Martin Luther King, Jr.

Rev. Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

Today we honor, Martin Luther King, Jr. who was the voice of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1950's and 1960's.

Had Dr. King not been assassinated by the United States Government he would've been 83 years old yesterday.

He was the youngest person to ever receive the Nobel Peace Prize and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and Congressional Gold Medal in 2004 years after his 1964 death.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day has been established as a U.S. national holiday since 1986. He is the only United State Civilian of any color, race or creed to have his own Federal National Holiday.

"I Have a Dream Speech" (in entirety)

"I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."¹

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."2

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

MLK Day.gov Official U.S. Site

Civil Rights Museum Official Site

MLK National Historic Site

The King Center

For Our Returning Iraqi Vets

The War is Over - Happy Christmas

Defending the History Channel

From Bad Archeology News Article

"I find it incredible and frightening that a worldwide distributed television channel that bills itself as ‘The History Channel’ can broadcast such rubbish as Ancient Aliens....it is the implied authority of the channel (‘The History Channel’, not just any old ‘History Channel’) that makes the broadcast of this series so potentially damaging.... A channel that is making claims for its authoritative status, which offers educational resources, has a responsibility not to mislead its viewers (no doubt its executives think of them as ‘customers’). That responsibility is one that all makers and broadcasters of supposedly factual television have, but one that few of them take seriously: the responsibility to check facts."

We don't know where to begin with this because we're way more open minded than this anonymous blogger at Bad Archeology.

They are not just lamenting the fact that the History Channel even exists, he/she is very upset at The Ancient Astronaut Theory itself and all of the "customers" that watch the show "Ancient Aliens."

Let's begin.

The History Channel is a Television Network not an accredited course in history. It is there first and foremost to make money for the network and it's investors. So...what do you really expect? It's a money making enterprise not a teaching course.

On this note, we have news for this person. The Learning Channel doesn't teach anything either nor does The Discovery Channel actually discover things or even showcase things that have been discovered. MTV doesn't play music and Bravo! has nothing to do with theater or the stage of any kind.

Moving on to the Ancient Astronaut Theory (AA).

As far as we are concerned, this theory is a valid one for a number of reasons not the least of which is this: the Earth's age. By conventional standards, our planet is at least 4 billion years old. That is long enough to have had numerous visitations by other planetary life forms over and over again long before homo sapiens became a blip on its radar and long afterwards, too.

The main reason this AA theory pisses off so many accredited archaeologists is 1) there aren't any alien skeletons or advanced technology laying around as smoking guns 2) it irks them to no end that the world's monuments are supposedly alien made instead of designed and built by plain old human ingenuity.

This second reasoning is a main misconception by mostly everyone and the ultimate reason that mainstream society and science dismisses the AA theory. No one really wants to believe that these engineering miracles and genius monuments aren't man made.

The sad fact is though, and we'd argue to the author of the BA report, is that the evidence of ancient alien visitation is all over the world, right in front of your eyes. It's truly a case of not being able to see the forest for the trees.

AND, we might add, it's an insult to every culture and every civilization on the planet to summarily dismiss the written words, star traditions and oral legacies left by our ancestors.

For the main streamers, even the Bible implicitly states that life here began out there. God himself, is not an Earthling. He is an Extra terrestrial.

Most religions, and by most we mean EVERY SINGLE ONE ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH, state that everything we are, everything we have and all of our cultural laws and society were given to us by the gods. Gods not from Earth but from the heavens.

We are not going to ignore all of this because today's society poo-poos it and we are not going to cave in to ignorance and arrogance because most people cannot fathom these facts.

The author of the BA report cannot distinguish fact from stereotypical AA reporting. They dismiss all of it because in their mind, there is no smoking AA gun nor is there any refutable proof that monuments such as the Great Pyramid were built by anyone other than humans.

However, the facts are this:

* There are monolithic structures throughout the planet that defy our modern day engineering skills.

* Cultures and religions every where on Earth, to this day, outright worship Gods in "Heaven", the sky, the stars and other planets.

* "Smoking Gun" advanced technology in antiquity DOES exist, if you can open your eyes and see it for what it is. "Ancient Aliens" is merely showcasing these examples and asking questions. Cases in point:

- The Antikythera Mechanism

This was raised from the seas of Greece in 1901

It's an ancient "computer"

Wiki Article on Antikythera Mechanism

- The relief at Abydos depicting submarine and helicopter in ancient Egypt. These are written off by the main stream. They've "debunked" it by saying that some of the original carvings have fallen away leaving what looks to be a helicopter, a submarine and a blimp, etc...True, it looks as if some of the wall is chipping but come on! It chipped in such a precise way to expose these things in exact detail. It boggles the mind.

Even when its right in front of their eyes they refuse to see it for what it is.

How much advanced technology do you see in this one 5,000 year old carving?

