Stephen Colbert’s fantasy comes to life… Second Life.
Category: politics
All things political, great and small.
Local political information
Much to my chagrin, I am missing Chapel Hill’s kick-ass annual Martin Luther King day protest, but I have a good reason: I am attending a national “working meeting” on local political information on the Internet organized by the Sunlight Foundation and Berkman Center at Harvard Law School.
Last night we enjoyed dinner and a brief-but-illuminating talk by Dave Weinberger. I hope to get a chance to post more thoughts later, but meanwhile you can read other bloggers’ coverage via the tag BerkmanSunlight. (Why they held this meeting on a holiday – not to mention such an important one at the local community level – I do not understand.)
Now, back to paying attention!
Remember
As Brian said:
America is so lucky to have had a human like Dr. Martin Luther King born among us. His work reaches way into the future and teaches us still. I’m confident many many future generations will benefit from his work.
When I listen to his speech Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence I want to cry. Not because of the horrors that he speaks against but because of the beauty of his soul. Dr. King was RIGHT! WAR IS WRONG!
Please read a transcript or listen to his Beyond Vietnam speech. It could so easily be said today and be called Beyond Iraq.
– Beyond Iraq: King is right! at Yesh.com
We best honor the man by remembering his words and actions so that we may continue the struggle that he brought to the forefront of the American psyche. Volunteer if you like, but King’s legacy is ACTION.
Read or listen here.
Will the real Dr. Martin Luther King please stand up
Photo: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s mugshot from his arrest during the Montgomery bus boycott. Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department, Alabama, 1956. (PRNewsFoto/Eastern State Penitentiary)
I was disgusted to learn that the web site martinlutherking-dot-org is an effort to discredit the man who tried to so hard to heal this nation’s sick, racist soul. Fortunately, bloggers are fighting back! To participate in this effort to Google bomb Dr. King back to reality just copy the text suggested here, and feel free to click on the informative links below as I do the same.
Thanks to Chris Lackey for posting Dr. King’s mugshot, and reminding us of the real, radical leader who was treated like a criminal by US government for protesting its racist policies. One of my favorites of his writing is the Letter from Birmingham Jail in which he explained to a group of well-meaning white religious leaders why we can’t wait. This is the man I will remember on Monday.
Martin Luther King
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Thanks to Greensboro blogger Sean Coon for the heads up about this.
Mark your calendars, it’s time for peace
It’s time for the next big peace march in DC on January 27. With the Democrats now in power, it seems more important than ever to keep this issue on the front burner.
Happy new year
3,000 Americans dead and 22,000 wounded so far in Iraq. (NYTimes) How is it that coverage of this doesn’t even mention the (at least) 52,000 Iraqis killed? (Iraq Body Count) Grrr.
Anyway, my computer was the main jukebox for our annual new years beach trip, so my last.fm charts illustrate our soundtrack:
Edwards ’08. For real.
Brian and I recorded a short video response to John Edwards’ YouTube campaign announcement. It was super-easy to do right from the web camera built into my laptop. Now that I am no longer a video blogging virgin, perhaps I’ll try it again some time.
Here’s one of my recent favorite John Edwards quotations (from his video blog entry “The Plane Truth“):
I’ve come to the personal conclusion that I actually want the country to see who I am, who I really am. But I don’t know what the result of that will be. But for me personally, I’d rather be successful or unsuccessful based on who I really am, not based on some plastic Ken doll that you put up in front of audiences.
If he’s serious about being true to himself before being true to the TV cameras, well, my boots will be a little lighter, but more importantly I could really feel good about working for that campaign.
Black and White
Wow. If I didn’t have a standing meeting on Tuesdays, I would be seriously tempted to take this class. Tim Tyson is one of the most passionate and essential historians of race relations in the South, and we are blessed to have him with us here in North Carolina.
THE SOUTH IN BLACK AND WHITE
Southern History, Culture, and Politics in the 20th CenturyA Course for NCCU, DUKE, UNC Students
& the GENERAL PUBLICJanuary 16 – April 24, 2007
Tuesdays 7:00 – 9:30 PMLOCATION: Hayti Heritage Center
Led by North Carolina’s own TIM TYSON (Blood Done Sign My Name), senior scholar at the Center for Documentary Studies, the course will furnish a wide front porch on Southern history. Weekly lecture, interviews, live music, poetry, dramatic performances, film clips, and opportunities for discussion.
– Duke Center for Documentary Studies: The South in Black and White
Sharing the burden
One of the many reasons that it’s so smart for the Edwards campaign to utilize existing social networking web sites is that they can all collectively handle the load that his personal web site apparently cannot.
The campaign already has groups on MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube as well as his own One Corps site. Which is good because his own blog is not even functioning right now:
After the jump is his campaign announcement on YouTube:
Continue reading “Sharing the burden”
Ug!
I fully understand why JohnEdwards.com is not exactly the most responsive web site at this moment. 😉 But I am a bit concerned about his advertised “live blogging at 11 am CST” (in 2 minutes) when I see this message:
Please stand by…
The One America Committee Blog is down momentarily for a code upgrade. We will be back up in just a few minutes. Thank you for your patience.
By the way, I’ve joined “One Corps.”