Wherein the erstwhile This American Life host discusses the prosecution of the Bush administration, how he learned to love Obama, the importance of silence in great radio, who will play him in the movie of his life, his lowest moment as a broadcaster and why people he runs into on the street always tell him he sounds so much taller on the radio. Tune in tomorrow!

Kimmel Center Presents An Evening with Ira Glass
Host of This American Life

Saturday, January 24
8pm | Verizon Hall
buy tickets!

[Illustration by DREW FRIEDMAN]

WASHINGTON POST: GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Jan. 21 — A U.S. military judge Wednesday suspended the trial of five detainees accused of involvement in plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, acceding to a request from military prosecutors in accordance with a directive from the new Obama administration late Tuesday. The suspension halts until late May the trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the avowed mastermind of the Sept. 11 plot, and four other accused al-Qaeda members, even though Mohammed and three of the four objected to the delay. In Washington, meanwhile, aides to President Obama were preparing an executive order that would begin the process of shutting down a detention facility at the Guantanamo Bay naval base for captured terrorist suspects. According to the Associated Press, the draft executive order calls for closing the detention center within a year. It was not immediately known when Obama would issue such an order. MORE

CHE: PARTS 1 & 2 (2008, directed by Steven Soderbergh, 157 minutes, U.S./France/Spain)

BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC

Scattered amidst the filmography of director Steven Soderbergh are a handful of films that announce themselves as impossibly ambitious and intellectual.  You can imagine the director bragging to his peers in the industry, “Oh yeah, my next film is a fictionalized take on the life of Franz Kafka” or “I’m remaking Tarkovsky’s Solaris and I’m getting it right this time!” Che, Soderbergh’s  four-hour biopic on the life of Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevera is the latest of these half-cooked dishes, delivering a film that is more of an elephantine curiosity than a vigorous examination of the slippery meaning of the counterculture’s most beloved and misunderstood guerrilla.

The possibilities of such a film set the imagination ablaze. Che’s journey from the comfortable life of an Argentinian doctor to his death while unsuccessfully mounting a Bolivian revolution present a number of angles in which to examine this complicated icon of the 20th Century.  Unfortunately, Soderbergh has ditched most of these angles, settling on perhaps the most mathematical of approaches, Che as military strategist.  Like those who re-fight the American civil war in their leisure, Che tells you everything you might want to know about troop numbers, company morale and the battlefield manners of Che during his campaign to overthrow Batista and establish Castro’s vision of a socialist workers paradise in Cuba.  Visually Che is all stark and art house-beautiful but as storytelling it marches along like the most pedestrian of 1950’s World War 2 epics.

I’m sure there is a segment of war buffs in the audience that are delighted at the prospect tracing the steps of the ground troops on their road to Havana, still I can’t help but feel that Che has split the largest part of the man away from the whole.  What emerges is a picture of Che whose distance gives the sensation that he being observed by some inconspicuous foot soldier from the back line of the battalion.  This weirdly objective view is so dispassionate that Soderbergh’s own feelings about this most passionate of radicals seem glaringly absent.  It’s a particular phenomenon of American film, the sort of politically meek work whose apolitical quality gets applauded as “transcending politics” when actually the director just lacks the guts to wrestle with the issues.

The plot’s construction makes nice conceptual sense — on paper at least.  By splitting history into two acts Soderbergh (working with a script from Jurassic Park II scribe Peter Buchman) tells the same story twice, showing first how Che’s strategy succeeds in Cuba then showing how the same strategy fails in Bolivia.  Benicio Del Toro suffers beautifully in the lead, lending his movie star charisma to Che, suggesting a strength and intensity between the hacking fits into which the asthmatic leader is constantly breaking.  Whatever watchability the film maintains rests mainly of Del Toro’s able shoulders.  Photographed by the director in a shifting color scheme that turns from bucolic greens to icy overcast blues, we follow Che as he charms and doctors the locals, presents nuggets of revolutionary wisdom and shares the indignities of traveling on foot across the countryside.  With his private life a near mystery, we mainly see Che teaching but never learning. We spend our energies studying a surprisingly static character, observing a man on a long physical expedition while his interior journey is hidden from our sight.