Wiki Article on Abydos

* There is even evidence of ancient nuclear warfare in Libya, North America, The Sinai Peninsula, India and Scotland. This evidence includes, written legends, vitrified glass and high radioactive signatures not to mention abandoned cities thousands of years old.

Vitrified remains of ancient ruin in Death Valley, CA

The author of the article gives 6 examples of archaeological sites and why he's upset with the "Ancient Aliens" show's portrayal of them.

Let's discuss the first one.

Here is the quote:

"The Nazca Lines are one of von Däniken’s favourite bits of evidence, so it’s little wonder they show up here. Situated in southern Perú, they consist of lines, geometric shapes and animal representations etched into the surface of the desert by the simple expedient of removing the oxidised pebbles on its surface to reveal the contrasting colour of the sand beneath. The designs are thus shallow, on average only 0.15 m (5.9 inches) deep. The History Channel’s website repeats the claim first put forward by Erich von Däniken that “the lines served as runways” for the gods’ spaceships; this conveniently ignores the fact that anything with any weight, such as a spaceship, landing on the plain would disturb the pebble surface and reveal the lighter sand underneath, thus creating new lines and effacing any designs it might pass over. This has clearly not happened. The lines – whatever their origin – can never have been used as runways."

The mysteries of the Nazca plain extend far beyond the lines there. But we'll start with the lines themselves. Van Daniken actually raises the question of them being runways. He does not definitively say they were runways. They are described as runway-esque so to speak.

Basically, the archaeologist is right in this case. The weight of alien spacecraft, not to mention any exhaust or engine output, would have destroyed these carefully scraped artworks and comprised the plains themselves.

HOWEVER, one of the most intriguing mysteries of Nazca plain are not the lines but the very mountains themselves. Van Daniken, as far as we know, was the first person to point out that some of these mountains surrounding the plain have been leveled from the very top. We mean completely sheared off.


You can see in the picture, that the mountain in the forefront is completely leveled and smoothed out. There isn't any rubble at the base of the mountain either.

Also, you can clearly see that is NOT a natural formation. Every other mountain is peaked or sloping...like normal. And in the distance you can see other sheared off mountains, particularly a very long narrow one.

How and why this was done remains a mystery. Yet the guys and gals at Bad Archeology will laugh you off if you suggest it was made by aliens or even an ancient unknown human civilization.

Why such a vehement response? They weren't the ones that sheared it off. Why so defensive? Ok. We know that one. It's the very same reason we are writing this in defense...It's our passion and belief.

We truly do not believe we are alone or ever were. We feel it deep inside our hearts and minds that - to quote Hamlet - "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." And to quote Hamlet again "To thine own selves be true." We just feel it.

The show "Ancient Aliens" does a fantastic job of showcasing archaeological sites and is a great History Channel show because of this alone. They are presenting alternative theories that are welcome to the open minded and obviously irritating to anyone else.

Kudos to Eric Van Daniken, Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, Phillip Coppens, the GREAT David Hatcher Childress, Robert Bauval, Graham Hancock, George Noory, John Anthony West, William Bramley and all the pioneers in this field, as well as The History Channel for airing it.

Someday History will prove you all right.

AA site at History Channel.com

World Heritage Sites in Grave Danger

The World's Heritage Sites are in grave structural danger.

Notably, India's Taj Mahal and China's Great Wall, two of the most iconic and well traveled tourist sites on Earth.

It was reported last month that the Taj Mahal could COLLAPSE within just FIVE years due to a rotting wooden structural beams.


"...believe the foundations have become brittle and are disintegrating.

Cracks appeared last year in parts of the tomb, and the four minarets which surround the monument are showing signs of tilting."

That's right, the 358 year old tomb is already cracking and tilting. The Taj was built near the Yamuna river, which has now run dry due to overpopulation, over building and deforestation. The foundation beams have been exposed and are now dry and brittle. Experts fear that if the foundation isn't shored up immediately the entire thing is going to collapse upon itself into a heap of rubble.

Astonishingly, NO ONE has been permitted to explore the foundations of the building for over 30 years. So for THREE DECADES, there hasn't been any maintenance at all in an age and era when maintenance would have to be a constant job at all times. It's no wonder the thing is going to perish. So sad.

This article has caused an uproar in India and inquiries are now underway to determine the exact state of the monument.

You can read more about this here: Taj Mahal News Article

Omni Report: Taj Mahal - August 2009

The Great Wall of China is falling victim to both legal and illegal mining operations which are undermining the foundation in various spots of its vast length.

Experts are warning that the Wall is crumbling away in sections. Since some of the mining is legal with permits to boot, conservationists can do nothing but sit and watch the ancient monument disintegrate before their eyes.


Green Diary reported back in 2007 that the Wall was suffering from great dust storms caused by over erosion and soil degradation from over farming - exactly the conditions that caused the American dust bowl in the 1930's - as well as over tourism.

These monuments are gargantuan and yet as delicate as flowers. Although they are protected as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, they are at the mercy of local governments, the environment itself, natives and hordes of tourists.

