January 17, 2011 – 11:53 am
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I've been to the mountaintop" speech, Memphis, April 3, 1968
Just a few days ago,
Jeh C. Johnson,
general counsel for the Department of Defense, gave a speech at the Pentagon in recognition of Martin Luther King Day. Toward the end of his talk, Johnson mused about what the non-violent preacher, a man who railed ceaselessly against the Vietnam War, would feel about our ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were he alive today.
It is hard to imagine a more wrong-headed analysis of Rev. King’s philosophy of non-violence. After correctly noting King’s unwavering stand against the Vietnam War, Johnson loses his way. Quoting from the “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech given the day before King was assassinated, Johnson mistakenly likens King’s reference to the compassionate aid of the Good Samaritan to the Shock and Awe of a mighty armed force. He equates giving aid to waging war.
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January 15, 2011 – 7:02 pm
I have posted about this long out-of-print album here, here, here, and here.
Finally, a commenter has noted that the entire album is available for listening and downloading online.
Enjoy.
January 11, 2011 – 11:55 pm
Recently, NewSouth Books announced the publication of a new version of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. Bowdlerized by Auburn University’s Dr. Alan Gribben, Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, is described by NewSouth thusly:
In a radical departure from standard editions, Twain’s most famous novels are published here as the continuous narrative that the author originally envisioned. More controversial will be the decision by the editor, noted Mark Twain scholar Alan Gribben, to eliminate the pejorative racial labels that Twain employed in his effort to write realistically about social attitudes of the 1840s.
Not surprisingly, Professor Gribben’s decision to replace the word nigger with slave has engendered controversy.
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December 21, 2010 – 2:36 pm
Albert's Place dressed up for the movies
Bert James is a huge, bearded man who can build, drive, or fix anything. When I arrived at his place five miles north of I-90 near Kingston, Idaho, I expected to and did see him astride one of him many machines. We first met when he approached me in 1994 during the filming of
Heartwood and offered to help.
“What can you do?” I asked him.
“Anything,” he responded…and I discovered it was no lie. Read More »
December 19, 2010 – 4:12 pm
Clarno palisades
After
Crater Lake, only 33 miles in circumference, was circumnavigated, we crossed the
Pumice Desert (a patch of treeless scratch less than a half-mile across) and flew north toward the belly of Oregon. Long, rolling rise-and-falls, seer-suckered by sagebrush, scruff and cattle, persevered on US 97 until we took the small road at
Madras, drawn eastward by a tiny brown square on our AAA map labeled Clarno Unit of the
John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. We had purchased a Golden Eagle year-long National Parks pass at Lassen,
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December 18, 2010 – 9:13 pm
“Continental Breakfast Served” is written on the doorposts of my motel room, so I venture down at 8 a.m. to sample their cuisine. Two styros of hot dark coffee substance and three ping pong ball-sized poppy seed muffins later, I am back in Room #244 embracing my belly wondering whether liquid poison or bad baking will undo me.
A half-hour further, as I load up the wagons in preparation for our journey northward toward the Oregon Trail, I notice a glistening, reddish smear Read More »
December 17, 2010 – 4:02 pm
“If you want to hike to the peak, you’d best do that this morning,” Ranger Ilene cautioned at the entrance gate. Dry lightning had recently set fires across four counties, and we could see two plumes graying the horizon of blue sky to the west. Her electro-shock warning encouraged us to choose Lassen National Park‘s pamphlet-assisted Bumpass Hell Trail to a 100-meter bowl of bubbling fumaroles—gray clay molten plopping sulfur steam—and circular ponds of green-gray water, bubblescum-coated and Venusian under the low cloud cover. Read More »
December 12, 2010 – 12:12 am
Now, as at the end of every calendar year, we are besieged by charities asking for support. Incoming mail brims with urgent and passionate pleas. Your phone will ring at dinner time. Even with a “Do Not Call” prohibition installed on your phone number, you can still expect calls from non-profits you have previously supported (and from scofflaw telemarketers calling from Canada). How do you decide which charities to support?
There is a website devoted to answering this question: Charity Navigator.
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December 11, 2010 – 10:14 pm
So that the world’s level of good humor may be raised, Violet Charles, my cartoonist/illustrator daughter, has inaugurated the Bridget over troubled Waters comic strip.
For all the panels, go to the Bridget over troubled Waters website.
October 29, 2010 – 1:39 pm
My daughter recently put her 13-year-old cat down. Her post about it was heartfelt and touching. Today Lee Geiger, a chum from my Wall Street days, wrote about saying farewell to his dog. I reprint his goodbye below.
* * * * *
This is not a good day. The Fat Guy is driving me to the vet. At least he brought treats. The Pretty Blonde brought tissues. She’s got tears in her eyes. I wonder what for?
I feel old. My hips are killing me. I can barely stand up and walk anymore. My nose is shot. I can’t smell any difference between the kitchen and the backyard. Glaucoma’s nearly blinded me, and I haven’t heard anything since the last Super Bowl. At least The Pretty Blonde Read More »