And there we are stuck as the tale stretches on, its roadshow length allowing the film to pile on quiet incident after incident, oddly devoid of supporting characters and only occasionally rising to draw a map or to stage a battle. Still, by the time our comrade met his Waterloo in a stone cell in Bolivia there wasn’t a wet eye in the house, alienated from Che one last time, so relieved we were that the revolution was finally over.

THE BEATLES: Revolution One

[Photo by ANTOINE MCGRATH]

“In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by nine campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people: “Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it.” America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words; with hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come; let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.” – President Barack Obama

OFFICIAL: 2,000,000 People, Zero Arrests

[satellite image via GeoEye]

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: Nobody got arrested during President Obama’s record-smashing Inauguration celebration, The Mouth learned tonight from a half-dozen D.C. and federal law enforcement officials. Think about that folks. Crowd estimates range from 1-2 million on the National Mall today. And no one left wearing bracelets. “As of 6 p.m. no one had been arrested by any agency - unheard of for a crowd that size,” said one senior federal agent inside the Joint Information Center. “Quite a testament to the President and the people wanting change for the better.” “There were no reports of any arrests,” confirmed a D.C. Police spokesman. A Homeland Security Department spokesman also said no arrests were logged Tuesday by feds. Mostly, the 20,000 National Guard troops and cops helped Obamaniacs with medical emergencies. There was only one protest from a group asking Obama to close the Guantanamo Bay terror prison. MORE

REUTERS: Hours after taking office on Tuesday, U.S. President Barack Obama ordered military prosecutors in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals to ask for a 120-day halt in all pending cases. Military judges were expected to rule on the request on Wednesday at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, an official involved in the trials said on condition of anonymity. The request would halt proceedings in 21 pending cases, including the death penalty case against five Guantanamo prisoners accused of plotting the September 11 hijacked plane attacks in 2001. Prosecutors said in their written request the halt was “in the interests of justice.” MORE

RAY CHARLES: America

ZDNET: A momentus event is almost upon us – an Apple Retail Store in Downtown Philly. MacNN reports that Apple has agreed to lease the former Brasserie Perrier restaurant at 1619 Walnut Street in Philadelphia. Despite having a retail presence in eight of the top 10 U.S. cities it has puzzled many as to why Apple hasn’t opened a retail store in the City of Brotherly Love (the 5th largest city in the U.S.). Detroit is the other snubbed city.

1. New York, NY (3 stores)
2. Los Angeles, CA (3)
3. Chicago, IL (1)
4. Houston, TX (3)
5. Philadelphia, PA (0)
6. San Diego, CA (2)
7. Detroit, MI (0)
8. Dallas, TX (1)
9. Phoenix, AZ (1)
10. San Antonio, TX (2)

According to ifoAppleStore BPs Walnut Street location has been rumored to be under consideration by Apple dating back to 2006. Brasserie Perrier closed on January 2. MORE

FRESH AIR

Shepard Fairey’s illustration of Barack Obama was one of the most iconic images of the campaign — Obama’s face and the word “hope” rendered in red, white, and blue. Fairey says he made the image to spur voters’ belief in Obama as a leader. The image was never officially adopted by the campaign, however, because of legal issues related to the original photograph he used. The iconic poster differed from Fairey’s previous work. The image was unusual, Fairey says, because his political art is usually negative. “I felt that Barack Obama was an unusual candidate, a special candidate, and that it was worth putting my efforts into making something positive,” he told NPR in a Jan. 2009 interview. Now Fairey is spreading the message of hope again, this time as the official designer of the Obama inauguration poster. Fairey spawned the “Obey” street art movement which in turn was the inspiration for a line of clothing, and he has designed album covers for several well-known bands, including The Black Eyed Peas and the Smashing Pumpkins. He’s the founder of Studio Number One, a Los Angeles-based design company.

