kennedy and James Cromwell kicked off four days of political dialogue. -more-