Some of our favorite images of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. (with a video on the MLK photos in The National Archives and some shots of the MLK memorial)

By Jack Brummet, History Editor

If you run a Google/Bing/Yahoo search on Martin Luther King, Jr. images you come up with millions of hits.  Of these, there is a core group of about fifty or so that are ubiquitous.   Here are some of our favorite photos of MLK, along with some of the many hundreds of postage stamps created in his honor; a couple of shots of the MLK memorial in Washington, D.C.; and a short video on the National Archives holdings of MLK photographs.

Click images to zoom/enlarge

Two uneasy partners:  Martin with his frenemy; President Lyndon Baines Johnson

 One more shot of LBJ/MLK

I have never been able to find out more about this photo. I don't 

really know if Martin knew his way around a pool table or not...

What if?

Jesse Jackson, Joan Baez, Ira Sandperl, and MLK.  This shot was taken at a 1964 free speech event.

Bayard Rustin with Martin

MLK with Coretta

The "I Have A Dream" Speech

 Speech in Washington, 1963

 MLK with Malcolm X

Some selected MLK postage stamps:

 

Photos of the Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington, D.C.:

 A background video on the photographs of MLK, Jr in The National Archives:

 

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The last rites of Bokononism

By Jack Brummet, Literature Editor
I am reading Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s Cat's Cradle for the first time since high school.  Vonnegut's early books are fascinating.  Without going into a long-winded explanation of the book, I wanted to point out one short section.  One focus of the book is the religion of Bokononism in the impoverished and strange country of San Lorenzo.  I was really struck by the Bokononist Last Rites.  What a sweet and touching prayer to say as you are about to pass over. 

The Last Rites of the Bokononism
(Each line is said once by the person giving the rites and then repeated by the dying person.)

God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars."
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.
I will go to heaven now.
I can hardly wait...
To find out for certain what my wampeter was...
And who was in my karass...
And all the good things our karass did for you.
Amen.

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Video: Bobby Bare Jr. and Sr. perform their Grammy winning his "Daddy What If" (with lyrics)

I saw Bobby Bare, Jr. last Friday in Ballard (click here to read the story). This is a video and song he did with his poppa, Bobby Bare, some thirty years earlier. Wow.

Daddy What If

By Bobby Bare

(Daddy what if the sun stop shinin' what would happen then)
If the sun stopped shinin' you'd be so surprised
You'd stare at the heavens with wide open eyes
And the wind would carry your light to the skies
And the sun would start shinin' again
(Daddy what if the wind stopped blowin' what would happen then)
If the wind stopped blowin' then the land would be dry
And your boat wouldn't sail son and your kite wouldn't fly
And the grass would see your troubles and she'd tell the wind
And the wind would start blowin' again
(But daddy what if the grass stopped growin' what would happen then)
If the grass stopped growin' why you'd probably cry
And the ground would be watered by the tears from your eyes
And like your love for me the grass would grow so high
Yes the grass would start growin' again
(But daddy what if I stopped lovin' you what would happen then)
If you stopped lovin' me then the grass would stop growin'
The sun would stop shinin' and the wind would stop blowin'
So you see if you wanna keep this old world a goin'
You better start lovin' me again again you better start lovin' me again
You hear me Bobby you better start lovin' me again
You love me Bobby you better start lovin' me again
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A passel of quotes of the day

Sex is like a game of bridge - if you don’t have a good partner, you’d better have a good hand.
- Mae West

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
- Congressman, Senator, and President John F. Kennedy

Always run from a knife and rush a gun.
- Jimmy Hoffa

This life's dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye.
-William Blake

Kinky is using a feather. Perverted is using the whole chicken.
- Author Unknown

It was a pleasant café, warm and clean and friendly, and I hung up my old waterproof on the coat rack to dry and put my worn and weathered felt hat on the rack above the bench and ordered a café au lait. The waiter brought it and I took out a notebook from the pocket of the coat and a pencil and started to write.
-Ernest Hemingway

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.
- Leonard Cohen

Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of definition.
- Eli Khamarov

It is the job of poetry to clean up our word-clogged reality by creating silences around things. ~Stephen Mallarme

Anybody who believes that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach flunked geography. ~Robert Byrne

No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
-Abraham Lincoln

There is nothing wrong with going to bed with someone of your own sex. People should be very free with sex, they should draw the line at goats.
- Elton John
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Correction: "Does Al Gore Use Twenty Times More Energy Than The Average U.S. Household?" Misstated An Obvious fact

When I posted Does Al Gore Use Twenty Times More Energy Than The Average U.S. Household? on Tuesday, I characterized The Tennessee Center for Policy research as "an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization." Right.

Jeff, a/k/a Dogbowl, a friend, and astute political analyst wrote—without even looking it up—that this was clearly a hit piece. He was, of course, right. They may be nonprofit, but they are indeed partisan—something my defective BS detector should have picked up. They are known for stirring up trouble with the left. The timing alone should have rung my bells.

I stand corrected.

Ed Begley and long time friend Bill Clinton - click to enlarge

That being said, I still have some doubts about people buying green offsets to make everything right. Yeah, I get how it works, but I still have to wonder if it wouldn't be better not to use the energy in the first place.

As a former poor kid, I have a knee-jerk reaction to rich people buying their way out of the various pickles they create. Do you remember from your history of the middle ages how people would pay for "sin-eaters" to erase their sins? Or how at various points and places in history, people were able to buy their way out of military service by paying a poor kid's family to send him in their stead? This has that same sort of vibe for me.

Yes, I get how it works, and how buying offsets helps a great deal. On the other hand, I have to totally admire the likes of Ed Begley, Jr.— about as green as you can be without living in a tent—who has to hop on his electricity generating stationary bicycle and ride a few minutes whenever he wants to make a couple pieces of toast!

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