BREAKING: Ted Kennedy Collapses At Inaugural Luncheon, Taken Away By Paramedics…DEVELOPING

The 44th President Of The United States Takes The Oath Of Office

BY JEFF DEENEY By the time the group returns to room 315 from the computer lab the day is nearly over. It’s well into the afternoon by now and both the staff and students are visibly worn down from the day’s grind. The students move at a slow, shuffling pace and keep their voices at a low mumble as they return to their seats. Miss Patterson slumps into her chair at the desk in the back of the room that she refers to as her “office” with an audible sigh. Hakeem, the hardened young corner hustler who comes to class only when the truant officers drag him there, is still splayed sleeping across the tops of four desks that he pushed together shortly after he arrived this morning. He’s been asleep the entire day and now has his hand down the front of his pants while snoring loudly. The students stop just shy of their chairs when they notice their classmate.

“Hak all holdin’ his dick and shit,” Diquan snickers.

The other boys join in, pointing and laughing at him. The noise causes Hakeem to rouse; moving sluggishly he pulls himself up off the desktops he’s been laying across and onto the classroom’s hard, age-worn floor. Mr. McMonigle looks on expectantly, waiting for some explanation for his behavior as Hakeem straightens out his hoodie and pulls up his pants. The students are clearly dying to hear what outrageous statement Hakeem might make; they can barely contain their giggling as Hakeem picks up his book bag and slings it over his shoulder. The boy pulls his hood up over his head and starts towards the door in his characteristic slouching swagger, turning his head to shoot his last words at the group as he leaves the room.

“I’m goin’ the fuck home.”

The room erupts in laughter while Mr. McMonigle stands with his hands on his hips, shaking his head in disappointment at Hakeem as he disappears down the hallway.

Mr. McMonigle is quick to point out that Hakeem’s leaving early for the day is aberrant behavior; despite all the difficulty he has keeping kids in the classroom during lessons Mr.McMonigle never has a problem keeping them in the building until the end of school. In fact, contrary to what you might imagine, Mr. McMonigle has such a hard time getting the kids to go home at the end of the day that he sometimes has to lock the door to keep them from returning. As the final period gets closer to ending the children invariably start to get agitated, and during the last fifteen minutes of school they start making panicky excuses for why they have to stay late. When the dismissal bell rings the children, who are frequently taunted and bullied by their peers, wait to leave until there’s nobody left in the halls but the school’s Air Force Junior ROTC group that stays behind to practice marching formations.

Once the coast is clear, the students of room 315 pick up the schoolbags and go, but five minutes later they all return. Miss Patterson tries to shoo them back out the door but they resist. They cling to Miss Patterson’s suit coat, tugging at its fabric and pleading with her to play Monopoly with them for a little while. When she refuses, telling them that it will be dinnertime soon and she needs to get home to her own children, the students become resistant. On some days Mr.McMonigle has to herd the children together and push them out the door. On some days the students are so bent on staying that Mr. McMonigle has to call school security and have the students physically removed.

“This is the safest place these kids have,” Mr. McMonigle explains. “No matter how crazy it gets here, no matter how bad the school is, it’s still better than what’s waiting for them out there when they leave. The irony is that after all the bitching and the moaning about how they don’t want to be here, at the end of the day you can’t get them to go home!”

Towards the end of the final period the school’s intercom system springs to life and the principal’s loud voice comes crackling through the speakers.

“Ugggh,” Mr. McMonigle groans, “this is my least favorite part of the day.”

The principal launches into her daily closing monologue, recounting the significant issues from this school session. Usually she cites incidents of good and bad student behavior that she either lauds or lambastes, calling out the students involved by their first names.

“Shakia, girl, you know I saw that pack of cigarettes you snuck in your pocket when you saw me comin’. Next time, it’s mine, believe that.”

“Donald, you had your hood on in class and you know the rule about that. I’m gonna be lookin’ out for you tomorrow, so you best take it off when you come through the front door.”

“Now, Tiffany and Ebony had a great day, it was nice to see how they were helping their classmates with their homework and they even straightened up the room between periods. That’s the kind of effort we like to see, ladies.”