You can read more here: Great Wall News Article

Green Diary article

Omni Report: Great Wall - January 2010

Occupy Wall Street

Occupy Wall St.org

Occupy Philly.org

October 15.net

Suze Orman's Approval

Jesse Jackson Reminds us of Dr. King's Message - "Don't Sleep Through the Revolution"

The 7 Snappy Comebacks to Anti-Occupy Talking Points

The Price is ALWAYS Right

This Price will NEVER be wrong

Ummm...this one too!

We've been a fan of The Price is Right since we were kids pretending to be sick to play hookey for a day. The show is as popular as ever and is celebrating 40 years on the air.

40 years. That's right. The shows newest season started yesterday 9/19/11 and is a year long celebration of it's 40th year.

And the best news...? There's going to be a Celebrity Week in January featuring, among others to be announced, Snoop Dogg, Jenny McCarthy and Neil Patrick Harris.

Wednesday, September 28 is a MAJOR LANDMARK. The shows 7500th episode will air including a presentation of all the most hilarious memories from the last 40. And we're sure the clip will air where the woman's tube top falls down, she doesn't know and tries to bid to Bob Barker with her boobies hanging out. The original wardrobe clothing malfunction!

If we could do only one thing, just one thing...it would be to spin the Price is Right Wheel. We are dying to do that.

Drew Carey is a GREAT host. Sure, Bob Barker is a legend, but when you watch Drew you can understand how old and frail Bob was toward the end. Drew lets the contestants manhandle him when they run up on stage and hug him. It's great. We think he's an awesome host.



Everyone loves Plinko and so do we, but we have a love for the Cliffhanger too!

Oh and did we mention the models? They're worth watching too!

Congrats to everyones favorite pricing game.

To another 40!

Save The Poe House

The Edgar Allen Poe Museum in Baltimore is in danger of closing due to lack of funds.

City budget cutbacks have put the museum on the chopping block unless someone - a corporation - a sponsor - wealthy philanthropist - ANYONE - can step in and fund it.

The city actually axed the $85,000 a year budget two years ago and since the museum has existed on public funding. That isn't enough and so they will have to close soon if a solution isn't found.

The building is a historical landmark and will be preserved regardless of a functioning museum - however it would just sit there boarded up.

This place can't close," Jeff Jerome, museum curator, said as he stood in the museum's lobby, formerly Poe's parlor. "It would be an embarrassment to the city to have thousands of people come to the city to see a boarded-up house."

News Article

Machu Picchu 100th Anniversary Celebrations

Hiram Bingham's discovery of the lost Incan city of Machu Picchu was celebrated by the entire country of Peru yesterday. The famed explorer came upon the city through locals on July 25, 1911 and the world has been captivated ever since.

The Peruvian government held a HUGE celebration to mark the anniversary of the discovery, lighting up the ancient city with laser lights and hosting fireworks in the capital city of Cuzco.

The Inca ceremony Tinkay is performed during the
centennial celebrations of the city's discovery

Tourists watch fireworks explode as the
celebrations get under way at the main square in Cuzco

The Dictionary You've All Been Waiting For!

Relief from the N.W. palace of Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 B.C.)
showing anointing of the Tree of Life.
A winged god holds what appears to be a pinecone and a
pot with the anointing oil.
Above the Tree of Life is the royal signet of the god Ashur.
The god Ashur is depicted as a man with a bow inside a winged solar disk or as a winged solar disk.

Finally! After 90 years, plus or minus a few thousand, scholars have released a full Assyrian dictionary for all of us to enjoy.

Now you can research the language, learn it and read for yourself the "Epic of Gilgamesh" in it's original Babylonian/Assyrian glory.

Sick and tired of having to read someone else's translations of Hammurabi's famous Code? Rejoice! Now you can decipher it yourself.

Okay, we're being sarcastic for no obvious reason. We're actually very happy that this ancient language is being highlighted.

"This was the language that Sargon the Great, king of Akkad in the 24th century B.C., spoke to command what is reputed to be the world’s first empire, and that Hammurabi used around 1700 B.C. to proclaim the first known code of laws. It was the vocabulary of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the first masterpiece of world literature. Nebuchadnezzar II presumably called on these words to soothe his wife, homesick for her native land, with the promise of cultivating the wondrous Hanging Gardens of Babylon."

Kudos the researchers who struggled for so long to compile this unbelievable dictionary and give us a glimpse into the past.

As "student's of history" we revel in this kind of thing.

The Assyrians are from the Mesopotamian region (Iraq/Iran) and came right after the Sumerians, from whom all things we consider to be civilized were handed down "from the gods".

Hammurabi's Code is considered to the world's oldest law book and gives such commands as not stealing from a widow and criminal prosecution for those who steal livestock. Among many, many others.

New York Times Article

The March on Blair Mountain - A Must Read!

ATTENTION ACTIVISTS!!

