By BILL MAXWELL, Scripps Howard News Service

The South, my birthplace and the birthplace of the late Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, always was and still is the most "enigmatic" region of the United States.

skedded

A 15-year-old Guatemalan girl, identified by the initials LFD, was rescued from slavery in Immokalee, Fla., more than a year ago.

If children are the future, then the future for the farm workers in the United States will be filled with perpetual trouble.

The overwhelming majority of migrant and seasonal farm worker children in agricultural states, especially in Florida, are under exceptional stress. Among other problems, they lack adequate housing, health care, nutrition, day care and early education.

Former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick has been conditionally reinstated to the National Football League and signed last week with the Philadelphia Eagles.

A recent New York Times article indicates that nearly four years after August Wilson's death, the black playwright's opposition to whites directing his work sparks as much controversy as ever.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that C.S. Kiang, an environmental scientist, left Georgia Tech and became dean of Peking University's College of Environmental Science. Shiyi Chen, an engineering professor, left Johns Hopkins University and is now the Engineering Institute dean at Peking University.

When I read in the Wall Street Journal that the Men's Dress Furnishings Association, the trade group of U.S. necktie makers, was shutting down, I wanted to celebrate.

Each week, I receive at least one letter or e-mail from a white person asking me to explain why blacks hyphenate their identity, referring to themselves as African-Americans. And each week, I receive a least one correspondence admonishing blacks for bringing up the past.

Many white Americans never understood black America's love affair with Bill and Hillary Clinton. Although the meteoric rise of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama -- the new darling of many blacks, especially the young -- has dampened the Clinton amour, the old affair still has enough fire for a brief examination.