“Desmond, don’t sass me. You give me that sass mouth one more time and we are going to have a major problem. Don’t even look at me funny, you heard?”

She goes on and on, ticking items off the list she’s been preparing in her head over the past seven hours. After a few more minutes Mr.McMonigle has his head in his hands, as if listening to the woman causes him acute pain. The principal’s closing monologue is an unorthodox practice that the old Irishman clearly doesn’t identify with, culturally.

As she concludes her monologue the distorted thump of an R&B slow jam’s beat sounds tinnily over the intercom.

“Dear God,” Mr. McMonigle cries, rolling his eyes, “I can’t stand this part, I can’t believe she does this.”

The song is Jaheim’s “Fabulous” and the principal plays it at the end of every day. The song’s message is positive, warning children against the dangers of the streets and the consequences of teen pregnancy. Its tone is uplifting; each verse ends with a chorus of little children gaily singing the refrain, “Don’t hate on us, we’re fabulous.”

“That’s right, children,” the principal chimes in over the music, like a hip hop radio DJ talking over a mix, “you are all so fabulous. Don’t forget that, now, let me hear you all sing it.”

From the rooms adjoining 315 a chorus of young voices rises up, singing along.

“Don’t hate on us, we’re fabulous!”

“That’s right,” the principal calls out over the loudspeaker, “That’s right, you know the rest of the words, let’s hear y’all.”

“Cause U-N-I-T-Y is all we need
To get our R-E-S-P-E-C-T
And never G-I-V-E U-P
And keep your H-E-A-D U-P
And never G-I-V-E U-P
And keep your H-E-A-D U-P
And never G-I-V-E U-P.”

Even the students in room 315 can’t resist singing along with the final verse. It is a song of hope that spells out a message of strength and resilience that the principal sends them, like a note from their teacher, to take back to their foster parents and group homes at the end of each day.

JAHEIM: Fabulous

PREVIOUSLY: THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS: Whatever Happens In Room 315, Stays In Room 315, Whatever Happens #1 PREVIOUSLY: THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS: Whatever Happens In Room 315, Stays In Room 315, Whatever Happens #2
PREVIOUSLY: THE SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS: Whatever Happens In Room 315, Stays In Room 315, Whatever Happens #3
PREVIOUSLY: Whatever Happens In Room 315 Stays In Room 315 #4
PREVIOUSLY: SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS: Whatever Happens In Room 315 Stays In Room 315, Whatever Happens…#5
PREVIOUSLY: SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS: Whatever Happens In Room 315, Stays In Room 315, Whatever Happens#6 

PREVIOUSLY: SCHOOL OF HARD KNOCKS: Whatever Happens In Room 315 Stays In Room 315, Whatever Happens In…#7

Turns out, unlike wine, his presidency does not get better with age. Who knew? Everybody but him.

» 8:25 a.m.: Obamas leave Blair House for prayer service at St. John’s Episcopal Church

» 8:35 a.m. Prayer service

» 9:45 a.m. Church service ends; Obamas depart for the White House

» 10:05 a.m. Obamas arrive at White House for coffee with the Bushes

» 11 a.m. Motorcade departs for the Capitol

» 11:30 a.m. Bushes and Obamas proceed to platform on the West Front; California Senator Dianne Feinstein will issue the call to order and deliver brief welcoming remarks, followed by an invocation from Dr. Rick Warren and a performance from Aretha Franklin (who also sang at Bill Clinton’s first inauguration)

» 11:50 a.m. Joe Biden is sworn in as vice president by Supreme Court Justice John Stevens

» 12 p.m. Barack Obama is sworn in as president by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Obama, with his hand on Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural Bible, will recite the same oath as his predecessors: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Musical performance from John Williams, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Gabriela Montero and Anthony McGill, followed by “Hail to the Chief” and a 21-gun salute

OFFICIAL: Barack Hussein Obama, 44th President Of The United States Of America

» 12:05 p.m. Inaugural address, followed by a poem written and recited by Elizabeth Alexander and a benediction from Dr. Joseph Lowery. The national anthem will be performed by the U.S. Navy Band Sea Chanters

» 12:30 p.m. Ceremony concludes

» 12:35 p.m. Bush departs via helicopter; Cheney departs by limo

» 12:45 p.m. Obama signs inauguration papers in the President’s Room

» 1:00 p.m. Obama attends congressional luncheon

» 2:15 p.m. Obama and Biden review troops at Capitol

» 2:30 p.m. President Obama leads the parade from the Capitol along Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House

» 3:15 p.m. Arrival at the White House

» 3:45 p.m. Obamas and Bidens proceed to the reviewing stand; inaugural parade continues until 6 p.m.