We are going to reprint this blog in it's entirety from the Huffington Post blog by Robert Kennedy, Jr.

It's SUPER CRITICAL!!

This week an important protest is taking place in the coalfields of West Virginia. The March on Blair Mountain began on Monday as several hundred people embarked on a five-day journey retracing the steps of over 10,000 miners who 90 years ago staged the largest armed insurrection after the American Civil War. Today's march is a protest against both the attack of the union movement in America and the demolition of the Appalachian mountains.

For over 50 years, American unions have served to counterbalance the ascendancy of unsheathed corporate power that threatens now to overwhelm American Democracy. In the past year, the union movement's final redoubt -- the public service unions -- have been vilified and emasculated in traditional union states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa.

Now one of the biggest union busters in American history, Massey Energy, is launching a final assault on the icon of America's union movement, Blair Mountain.

Blair Mountain's storied history dates back to West Virginia in the 1920s, when the entire state was a company town. Big Coal dominated every aspect of economic life. The industry owned the shops, the homes, of course the mines -- and made sure there was virtually no other source of employment in the state. Working conditions were horrendous: men and their sons worked 12 to 16 grueling hours in dark, dangerous mines dying from a notorious plague of subsurface explosions, cave-ins and black lung.

The companies used local sheriffs to enforce their system of feudal serfdom. When a miner was injured and his family needed to be evicted from their home, the sheriff did the dirty deed. When union organizers appeared, the sheriff arrested, jailed, and routinely beat them, before escorting them to the county line. One sheriff refused to tow the company line: Sid Hatfield, of Hatfield and McCoy lore.

Not only did Hatfield refuse to do the industry's bidding, but he jailed mine operators for mistreating their workers. In the infamous Matewan gun battle, Hatfield helped kill seven mine company private investigators who had evicted union families from their homes.

Hatfield was never convicted for the Matewan shootings, but the mine operators took their revenge and on August 1, 1921 when industry thugs executed Hatfield in broad daylight on the McDowell county court-house steps.

Hatfield's assassination triggered one of the biggest labor demonstrations in American history. Ten thousand miners from the coalfields of Kentucky and West Virginia marched for six days, converging on Blair Mountain to confront their industry bosses. They were met by King Coal's powerful army of thugs and mowed down by Gatling guns.

President Warren Harding, a so-called "friend of coal," like most of the leading politicians of the Gilded Age, authorized the U.S. army to drop bombs and poison gas on the marching miners -- the only time in American History when our military deliberately bombed U.S. citizens. These military measures broke the demonstration but outraged the public, and gave vital traction to the United Mine Workers and the American labor movement.

Over the next 60 years unions became the critical counterweight to corporate power and the principal platform for the growth of the American middle class, which gave our Democracy its wealth, prosperity, and sense of justice as a core value.

Now, as the union movement finds itself battered, beleaguered, and under assault by a legion of corporate toadies in state governor's office from every director to chamber of commerce. Tea Party, talk radio, Fox News and the tsunami of corporate money released by the Citizens United case, Massey Energy has recently announced that it intends to blow up Blair Mountain, the Gettysburg of America's union-based Democracy, to mine it for coal.

For the first time in decades, environmentalists including the NRDC, Sierra Club, Waterkeeper Alliance and local groups have declared common cause with unions in staging a six-day march to retrace the steps of the 1921 Blair Mountain miners. The march convenes Saturday morning June 11 with a final climb up Blair Mountain. Marchers hope to save this historic mountain from Massey by securing its status as a historic landmark.

West Virginia is today's epicenter of one of America's greatest civil disobedience movements. More than 200 people have been arrested protesting mountaintop removal coal mining in the past 18 months. The protesters include college students and local West Virginia marines, former miners, housewives, and an 82-year-old grandmother who was arrested in her wheelchair. They are all calling for an end to mountaintop removal, the extreme form of coal mining that has flattened 500 mountains in Appalachia, illegally buried 2,000 miles of streams, destroyed one million acres of forest, and devastated numerous communities, lives, and towns in the region.

Union busting corporations have commoditized not just the workforce, but the historic landscapes of West Virginia, using great machines and dynamite to eliminate mining jobs. While production has more than doubled in 10 years, industry employment is one-tenth of it what was when my father warned me about strip mining as a 14-year-old boy.

It is time for Americans to march in the footsteps of our union ancestors of 90 years ago to protect our jobs, and save our national patriarchy, the purple mountains majesty, the individual rights and community based values that make our country of the envy of free people.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears in the documentary The Last Mountain (www.thelastmountainmovie.com), currently playing in theaters.

The film reveals the devastating effects of mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia and features the dedicated activists who are fighting to make sure all Americans have access to clean air and water.

So what can we do?

CALL YOUR SENATORS, CALL THE WHITE HOUSE, CALL ALL LAWMAKERS and tell them: Blair Mountain, W. VA MUST BE PROTECTED AS AN HISTORIC LANDMARK!

NATIONAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL

FIND YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS

Remembering Kent State - 40th Anniversary of Carnage

Ohio National Guard ready to fire on unarmed American citizens,
that were just college students!

Mary Ann Vecchio, kneeling in anguish over the body
of Jeffrey Miller minutes after he was
shot dead by the Ohio National Guard.

40 years ago today the American tragedy known as the Kent State Massacre was played out.

The Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed COLLEGE STUDENTS firing over 67 rounds in less than 13 seconds. When those 13 seconds were over, 4 students lay dead on the ground, while 9 others were wounded including one student that was paralyzed and remains so to this day.

The national student response was overwhelming with over 4 million kids walking out of their classes to protest on numerous campuses the next day.

The National Guard was called in to quell the supposed student protests of the Nixon Administration, held to task by the kids for invading Cambodia and escalating the war in Vietnam. The Guard was adamant that they fired to save their own lives which were at risk by rioting kids. This we all know now was Bullshit.

"The indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable," President's Commission on Campus Unrest.

After the shots died down, there was general mayhem as you could imagine.

"All those shot were students in good standing at the university. Immediately after the shootings, many angry students were ready to launch an all-out attack on the National Guard. Many faculty members, led by geology professor and faculty marshal Glenn Frank, pleaded with the students to leave the Commons and to not give in to violent escalation, saying:

"I don't care whether you've never listened to anyone before in your lives. I am begging you right now. If you don't disperse right now, they're going to move in, and it can only be a slaughter. Would you please listen to me? Jesus Christ, I don't want to be a part of this...!"

After 20 minutes of speaking, the students left the Commons, as ambulance personnel tended to the wounded, and the Guard left the area. Professor Frank's son, also present that day, said "He absolutely saved my life and hundreds of others"."

Can you imagine the scene? It's one of the worst episodes of American history.



OHIO
By, Neil Young

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are gunning us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.


The four slaughtered students.
TODAY AND ALWAYS WE REMEMBER:
ALLISON, WILLIAM, JEFFREY AND SANDRA
R.I.P.

The Civil War - 150 Years Later

Billy Yank vs. Johnny Reb

The first shots of the Civil War were fired 150 years ago today, April 12, 1861. And they are still being fired, metaphorically, to this day.

The American Civil War was fought in over 10,000 places with over 3 and a half million men, of which half a million died.

The Nation celebrates the 150th anniversary of the war today, not to celebrate the death and misery but to remember and honor those who fought and died for what they believed in. Which ever side that was.

Cannons will re-create the "bombs bursting in air" in the wee hours around Charleston Harbor, recreating the bombardment of Fort Sumter that plunged the nation into the Civil War on April 12, 1861.

A history lesson from Wiki:

"In the presidential election of 1860, the Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, had campaigned against the expansion of slavery beyond the states in which it already existed.

The Republicans were strong advocates of nationalism and in their 1860 platform explicitly denounced threats of disunion as avowals of treason. After a Republican victory, but before the new administration took office on March 4, 1861, seven cotton states declared their secession and joined together to form the Confederate States of America.

Both the outgoing administration of President James Buchanan and the incoming administration rejected the legality of secession, considering it rebellion. The other eight slave states rejected calls for secession at this point.

No country in the world recognized the Confederacy.

Hostilities began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a U.S. military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina.

Lincoln responded by calling for a volunteer army from each state to recapture federal property. This led to declarations of secession by four more slave states. Both sides raised armies as the Union seized control of the border states early in the war and established a naval blockade that virtually ended cotton sales on which the South depended for its wealth, and blocked most imports.

Land warfare in the East was inconclusive in 1861–62, as the Confederacy beat back Union efforts to capture its capital, Richmond, Virginia. In September 1862, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made ending slavery in the South a war goal,and dissuaded the British from intervening.

Confederate commander Robert E. Lee won battles in Virginia, but in 1863 his northward advance was turned back with heavy casualties after the Battle of Gettysburg.

To the west, the Union gained control of the Mississippi River after their capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi, thereby splitting the Confederacy in two.

The Union was able to capitalize on its long-term advantages in men and materiel by 1864 when Ulysses S. Grant fought battles of attrition against Lee, while Union general William Tecumseh Sherman captured Atlanta and marched to the sea.

Confederate resistance ended after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865."

But is the war over? Southern memories (and Northern ones) die hard. The last Civil War veteran died in 1959. That is well within our readers lifetimes. Not THAT long ago.

To this day, the Confederate Flag, long held by Southerners as a symbol of Freedom and Rebellion has been linked synonymously to racism and derision, which is wrong.

To say the South was only fighting to retain slavery is an outright lie and a terrible dishonor to those who fought and served in the Confederacy. To say the North went to war to end slavery is also an outright lie and a disservice to those who served in the Union.

