If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Yesterday, homeowners who have been royally screwed over by big Wall Street banks risked not only arrest but worse in demonstrations at the Department of Justice demanding that they start prosecuting bankers rather than the people ripped off by them.
Tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of the first publication of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail."
On this 50th anniversary of the Birmingham Children's Crusade it is a time to remember, honor, and follow the example of the children who were frontline soldiers and transforming catalysts in America's greatest moral movement of the 20th century.
The bill -- passed by the Florida legislature and now awaiting the signature of Governor Rick Scott -- would expedite the death penalty process in the Sunshine state.
The world does not get better by accident. It gets better because there are champions who insist on change, who pursue change, and who effect change.
After a long span of increasingly airless personal drama, followed by last week's intrusion of a major historical tragedy, the show got back to its advertising roots with a vengeance. In fact, the show may have re-booted itself, as it did at the end of Season 3. For once again, the old Sterling Cooper etc. is no more.
The Flood is a good episode of Mad Men, especially in a Season 6 off to an uneven start. It came at a good time, too, reassuring that our characters are not all irretrievably stuck in tedious personal melodramas. That, actually, they can be very appealing people.
Clearly, violence is also not the answer, neither on the government's part nor on the part of disgruntled citizens. Violence only leads to more violence. So where does this leave us?
Tragedy forces people to take a hard look at what they value and why; it stops everything and compels people to think about what rules matter, what they want and where they're going. You know it's a world gone terribly awry when Pete Campbell seems like a good guy.
Will Mad Men regain the acclaim that made it the best drama on television? Based on the response to To Have and To Hold, so far the answer would have to be no.
A giant portrait of Frederick Douglass stared down at the audience of about three hundred high school students who gathered in the Hofstra University student center to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.
If you want to learn from the world's great orators and become a more compelling, memorable writer and speaker, Joe Romm's "Language Intelligence: Lessons on Persuasion From Jesus, Shakesphere, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga" is the place to start.
I watched the clips from Boston, the people rushing in, tearing down the fencing to help the injured, at their own peril, not knowing if there would be further explosions. As Joan Chittister wrote, "In the end, the sight of goodness undeterred has more power than all the forces on earth arrayed against it."
In his cell, fifty years ago this week, Dr. King wrote what became known as the manifesto of the civil rights movement, the "Letter from Birmingham Jail," in which he set forth his views on justice and nonviolence and challenged the consciences not just of his addressees but of the world
Martin Luther King transformed the local criticism of eight clergymen into a national response for the movement. His "Letter From Birmingham Jail" is probably the most important document written during the Civil Rights Movement.