» 7 p.m. The official inaugural balls begin with the Neighborhood Ball at the Washington Convention Center, with performers scheduled to include Beyoncé. Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey, Faith Hill, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Shakira, Stevie Wonder and others. Nick Cannon will DJ.

MEET THE NEW BOSS: Current home page of the White House

BONUS: Shepard Fairey will be on Fresh Air Today!

BONUS 2: Cheney In A Wheechair!

LA TIMES: At first I thought, ”Riiiiiight … ” The Bush White House, on its last night in power, announced that Vice President Dick Cheney pulled a muscle in his back while moving boxes. He’ll be in a wheelchair for the Obama inauguration. Dick Cheney — a man with a ticker so bum that even Dr. House couldn’t help him — is moving boxes? Don’t those people have people to do all that menial schlepping for them?And then I thought, hmmmm, what kind of boxes would be so important that the almost-ex-vice president would be moving them himself? And then I thought … oh, those kinds of boxes. Boxes full of papers that he doesn’t want anyone else to see, ever? Boxes destined for his home shredder? That would be, uh, back in Wyoming? A week before Christmas — which was about three months after a federal judge had ordered Cheney’s office to preserve all his official records — Cheney’s lawyers were back in court, blathering that only the vice president can decide which records from his eight years in office should by law be handed over to the National Archives by … oh, what’s that deadline again? Oh yes — noon on January 20, when he ceases to be the vice president. The same date when, according to the Associated Press story about the court case, Cheney could be ”potentially taking millions of records that might otherwise become public.” MORE

ASSOCIATED PRESS: A federal judge ruled Monday that Vice President Dick Cheney has broad discretion in determining what records created during his eight-year tenure must be preserved.

CHANGE: Why I Voted For Barack Obama

Because I don’t believe in politicians, but I believe in this man.

Because the rest of the world believes in this man, and contrary to what some would have you believe, that is a good thing. In fact, it’s crucial.

Because words matter and he is a man of his word.

Because he appealed to our best hopes instead of our worst fears.

Because he ran on the content of his character, not the color of his skin.

Because despite all that, he had to be twice as good.

Because he is neither black nor white and neither is the world we live in.

Because he never got off the high road.

Because he always did the right thing.

Because he never made a false move.

Because this is historic. This is noble. This is progress.

Because in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make.

Because he IS a once in a lifetime candidate.

Because I never thought someone like him would come along again in my lifetime.

Because I thought they killed off his kind — the ones who came in the name of love — by 1968.

Because it turns out you can kill a man but you cannot kill the hope he represents. Just ask Jesus Christ.

Because sooner or later another one will come along.

Because this isn’t 1968. And it certainly isn’t 1963.

Because the modern Secret Service is like Men In Black without the aliens. So I don’t worry.

Because for the last 30 years we tried it their way, and look where it got us.

Because he was right about Iraq from the beginning.

Because he represents something that shakes the powers that be to their very core: Change.

Because power never surrenders without a dirty fight, they say that he is wrong or lying or dreaming or worse.

Because the last 19 months have proven he is none of these things.

Because it has all come true. – JONATHAN VALANIA

CLICK HERE to hear the lead-off single “Get On Your Boots”

WORTH REPEATING: Why U2 Still Matters

BY JONATHAN VALANIA Because some bands have greatness thrust upon them and other bands thrust greatness upon themselves. Because U2 knew that if they had it both ways, they could be bigger than Jesus. Because in the early ’80s, if you listened closely, you could actually hear Bono’s mullet. Because the Edge figured out early on that with the right ratios of pinging echo to pealing delay, the electric guitar could build cathedrals of sound that are holier than thou. Because Bozo-haired bassist Adam Clayton and pretty boy drummer Larry Mullen Jr. could make rock do what it does best: rattle and hum.

