There is a kind of spam that spreads without the aid of software. Instead it relies upon wetware: humans. I got an email this morning the purports to demonstrate how corrupt our Congress is. The hilarity of this is that whoever originate this incarnation thought they were attacking liberals and forgot conservatives rule Congress these days.

It must be the NBA! Or is it the NFL?

36 have been accused of spousal abuse
7 have been arrested for fraud
19 have been accused of writing bad checks
117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
3 have done time for assault
71, repeat, 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 have been arrested for shoplifting
21 currently are defendants in lawsuits. And
84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year

Can you guess which organization this is?
Give up yet? Scroll down, citizen!
It’s the 535 members of the United States Congress.

The same group of Idiots that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.

You gotta pass this one on!

That was funny. It is like Teddy Kennedy picking a judge. His Father was a bootlegger, he is a killer, his nephew overdosed, one nephew arrested for rape three times and he picks a Supreme Court Judge. Only in America.

Snopes tracks this pack of delusions back to 1999. The fictitious list has been applied to the parliaments of both Canada and India in addition to our own Congress.

My Soundtrack: On The Other Side by The Strokes on WOXY.

There has been a lot of buzz over the government’s demand for access to Google search results. My statistics software tracks the searches that bring people here. This week, and I am not making this up, I got seven hits on the following phrase: i have pubes will you bite them off for me u beast. Is this what the NEO/Theocons are looking for?

Yesterday Defense Department analyst Lawrence Franklin was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in Federal Prison for passing classified information about Iran to Israel. The unusual twist is that Franklin felt that passing the information was the only way to do an end-run and get the vital data to the White House.

From The Washington Post:

When he pleaded guilty, Franklin, an Iran specialist, said he was frustrated with the direction of U.S. policy and thought he could influence it through back channels.

I believe, I accept, your explanation that you didn’t want to hurt the United States, that you are a loyal American, said U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, who added that Franklin was concerned about certain threats to the United States and thought he had to hand information about the threats to others to bring it to the attention of the National Security Council.

Does anybody in our government pay attention?

My Soundtrack: Hot Wire My Heart by Sonic Youth on WOXY.

Molly Ivins yesterday invoked the late Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy and the concept of political courage in announcing to the world why she won’t vote for Sen. Hillary Clinton for President in 2008. Another Molly has asked me more than once, Why aren’t there any leaders anymore? How about a focus group to find out?

Writes the first Molly:

Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It’s about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief.

How tired of bull are you?

My Soundtrack: Bored Roar by Comet Gain on WOXY.

We are not a bunch of pasty white guys living in our mothers’ basements. To see living proof of this, make sure you’re at the Pearl Of The Orient this Thursday evening, 26 January to Meet The Bloggers to enjoy happy-hour-priced drinks, free munchies and great f2f conversation with some of North East Ohio’s best bloggers. From Non Sequitur.

Will Amazon follow the lead of the Washington Post and take down its comments section because of the flood of bad reviews spewing over Kate O’Beirne’s book? O’Beirne is probably rubbing her hands together in glee because, from her point of view, the venom only makes her case. I thought about posting to Amazon but thought better of it.

Stephanie let me know that a new voice has joined the NEO Blogosphere: Plain Jane Says… She’s a 20-somethingish attorney, just trying to make my way in the great city of cleveland. Included in her first posts is her list of favorite things with Orange Tic Tacks at the top. Stop by and make her welcome.

More than a month ago I told you to watch for the launch of a blog by Cleveland’s oldest citizen journalist: Roldo Bartimole. I got the email today that The Squeaky Wheel is off and running. Roldo begins in the way you would expect: It”s an old saying, but a relevant cliché: the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Let me be blunt. I think the squeaky wheels in this town have skewed the priority agenda of community needs. The squeaky wheels in recent years have been the sports teams, art, bicycles, towpaths, lakefront parks, convention centers, fancy bridges, downtown housing – all in some way worthy causes, most of them causes of middle and upper class desires.

Roldo is one of my personal heroes. I read his Point Of View religiously for many, many years. I was excited about this project. But I find the conclusion the Roldo makes at the beginning of his first post disappointing.

This blog is not mine. Others need to carry the burden.

I hope that social workers, educators, reporters, physicians, nurses, advocates of hunger and homeless centers, social service agents, pastors, ministers, rabbis who are unable to write what they want in their newspapers, the poor themselves (who could tell the story more truthfully), others who in their jobs come in contact with poverty issues will tell their stories here. We want to know who is suffering, how and why. We want as much attention to the distressed as celebrities of all kinds.

Somebody suggested that it be called the Squeaky Wheel. So be it. Now let”s hear some squawking.

Here’s why it makes me sad. In the bad old days of dead-tree media, owning a printing press was a big deal. And offering disenfranchised voices access to your printing press was a very generous thing to do. A lot of voices that should have been heard weren’t because they didn’t own a press.

