Week of Feb. 26, 2007

Just when we thought the news couldn’t get any weirder, we learned this week, via The Daily News, that Mr. Sharpton’s great-grandfather was a slave who was owned by relatives of Senator Strom Thurmond, the longtime archsegregationist who ran for president as a Dixiecrat in 1948....

The other night Reverend Sharpton flew into Miami to attend a conference. At the airport someone asked for his autograph.

“It was the first time in my life that I thought about why my name is Sharpton,” he said. “I mean this whole thing is as personal as why your name is what it is. You’re named after someone who owned your great-grandparents.”

ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay, Feb. 24 — No political party currently in power anywhere in the world has governed longer than the Colorado Party here, not even the Kim family’s Communist dynasty in North Korea. But a charismatic Roman Catholic bishop recently suspended by the Vatican is threatening that hegemony and has emerged as the front-runner for next year’s presidential election.

Brace yourself. James Cameron, the man who brought you Titanic is back with another blockbuster. This time, the ship he's sinking is Christianity.

Bush hasn't seen majority approval in more than two years — the longest run without majority support for any president since Harry Truman from 1950-53.

Europe’s 50th birthday is fast approaching but nobody can agree what to write on the card.