Because in the greed-is-good ’80s, speaking out about faith and hope and sex and dreams and peace on earth was a thankless job. Because U2 actually went down to the demonstration to get their fair share of abuse. Because Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights in the desert being taunted by the devil and never cried uncle. Because U2 went to the desert (aka Joshua Tree National Park) and were tempted by Elvis Presley and America and cried “hallelujah!”

Because by the end of the ’80s U2’s anthemic pieties had grown insufferably self-serious. Because in the early ’90s U2 learned the importance of not being earnest. Because Bono told Rolling Stone: “I’ve learned to be insincere. I’ve learned to lie. I’ve never felt better!” Because Achtung Baby was the sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree, and it was even better than the real thing.

Because all the cyber-punk theorizing and dystopian consumerist burlesques of the PopMart tour were dead-on, even if the songs were not. Because 9/11 turned back the clock on the promised 21st-century hypercapitalist utopia of a free-range chicken in every pot, an SUV in every garage and high-speed wireless everywhere in between. Because it’s no longer too late, tonight, to drag the past out into the light. Because on that soft September morn, we were harshly reminded of all that we can’t leave behind.

Because despite all that, sometimes even new messiahs have to put down the weight of the world, look up at the sky and notice that, hey, it is a beautiful day, and then step back and let the Edge take it from there. Because during the Elevation tour, U2 reapplied for the job of best rock ‘n’ roll band in the world, aced the interview and got re-hired.

Because How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb proves that U2’s new sincerity is the same as the old sincerity, only better. Because if the Nuggets-meets-War garage-shake-bamalama of “Vertigo” doesn’t completely rock your world, we seriously need to send out a search party for your groove thang. Because when Bono sings, “The boys play rock ‘n’ roll/ They know that they can’t dance” and follows it up with “at least they know,” well, pardon my French, but that’s fuckin’ funny.

Because U2 should be doing commercials for Apple. Because I dare you to name two other artsy commercial entities with their combined mega-unit-moving stature that are quantifiably trying to change things for the better. Because, as Bono sings on “Miracle Drug,” “freedom has a scent like the top of a newborn baby’s head,” and don’t let anyone, not even the president of the United States, tell you that some people hate the scent of a newborn baby’s head.

Because only a fool would try to save the world, and Bono was fool enough to care — and God bless him for giving it the old college try. Because Bono was willing to sleep with the devil if he could lift the boot of world debt off the necks of the dying. Because, as the man sings from behind those ever-present blue-state-tinted shades, where you live should not determine whether you live or die.

Because “Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own,” and we all need something to lean on — be it God, dope, rock ‘n’ roll or your father’s deathbed. Because, in the words of Max von Sydow’s character in Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters, “If Jesus came back and saw what’s going on in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.” Because Bono recently told The New York Times: “I don’t talk about my faith very much, because the people you might want to talk with, you don’t want to hang out with.”

Because we live in a time when religion is no longer, in Karl Marx’s famous estimation, the opiate of the masses — it’s the crack cocaine. Because U2 knows that the last thing the world needs right now is more cocaine. Because what the world needs now, in the words of another great philosopher, is love sweet love. Because only love can dismantle an atomic bomb, and no band on earth has a bigger, more immaculate heart than U2. Because you can snort, you can scoff, you can even hate on them, but you simply cannot deny that they come in the name of love.