That isn’t the case anymore. I don’t need someone else to offer me space on their printing press. I have my own. And that’s true for hundreds of bloggers in North Eastern Ohio. If you have something to say, if you want to tell the world something, you can do it for free on a blog.

Yes, there is a certain cache in posting on a blog owned by Roldo Bartimole, but that and $1.45 will get you a small Blue Moon at Dewey’s. I don’t want to go to Roldo’s blog to read other voices. I want to go to Roldo’s blog and read Roldo.

How about this Roldo? Go to the Journalism schools and other places in the NEO Blogosphere and recruit say three or five eager citizen journalists who want to learn from a master. Put them on your blog and let us know how you’re training the next generation.

Show us how you’re shaping them. Show us how your pointing them to the money trails. Show us what it takes to, in the words of Jeff Jarvis: get rid of a crooked mayor or reform property taxes.

You know how it’s done Roldo. Make sure the knowledge spreads.

My Soundtrack: Marquee Moon by Television on WOXY.

A year or so ago I remember reading some survey results that reported that something like 30 percent of Americans believed things like we had found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There will always be that percentage of people whom you can fool all of the time. And the unfortunate fact is that fools can still vote.

This list of absurbities below comes from a friend who gets barraged with such Internet humor and passes it along (with the virus warnings) to me on a regular basis.

A guy bought a new fridge for his house. To get rid of his old fridge, he put it in his front yard and hung a sign on it saying: Free to good home. You want it, you take it, For three days the fridge sat there without even one person looking twice at it. He eventually decided that people were too un-trusting of this deal. It looked to good to be true, so he changed the sign to read: Fridge for sale $50. The next day someone stole it. Caution! These people Vote.

While looking at a house, my brother asked the real estate agent which direction was North because, he explained, he didn’t want the sun waking him up every morning. She asked, Does the sun rise in the North? When my brother explained that the sun rises in the East, (and has for sometime), she shook her head and said, Oh, I don’t keep up with that stuff She also votes!

I used to work in technical support for a 24/7 call center. One day I got a call ! from an individual who asked what hours the call center was open. I told him, The number you dialed is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He responded, Is that Eastern or Pacific time? Wanting to end the call quickly, I said, Uh, Pacific. He also votes!

My sister has a lifesaving tool in her car It’s designed to cut through a seat belt if she gets trapped. She keeps it in the trunk. My sister also votes!

My friends and I were on a beer run and noticed that the cases were discounted 10 percent. Since it was a big party, we bought 2 cases. The cashier multiplied 2 times 10 percent and gave us a 20 percent discount. He also votes!

I was hanging out with a friend when we saw a woman with a nose ring attached to an earring by a chain. My friend said, Wouldn’t the chain rip out every time she turned her head? I explained that a person’s nose and ear remain the same distance apart no matter which way the head is turned. My friend also votes!

I couldn’t find my luggage at the airport baggage area. So I went to the lost luggage office and told the woman there that my bags never showed up. She smiled and told me not to worry because she was a trained professional and I was in good hands. Now, she asked me, has your plane arrived yet? She also votes!

The moral of the story? If you find these anecdotes humorous. Please, please get out there and vote. It’s the only defense we have.

My Soundtrack: Concrete And Wood by Summer Lawns on WOXY.

On Tuesday I took Salon’s Rebecca Traister to task for allowing Kate O’Beirne to stomp all over her in an interview focused on O’Beirne’s vacuous rehashing of tired NEO/Theo-con anti-women drivel. Yesterday, Traister gave props to the excellent fisking of O’Beirne’s scribblings and had this to say:

I was blown away earlier this week by Jill at Feministe, who was critical of my interview with Kate O’Beirne, and then backed up her criticism by taking apart O’Beirne’s statements piece by piece and refuting them. Those who were disappointed that I didn’t rip O’Beirne to shreds in my interview should be satisfied by this smart and eloquent post.

That’s very nice of Traister, but why should other bloggers have to carry her water?

My Soundtrack: I Gotta Feel by The Lovetones on WOXY.

It’s 2006. Do you know where your tax dollars are going?
Deviant Art does. Thank you HeightsMom.

Andrew Sullivan provided me with a perfect pickmeup for a drab, cold Cleveland afternoon. Here’s Stewie channeling William Shatner channeling Elton John. The ’70s were a tough decade for the crew of the Starship Enterprise. Shatner got to wear a tuxedo, but Leonard Nemoy got to prance about with cuties in sweatshirts.

Jeff Jarvis does an excellent job today of deconstructing the newspaper. With the swing of his internet scythe, Jarvis whacks out huge chunks of dead tree nonsense. Stock tables? Crashed. Critics? Panned. TV and movie listings? Canceled. Sports columinists? Out of here. Comics? Don’t make me laugh. Did your ox get gored? Good.

