Life Goes On: Organs of youngest victim of Arizona massacre donated to a young girl in Boston.

Breathing on Her Own: Rep. Giffords, whose medical status has been upgraded from critical to serious.

Seahawks: Clobbered by Bears.

Problematic Water: Flooding and mudslides in Western Washington.

Feet Don’t Kill People, People with Feet Kill People (Also, This is Tragic): Stampede kills 100 in southern India.

RIP Superman’s Mom: Actress Susannah York dies at age 72.

Holy Ghost: Playwright Romulus Linney is also dead.

Creepy: “Federal authorities say a northwest Washington dairy sold cows for slaughter despite drug residues not approved for human consumption,” reports KIRO.

Oprah Says: “Beloved box-office failure made me eat 30 pounds of mac and cheese.”

Golden Globe Winners: Natalie Portman, Chris Colfer, and The Social Network.

Finally, happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day to you all. Here’s the man performing his greatest hit, in full.

David Schmader—former weed columnist and Stranger associate editor—is the author of the solo plays Straight and Letter to Axl, which he’s performed in Seattle and across the US. His latest...

9 replies on “The Morning News”

  1. Best part of the Oprah “Mac & Cheese” marathon: “I told my chef, ‘make me some mac & cheese!'” I think depression would be somewhat tempered by having staff to prepare one’s comfort food.

  2. Democracynow.org has up some of his later speeches, which some consider better, for people who are interested. The one April 3rd 1968 was the coolest one, he totally knew he was going to get caught in the cross hairs. The best line I took from it, when he told people to protest. He didn’t know how, he called what people were doing creative, and said whatever you do, protest. What a man.

  4. It’s irritating that none of the other wounded survivors are getting any attention (other than the guy who allegedly threatened that effeminate teabag leader).

  8. @7

    Yes and no. As a society we have made tremendous strides towards ending the scourge of racism and in creating a society that is truly color blind. This is evident in the increasing number of bi racial marriages and the power of some African Americans as business, entertainment and political leaders. Most notably, the President of the United States. That would be unthinkable just ten years ago, let alone in 1968.

    That said, there has been little improvement in the lives of inner city poorer African Americans. One of the main reasons, is a tragic drug war, which the black president has done little to change. The other main reason, is the growth of suburbia, mainly in the form of “white flight” in the 70s and 80s.

    Things might have been different if King had lived. He would have continued to focus the energy of the civil rights movement in positive ways. With King’s death, the civil rights movement (along with the American left) splintered into various factions, with the more radical element calling for full black power and even black separatism. This led to many whites abandoning the movement and led to the rise of Ronald Reagan and the religious right and their approach of gutting funding to the cities. Of course the disgusting Willie Horton ads and the talk of “welfare queens” didn’t help either.

    Maybe all of that would have happened anyway. Even while MLK was still alive, there was a growing agitation within the civil rights movement, angry at the pace of reforms. More and more blacks were rejecting King’s way of working within the dominate white power structure. Still, I think King could have helped counter the rise of Reaganomics, or at least, not allowed it to get so out of hand.

    Still food for thought for today’s LGBT community, who I think needs to do a better job doing outreach to its straight allies.

  9. “…and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent.”

    How we have failed to live up to the example of that incredible man.

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