U2: Vertigo

ERIC SUNQUIST: After King finished, reported Lerone Bennett, Jr., grown men and women “wept unashamedly.” No doubt Time magazine could have chosen a more appropriate metaphor in reporting that King “enslaved his audience,” but this was true even of those who feared his message. Because of its power to influence the masses, concluded the head of the FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Division, King’s “demagogic speech” made him the nation’s “most dangerous Negro.” MORE

FRESH AIR

Historian Howard Zinn wrote: “At the great Washington March of 1963, the chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), John Lewis, speaking to the same enormous crowd that heard Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech, was prepared to ask the right question: ‘Which side is the federal government on?’ That sentence was eliminated from his speech by organizers of the March to avoid offending the Kennedy Administration. But Lewis and his fellow SNCC workers had experienced, again and again, the strange passivity of the national government in the face of Southern violence.”^[2]

“John Lewis and SNCC had reason to be angry. John had been beaten bloody by a white mob in Montgomery as a Freedom Rider in the spring of 1961. The federal government had trusted the notoriously racist Alabama police to protect the Riders, but did nothing itself, except to have FBI agents take notes. Instead of insisting that blacks and whites had a right to ride the buses together, the Kennedy Administration called for a ‘cooling-off period,’ a moratorium on Freedom Rides.^[2]

Now playing on Phawker Radio! Comes out February 17th.

BY JONATHAN VALANIA We’ve all heard the mythic tale of Robert Johnson’s Faustian bargain with the Devil, struck the crossroads under a Delta moon. Let’s imagine for a moment that it’s a different night at that crossroads. On this night, the devil is busy with other things, perhaps plotting the eventual rise of Slayer or meeting with the Republicans. And Johnson, well, he’s long since given the Devil his due, probably having second thoughts as to whether unlimited pussy, corn liquor and a little plantation-rock stardom was worth the eternal damnation as he shovels another load of coal into Hell’s blast furnace.

On this night, two moonlit figures converge at that storied crossroads, both carrying guitars. Their names — Skip James and Nick Drake — mean little at the time, but history will be kind to them, affording them both an afterlife of influence  and respect that will eclipse their humble career and troubled lives. They pause and eye each other tensely. While James would surely not be surprised to learn the Devil is a white man, one look into his doleful eyes confirms the obvious: It ain’t him. James politely tips his hat and rambles on into the humid American night. Somewhat puzzled by the encounter, Drakes waits around for a few moments before he, too, gives up and moves on.

But what if it didn’t go down like that? What if Louis Armstrong were the Devil? What if he showed up on that night with a horse leg-sized blunt of his beloved ‘muggles‘? What if Skip James and Nick Drake sat down for a spell, passed the peace pipe and took out their guitars and traded songs? What would it have sounded like if James’ kicked-dog blues and Drake’s folksy melancholia got tangled up in a warm Delta breeze? Well, the short answer is M. Ward.

SKIP JAMES: Crow Jane

NOBELPRIZE.ORG: Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family’s long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family.

In 1954, Martin Luther King accepted the pastorale of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He was ready, then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in honor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank.

In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, “l Have a Dream”, he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.

At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement. On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated. MORE

ROBERT F. KENNEDY: Announcing The Death Of MLK

WIKIPEDIA: On April 4, 1968, Kennedy learned of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and gave a heartfelt, impromptu speech in Indianapolis’s inner city, in which Kennedy called for a reconciliation between the races. Riots broke out in 60 cities in the wake of King’s death, but not in Indianapolis, a fact many attribute to the effect of this speech.^[27]

EDITOR & PUBLISHER: NEW YORK In a remarkable statement one day before the birthday holiday for Martin Luther King Jr. — and two days before the inauguration of Barack Obama — the Meridian (Miss.) Star has, in an editorial, offered an apology for its past coverage of civil rights issues. It closed: “There was a time when this newspaper – and many others across the south — acted with gross neglect by largely ignoring the unfairness of segregated schools, buses, restaurants, washrooms, theaters and other public places. “We did it through omission, by not recording for our readers many of the most important civil rights activities that happened in our midst, including protests and sit-ins. That was wrong. We should have loudly protested segregation and the efforts to block voter registration of black East Mississippians. “Current management understands while we can’t go back and undo some past wrongs, we can offer our sincere apology — and promise never again to neglect our responsibility to inform you, our readers, about the human rights and dignity every individual is entitled to in America — no matter their religion, their ethnic background or the color of their skin.” MORE