Monday Reading

Ken Fuson: Tipton, Ia. -- The United States is at war, and Kenny Jedlicka has a job to do.

He dresses in his dark blue color guard uniform. He wears his American Legion cap; he's the commander of Post 123. His uniform contains a blue star flag pin, indicating that he had a loved one serving in the Iraq war, and a gold star pin, indicating that the loved one had been killed in action.

Charlie LeDuff: DETROIT -- Her real name was Tamara Greene, an arresting, thick-bodied stripper known as Strawberry. By now her death is the stuff of Detroit legend, a whodunit of sex and politics and power.

The most incredible plot is a simple one: She is said to have danced at a party at the mayor's mansion and was executed because she knew too much.

The party, of course, has never been proven, and the facts about Greene, as told by investigators, friends and family members,reveal something far less sinister. A portrait emerges of a woman who ran with bad men and died with two black eyes.