What would Jarvis keep? The obvious:

Welcome to the marrow. Local news is what should matter most to a newspaper (with only a few exceptions). And newspapers need to find new ways to gather more local news. I”ll cover that in a subsequent post. But it”s apparent that if you reduce what you”re spending – read: wasting – on some of the areas above, then you can afford to spend more on the news that matters in your market, the news only you can provide, the one kind of news that makes you indispensible in any medium.

But not all local news is worth the effort. I have long argued, without much company, that one of the greatest wastes of newspapering is editing for prize committees. Writing overlong, show-off series that are aimed at winning Pulitzers and lesser awards is often done for institutional ego over actual service. Tracking meth across the globe sounds cool on a prize application but I”ll bet you that most readers don”t give a damn. If, instead, you took those resources to get rid of a crooked mayor or reform property taxes, you”d be performing a far greater journalistic service. It may not get you awards, but it will get you readers.

And I”d look hard at your local columnists and ask whether they are as informative and entertaining as local bloggers. They used to provide some humanity and voice in otherwise gray, dull papers. Maybe your readers can help do that now…

How much local news have you read in Section A of the Pee Dee lately?

My Soundtrack: Castanets by Alejandro Escovedo on WOXY.

Thanks to Ryan Maynard for alerting me to this coffee maker. I ordered one yesterday.

Here’s what Single Serve Coffee had to say about it: The Aeropress really is an entirely new way to make coffee. Yes, you could compare it to a french press but you would be wrong. Because of an almost giant syringe like coffee gadget you build air pressure by pushing espresso ground coffee through the chamber with a filter paper on the bottom of the Aeropress. Though a french press has this plunger like action the amount of pressure you build up in the Aeropress and extraction is much much higher. You can push as fast or as slow as you want and creating different strengths of coffee but Aeropress recommends letting the coffee mix in the main chamber for about 20 seconds, and then a slow push of 30 seconds or so to make your coffee. We also recommend keeping the water temperature in the 174-180 degrees F range. The coffee will come out without any bitter aftertaste provided you keep the temperature a little down.

My Soundtrack: Forget Tomorrow by Macha on WOXY.

On 4 April 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his speech that transformed the Civil Rights movement. At the Riverside Church in New York City, King spoke out against the Vietnam War and repeated Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam’s words: A time comes when silence is betrayal. How have we betrayed King’s vision?

[Update — 0639 18 January — Jill at Feministe does another excellent fisking of O’Beirne in Beating The Strawfeminist To Death.]

Rebecca Traister should have just bent over the table and pleaded for Kate O’Beirne to please, please, just spank her harder. O’Beirne’s Women Who Made The World Worse is so wrong in so many ways that it’s hard to know where to begin. Blogger Noumena does an excellent job of fisking the interview but I’d like to focus on just one exchange.

O’Beirne: People say, Oh, feminism is dead. No. What I am telling my audience is they are thriving! Larry Summers. He paid these women an enormous compliment in saying, Let’s talk about these ideas. And the feminist heroine of the episode [Nancy Hopkins] had to run from the room breathless and sick to her stomach. He makes a perfectly legitimate point based on data — disagree with him, but let’s talk about it! — and suddenly, $50 million over the next five years [to improve Harvard’s hiring policies for women]. It was a brutal reeducation camp. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.

Traister: But feminists didn’t win against Summers. He didn’t get fired.

O’Beirne: You’re not serious.

Traister: I am serious.

O’Beirne: They got plenty.

Traister: Not what they demanded. He didn’t lose his job.

O’Beirne: They didn’t lose. They totally won. It was abject mea culpa.

Traister: Summers is in charge of an institution that educates women and his comments were about educating women and he is still in charge of the institution that educates women. And that’s a loss for feminists.

O’Beirne: Oh, huge win! Huge! It’s just another example of what damn clout they have! You think it’s a loss because he didn’t get fired? Why did he have to apologize or give them a nickel? Like, wake up and grow up, girls!

Grow up girls? Grow Up Girls?

My Soundtrack: Love And Peace Or Else by U2 on WOXY.

I want to pull my hair out. Paul Hackett has decided that my back home neighbors aren”t a whole lot different than Osama bin Laden. If this is his winning strategy for the U.S. Senate, then Senator Mike Dewine is going to coast into another six years in our nation’s capital. I don’t yet know enough about Hackett, but what he said was just plain stupid.

From the Columbus Dispatch, via Ohio 2nd:

The Republican Party has been hijacked by the religious fanatics that, in my opinion, aren”t a whole lot different than Osama bin Laden and a lot of the other religious nuts around the world, he said. The challenge is for the rest of us moderate Americans and citizens of the world to put down the fork and spoon, turn off the TV, and participate in the process and try to push back on these radical nuts – and they are nuts.

