Curious characters in Thunderbird on Linux...

[Kevin Martin <kevintm ameritech net>]

I get strange characters in some emails that I receive in Thunderbird on 
F8.  Things like (I hope this comes thru):

*Uptown Theatre buyer calls city requirements ‘onerous’* 
<http://e.ccialerts.com/a/hBIkMy4AFS8nrB7Q2vpAUpPTuv5/ccb37>

and

Version:Â Â Â  [GA

Any idea why I would be seeing this?  Apparently, when I send the 
recipient's see strange characters such as these as well.  Is it an 
encoding issue, d'ya think?

Kevin