Yes, slavery came into play after the Emancipation Proclamation, but the South went to war to fight for a State's Independent Rights over the Federal Government and the North went to war to end succession and keep the United States United.

And the way things are today, another Civil War could break out in minutes over the exact same thing. Think about it. People are fed up with the government over spending, then budget cutting. They hate the President. Every four years a nice little map is drawn up delineating Democratic states from Republican ones.

The next civil war won't be North vs. South but Red vs. Blue.

So today, stop for a moment and reflect on what is means to be an American. What it REALLY means. Because for 4 very long, very bloody years in the 1860's men fought for and died for what they believed it meant to be an American.

We owe them some thought and respect for that, whether they were right or wrong. It took Fortitude, Courage and Bravery beyond what we can imagine today to walk directly into a line of canon fire because you wanted your state to be free or you wanted your state to have a Federal government.

AND IT TOOK CONVICTION AND HONOR TO KEEP WALKING THAT LINE TO SET OTHER MEN FREE.

How we are still fighting the Civil War today....CNN article

The Triangle Factory Fire

100 years ago today, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory caught fire, killing over 140 young women. Most of the victims were recent immigrant Jewish and Italian women aged sixteen to twenty-three. It is one of the America's landmark disasters. And we should remember those who died.

It happened in New York's famed garment district, which in those days employed women and girls as young as 10 years old...or even younger...for 9 to 12 hour, 6 day shifts.

"On Saturday, March 25, 1911, at 4:45 p.m., near quitting time, a fire broke out on the Triangle Waist Company building's eighth and ninth floors. Factory foremen had locked the exit doors to keep union organizers out and keep workers from taking breaks and stealing scraps of fabric. Other doors only opened inward and were blocked by the stampede of workers struggling to escape. The ladders of the city's fire engines could not reach high enough to save the employees.

As a result, workers burned or jumped to their deaths.

On April 6, 30,000 New Yorkers marched -- and hundreds of thousands more lined the march's route -- to memorialize the fire's victims."

From WIKI
Louis Waldman, later a New York Socialist state assemblyman, described the scene years later:

"A few blocks away, the Asch Building at the corner of Washington Place and Greene Street was ablaze. When we arrived at the scene, the police had thrown up a cordon around the area and the firemen were helplessly fighting the blaze. The eighth, ninth, and tenth stories of the building were now an enormous roaring cornice of flames.

Word had spread through the East Side, by some magic of terror, that the plant of the Triangle Waist Company was on fire and that several hundred workers were trapped. Horrified and helpless, the crowds — I among them — looked up at the burning building, saw girl after girl appear at the reddened windows, pause for a terrified moment, and then leap to the pavement below, to land as mangled, bloody pulp. This went on for what seemed a ghastly eternity. Occasionally a girl who had hesitated too long was licked by pursuing flames and, screaming with clothing and hair ablaze, plunged like a living torch to the street. Life nets held by the firemen were torn by the impact of the falling bodies.

The emotions of the crowd were indescribable. Women were hysterical, scores fainted; men wept as, in paroxysms of frenzy, they hurled themselves against the police lines."

It was outrageous and dangerous conditions that led to these tragic deaths. The overworked girls were kept in ridiculously cramped spaces and in those days there was no OSHA to secure better and safer environments.

New Yorkers and indeed all of America were saddened and horrified by what happened. Those girls did not die in vain though because as a result of that tragedy, people of all walks rallied for change in workplaces everywhere.

"The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers. As a result of the fire, the American Society of Safety Engineers was founded in New York City on October 14, 1911."

CNN Article

HuffPost Blog on whether conditions are any safer.

Rabbi Levine's Blog on Remembering the Fire

GREAT article on the history and lessons learned from the fire.

"Beware the Ides of March"

So said the Seer to Julius Ceasar. And lo and behold on that March 15th day in 44BC Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in front of a crowd of people 23 times right in his own Senate house.

Ozti's New Face

Ozti (pronounced Ertzi), The Ice Man, has been given a new forensic face. According to experts, this is what he really looked liked:

Ozti was discovered by hikers September 19, 1991 when a glacier melt exposed his body. The hikers thought they had come upon a missing hiker or perhaps a murder but then realized the body was far older than that.

Otzi lived 5,300 years ago and is Europe's oldest natural human mummy. To put this in perspective, Otzi lived and died 3,300 years before Christ. He is near perfect condition, except for the body parts that were damaged during exhumation.

He gives an unprecedented glimpse into Copper Age Europeans. The artifacts found with Otzi are AMAZING.

From Wiki:

"Ötzi's clothes were sophisticated. He wore a cloak made of woven grass and a coat, a belt, a pair of leggings, a loincloth and shoes, all made of leather of different skins. He also wore a bearskin cap with a leather chin strap. The shoes were waterproof and wide, seemingly designed for walking across the snow; they were constructed using bearskin for the soles, deer hide for the top panels, and a netting made of tree bark. Soft grass went around the foot and in the shoe and functioned like modern socks. The coat, belt, leggings and loincloth were constructed of vertical strips of leather sewn together with sinew. His belt had a pouch sewn to it that contained a cache of useful items: a scraper, drill, flint flake, bone awl and a dried fungus.