That statement prompted an email response from Ohio’s Republican party:

Ohio Republican Party Chairman Bob Bennett called today on Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Paul Hackett to publicly apologize for hateful and incendiary remarks about people of faith.

Bennett condemned Hackett”s remarks and called on his counterpart, Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern, to join him in denouncing the intolerance and demanding a public apology.

Paul Hackett”s attempt to compare Christian conservatives to terrorists is abhorrent and completely inappropriate. These intolerant views have no place in the public debate, and I hope his fellow Democrats reject this divisive hate speech. Hackett has shown repeatedly that he will say or do anything to get attention, and it”s unfortunate that views like his are embraced by the Democratic Party. I think, Mr. Hackett, you”ve once again proven who real radical nut is.

Hackett volleyed back:

I said it. I meant it. I stand behind it. Equal justice under the law for all regardless of who they are and how they were born is fundamental to our American spirit and our American freedoms. Any person or group that argues that the law should not apply equally to all Americans is, frankly, un-American.

The Republican Party has been hijacked by religious fanatics, who are out of touch with mainstream America. Think of the recent comments by Pat Robertson – a religious fanatic by any measure – that the United States should assassinate a democratically elected leader in Venezuela, and that Ariel Sharon”s stroke was divine punishment because Sharon wished to trade land for peace.

Since the Republican Party has been utterly unable to stand for something positive, they have created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, and have pandered to religious fanatics not to vote for something they believe in, but to vote against their fellow Americans with whom they disagree. Those among us who would use religion and politics to divide rather than unite Americans should be ashamed.

I left this comment at Ohio 2nd:

Shalom Y’all,

Hackett made one mistake here, he invoked the name of Osama bin Laden. To do so is to do the same as invoking the name of Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin.

These, and a few other madmen are in a class by themselves. The hyperbole was not necessary. Hackett might have simply compared our homegrown religious wrong to the fundamentalist whackos around the world and the GOP might still have lashed out, but it wouldn’t have had a leg to stand on.

In Ohio we all know good people who are Bible reading, church going Christians who vote Republican. Comparing them to bin Laden does not help Hackett’s cause.

B’shalom,

Jeff Hess

It is getting to be so embarrassing to be a Democrat.

My Soundtrack: Wicked Light Sleeper by The Joggers on WOXY.

I never know what rabbit hole I’m going to plunge down. Terry at I See Invisible People alerted me to Ethan Zuckerman’s thoughful and very readable post about wrapping our minds around the death toll in Darfur, but when I was finished I found myself at a yet two more amzing portals on the Internet: Blog Africa and Global Voices.

Blog Africa is an unedited aggregator. What this means is that anything posted to any of the blogs in the aggregator will end up on the main page of BlogAfrica and in the RSS feed BlogAfrica offers as output. If you’re interested in what people are saying in Africa, the diaspora and the Afrophile community, this is the hub.

Global Voices is a non-profit global citizens” media project, sponsored by and launched from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School. A growing number of bloggers around the world are emerging as bridge bloggers: people who are talking about their country or region to a global audience. Global Voices is your guide to the most interesting conversations, information, and ideas appearing around the world on various forms of participatory media such as blogs, podcasts, photo sharing sites, and videoblogs.

Care to join the global village?

My Soundtrack: Last Love Song For Now by Okkervil River on WOXY.

My friends and readers know how rabid I can be about shopping locally, but sometimes it’s not enough. In The Death of Truffles, Part I, Christine at Bad Cleveland Accent writes about the loss of one of her favorite Cleveland places and the core reason why these comfort spots disappear and our haunts become ghost towns.

My point is that you can shop local all you want, but local businesses will almost never be able to pay the same kind of rent that a multinational megacorporation can. And the multinational megacorporation will, and they won’t care if they have to close up shop in a few months if nobody goes there because where those people really wanted to go was the place that was there before, and then the storefront which was once a thriving community gathering place will be empty.

What part of your paradise are you willing to see paved and turned into a parking lot?

My Soundtrack: Biggest Star by The Elected on WOXY.

Listening to the radio this morning I have probably heard Dr. Martin Luther King say I have a dream a dozen times. That was the sound bite from his 1963 speech, but it doesn’t come until nearly 1,000 words into his 1,550-word oration. It is important to celebrate all of his words every day. Today is not a Hallmark Holiday.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand 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 captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still 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 languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.

So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition. In a sense we have 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 would be guaranteed the inalienable 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 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.

So we have 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 rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. 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. 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. 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 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 their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall 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 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 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.

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 cells. Some of you have come from areas where your 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 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, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, 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 slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four 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 the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, 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. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. 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.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a 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. 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 snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks 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 every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let 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!”

As we pause today to take stock, one-hundred-and-forty-two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, what have we accomplished? What work remains to be done?

My Soundtrack: Messenger by Blonde Redhead/David Sylvian on WOXY.