It is a revolutionary world we live in. Governments repress their people; and millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich; and wealth is lavished on armaments.

The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American society.

-Robert F. Kennedy-

(more…)

Marchers to Honor King in Memphis Today

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Presidential candidates, civil rights leaders, labor activists and thousands of everyday citizens are coming together Friday to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on the 40th anniversary of his death.

On the 40th anniversary of his assassination, King is to be honored as a champion of peace in the city where he died.

“Here was a man who understood nonviolence at a depth that I had never known before,” said C.T. Vivian, a former King associate.

R.I.P., Sir Edmund Hillary

Edmund Hillary, first atop Everest, dies

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Sir Edmund Hillary, the unassuming beekeeper who conquered Mount Everest to win renown as one of the 20th century’s greatest adventurers, has died, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark announced Friday. He was 88.

The gangling New Zealander devoted much of his life to aiding the mountain people of Nepal and took his fame in stride, preferring to be called “Ed” and considering himself just an ordinary beekeeper.
[...]

Hillary’s life was marked by grand achievements, high adventure, discovery, excitement - and by his personal humility. Humble to the point that he only admitted being the first man atop Everest long after the death of climbing companion Tenzing Norgay.

(H/T- Batocchio)

It’s been 66 years since the attack on Pearl Harbor. The architects of the Iraq War said they needed another Pearl Harbor, and they got it. In this old video, it’s stated “The attack on Pearl Harbor united Americans as never before in history.” Bush had the opportunity to unite us in this manner….yet we are where we are.

My thoughts are with the survivors of Pearl Harbor and to the families of those lost.

From the LA Times:

Their ranks thinned by age, Pearl Harbor veterans today are commemorating the 66th anniversary of the Japanese attack and wondering whether Americans will remember one of the most defining moments in history after they die.

“When we’re gone, we’re gone,” said 87-year-old Jack Ray Hammett. “We’re already just a paragraph in the history books. Will even that disappear when the last one of us dies?”

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in a speech to Congress, immortalized the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and other military installations on Oahu, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941, as a “date which will live in infamy.” Today, those words are remembered mostly by the generation that lived through World War II.

It is a generation in steady decline. About 16 million Americans served in uniform during the war. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates 2.7 million are living, but they are dying at the rate of about 1,000 per day.

The exact number of Pearl Harbor survivors, though unknown, is smaller, and they are older than the average WWII veteran. Hammett, a former Costa Mesa mayor, said he liked to think of his buddies as “walking, living history.”

The Associated Press

The photo below is of the Hubbard Brothers. Jason is on the left - JS

FRESNO, Calif. - Hundreds of people lined the streets Wednesday for a procession carrying the flag-draped casket of an Army corporal, the second son in his family killed in Iraq.

Nathan Hubbard, 21, died Aug. 22 when his Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Multaka. A third brother, Jason Hubbard, was riding in another helicopter nearby and told his wife he had to search the wreckage, according to the family’s pastor.

Nathan Hubbard’s remains arrived in an Army-chartered jet Wednesday at Fresno-Yosemite International Airport, where an honor guard carried the casket from the plane to a hearse. The family had a few moments alone with the casket, then led the procession to a funeral home.

Hubbard enlisted at age 19 while still grieving for his older brother, Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Hubbard, who was killed at age 22 alongside his best friend by a roadside bomb in Ramadi in 2004.

Jason Hubbard, 33, joined the Army at the same time Nathan did. At their request, the two were assigned to the same unit, the 3rd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division based on Oahu.

Jason accompanied his brother’s body on a flight out of Iraq and returned home to be with his family.

Army reservists and hundreds of local residents waving flags watched the procession en route to the Boice Funeral Home in nearby Clovis, where Hubbard grew up.

By SUSAN SAULNY and CARA BUCKLEY
The New York Times

HUNTINGTON, Utah, Aug. 21 - As relatives on Tuesday laid to rest one of three men killed here trying to rescue six trapped miners, this grieving mining town was torn over the future of the mine and the prospect of the lost miners- being entombed permanently.

An official at the mine, the Crandall Canyon, said it could be back in business under a new name, after blocking off the area that collapsed on Aug. 6.

Robert E. Murray, president of the Murray Energy Corporation, a co-owner of the mine, suggested that other parts of the mine remained safe for work and that mining should resume.

“We would abandon any effort to mine there,” Mr. Murray said, referring to the site of the initial collapse where the six miners were trapped.

“But the reserves are in an entirely different place,” he said Monday night outside the mine.

Before mining could restart, the Mine Safety and Health Administration would have to approve a plan by Murray Energy showing that operations would be safe.

“We were shocked that the subject was even brought up,” a spokesman for the agency said late Tuesday. “M.S.H.A. remains 100 percent focused on the rescue effort.”

The suggestion that the mine might reopen inflamed the emotions of the families of the trapped miners. They questioned how the mine could be safe enough for work but not for rescuing their relatives.

read more HERE