The shoes have since been reproduced by a Czech academic, who said that "because the shoes are actually quite complex, I'm convinced that even 5,300 years ago, people had the equivalent of a cobbler who made shoes for other people".

Other items found with the Iceman were a copper axe with a yew handle, a flint-bladed knife with an ash handle and a quiver of 14 arrows with viburnum and dogwood shafts. Two of the arrows, which were broken, were tipped with flint and had fletching. while the other 12 were unfinished and untipped. The arrows were found in a quiver with what is presumed to be a bow string, an unidentified tool, and an antler tool which might have been used for sharpening arrow points. There was also an unfinished yew longbow that was 72 in long.

In addition, among Ötzi's possessions were berries, two birch bark baskets, and two species of polypore mushrooms with leather strings through them. One of these, the birch fungus, is known to have antibacterial properties, and was likely used for medicinal purposes. The other was a type of tinder fungus, included with part of what appeared to be a complex firestarting kit. The kit featured pieces of over a dozen different plants, in addition to flint and pyrite for creating sparks.

Ötzi's copper axe was of particular interest, as it is the only complete prehistoric axe so far discovered. 24 in. long, the axe's haft was made from yew tree bark, while the handle of the axe was made from yew branch and leather binding. The copper axe blade extended out of the leather binding and was 9.5 cm long. Ötzi lived 5,300 years ago, and humans were not thought to have discovered copper for another 1,000 years, forcing archaeologists to re-date the copper age."



There are all kinds of theories surrounding how Otzi died. He was shot by an arrow that was still lodged in his shoulder when found. Otzi is amazing and has been studied since his discovery.

You can visit the model March 1 through Jan. 15, 2012, at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy which is his museum. The body is kept there permanently in cold storage.


News Link

The Battle of Los Angelos

We're talking about the actual event, not the new sci-fi movie coming out and sadly, not the EXCELLENT Rage Against the Machine album.

Today marks the 69th anniversary of the event known as The Battle of Los Angeles and also The Great Los Angeles Air Raid.

On the night of February 24, 1942 air raid sirens went off and the city of LA was ordered into a blackout. Just three months after Pearl Harbor everyone thought that Japanese planes had been spotted and were on their way to bomb the city.

Los Angeles Times, February 26, 1942 -
This is an actual picture published in the newspaper

"At 3:16 a.m. the 37th Coast Artillery Brigade began firing 12.8-pound anti-aircraft shells into the air at reported aircraft; over 1,400 shells would eventually be fired. Pilots of the 4th Interceptor Command were alerted but their aircraft remained grounded. The artillery fire continued sporadically until 4:14 a.m. The "all clear" was sounded and the blackout order lifted at 7:21 a.m."

What was the United States firing at? It wasn't the Japs. For all these years it's been thought that is was a giant UFO the guns were targeting. And of course as in the Roswell case, the official explanation is that is was "meteorological balloons." Again, those damn weather balloons to the rescue. What a convenient excuse.

George Washington - UPDATED

Washington at prayer

Today marks the 279th Birthday of George Washington, the first American President. George led the Continental Army to victory over British forces winning the Revolutionary War and he also presided over the writing of our Constitution.

Although he was a slave owner, having inherited his first 10 slaves from his father, Augustine, he later grew to oppose slavery. He did not free his slaves in his lifetime and at times shuttled them back and forth from Philadelphia to Virginia. This was to ensure that they would remain in slavery because at that time, in the 1700's, Pennsylvania had a law that any slave was to be set free after six months.

Washington did leave instructions that after his wife Martha died, all his slaves were to be set free. And in time all 124 slaves were freed. Washington is the only President to have done this. The other 7 Presidents that owned slaves in their time did not do so. Apparently the only exception to Washington's slaves is that he set at least one of them free immediately after the Revolutionary War as reward for serving by his side during the conflict.

We've always admired George Washington and the more you learn about him the more interesting it gets. In his youth he did not cut down a cherry tree, that is all myth. He traveled with his older brother Lawrence to Barbados to try and cure Lawrence's tuberculosis, but instead contracted smallpox which left him sterile and unable to have children of his own.

He married Martha Custis on January 6, 1759 at the White House plantation and he raised Martha's two children and eventually her grandchildren. She was a wealthy widow at the time of their marriage. Martha was a Custis by her first marriage and her great-grandaughter, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, married General Robert E. Lee in 1831.

Martha and George Washington held great parties at their Mount Vernon estate, which George inherited when his brother Lawrence passed away. He liked to dance and was considered very good. Washington also was known to play cards, backgammon, and billiards, as well.

