I found out it had something to do with my wordpress theme, called Weaver Theme.  They have a shortcode you use to enclose php code and somehow that was the issue or it wasn’t functioning properly.  I switched over to using a plugin called “allow php in posts and pages” and pasted the exact same code in and now it works fine now.    Looks like the issue is solved. 

One other question I had, is there a way to remove the bullets before each topic line?

what bullets?  what topic line?  link please… it will come down to css from your theme…

Robert Lawrence said
One other question I had, is there a way to remove the bullets before each topic line?

Did you try &listTags=0? Add that to the line and it will use a Div. That may take care of it.

How do I make the output appear in two columns?  Is there an easy way to wrap the code in a CSS class so I can style it? 

Probably – but I would need to see it for myself and look at the code you are using to tell.

Robert Lawrence said
How do I make the output appear in two columns?  Is there an easy way to wrap the code in a CSS class so I can style it? 

Here is a nice little article on creating 2 or more columns in ul that may help.

http://csswizardry.com/2010/02/mutiple-column-lists-using-one-ul/