It was heavy British taxation that led him to oppose British occupation and led to him convene the Continental Congress. Washington had wealth, power, friends and status which made him an easy candidate to lead at this time. He was nominated to lead the Continental Army by John Adams. His Chief-of-Staff was Alexander Hamilton. A young 19-year old French nobleman sought him out as a father figure and fought hard to be included in the American Revolution. This young fellow wrote numerous letters home to the King of France urging France to help the Americans out. His name was The Marquis de Lafayette and you can visit his headquarters in Valley Forge National Park. The Marquis named his first born son George Washington Lafayette. And when he was buried in France upon his death, there was American soil laid over his grave.

For a while, the Continental Army suffered huge losses. At the battle of Brandywine, on today's Route 202 in PA, for example, the loss was so great, that it left the City of Philadelphia undefended allowing the British Army to move right in where it occupied Philadelphia until June of 1778.

One of Washington's greatest victories (and there were as many victories as losses), was the surprise Christmas Day attack of the Hessian* forces at Trenton, New Jersey in 1776. The Hessians were German mercenary soldiers hired by the British to fight the Continental Army and instill fear and dread into them. Washington took his men in to the frigid dark of night, crossed The Delaware River, the largest river East of the Mississippi, and practically destroyed the Hessians in the midnight attack. Even hired mercenaries never expected a dead-of-night Christmas confrontation.

Washington actually crossed THREE times. The third time he took his men and defeated a brigade of British soldiers under Lord Cornwallis's command at Princeton, New Jersey, known today as the Battle of Princeton on January 2, 1777.

A stained glass window at Washington Memorial Chapel
in Valley Forge, PA, depicting Washington at prayer there

The winter encampment at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777 was critical for George and the army. Washington enlisted a German Baron named Von Steuben to come to the encampment and teach the fledgling army of farmers to fight like soldiers. The Baron Von Steuben conducted daily drills with the men teaching them many maneuvers. At this time, Washington gave The Marquis de Lafayette a field promotion and command of his own division. Note: The Marquis was a gifted military commander, even at such a young age, and his "guerrilla" tactics against the British are astounding.

Read more about the historical victory of American over Britain:
Revolutionary War

After the war, Washington received 100% of the Electoral vote to become President. He won 100% the second time as well, and remains to this day the only person ever nominated to receive all 100% of the votes.

What makes Washington great, is that the country asked him to become a KING. He declined and in doing so set a great precedent of democracy for America. How many people would turn down absolute power? Not in this day and age and not back then either. He was a most remarkable and admirable man.

George Washington died following a short illness on December 14, 1799. He had been inspecting his farms on December 12th in inclement weather and having not changed out of his wet clothes became very sick. Upon his death, Martha burned all of their correspondence to keep them private. Only three letters between the couple remain to this day.

Napoleon declared ten days of mourning for the country of France. Americans were heartbroken and mourned for months.

A funeral was held at Mount Vernon On December 18, 1799, where his body was interred.

UPDATE: It's been "discovered" that George Washington was worth $525 Million dollars in today's figures. He owned 5 productive wheat and tobacco farms and over 8,000 acres in land, plus he made more money than the average President - in 1789, his annual salary was worth two per cent of the entire U.S. budget. The second Pres to come close to that was Thomas Jefferson at just over $200 million (in today's figures).

George Washington

Visit Valley Forge

*The General Wayne Inn is haunted to this day by Hessian soldiers.

Ronnie James Dio: Spectrum Live 1984

In honor of The Spectrum and the Great Ronnie James Dio we are posting all of his YouTube Spectrum footage today.

This is the GREATEST ROCK ANTHEM OF ALL TIME.

Two things to note here:
1) The Title of his special is on this video:
"DIO, A Special from The Spectrum" and
2) At the end, he gives a little speech to Philly about how he loved us and always opened and closed his tours here.

WE LOVE YOU RONNIE! R.I.P. RJD
\m/
MAY YOU REST IN PEACE and MAY GOD BE AS GREAT TO YOU AS YOU WERE TO US!

Our thoughts are with your beloved widow, Wendy and your late cat Jack with whom you were reunited with on the other side...You fucking rock and are the BEST OF ALL TIME!

TURN IT UP AND ENJOY!

Here's "STAND UP AND SHOUT"

You've got desire -So let it out
You've got the fire -Stand up and shout!
You are the strongest chain
And not just some reflection
So never hide again
You are the driver- You own the road
You are the fire go on explode!




Note: We personally met Dio at the Tower Theater back in 1991. He was the most gracious celebrity we have ever met. He signed things for us and thanked us for being fans. I told him he was a master lyricist and the best ever and repeatedly tried to thank him. He just hugged me and said "thank you, thank you. It's you I have to thank". We left walking on air and bragged about it for MONTHS. We're so very thankful for that experience and will never forget. To think that that was 20 years ago just completely blows my mind.

Our hero worship for DIO is on the next level. We will forever do a DIO tribute twice a year - on his birthday (7/10) and anniversary of passing (5/16).