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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama saluted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday as a man who "stirred our conscience" and made the Union "more perfect," rejoicing in the dedication of a monument memorializing the slain civil rights leader's life and work. "I know we will overcome," Obama proclaimed, standing the 30-foot (9-meter) granite monument to King on the National Mall. "I know this," the president said, "because of the man towering over us." Obama and his wife, Michelle, and Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, joined a host of civil rights figures for the dedication on the sun-splashed...

Will work for national honor. We don’t know if the Chinese stonemasons who built the new Martin Luther King memorial got the job by shoving a sign bearing that message into the faces of its overseers. We know only that unpaid, nonunion, foreign nationals built the massive shrine on the Mall. They toiled for “national honor” and “to bring glory to the Chinese people,” one of them explained to an investigator hired by the DC-area stonemasons promised the job. Happy Labor Day! Martin Luther King died in Memphis supporting a strike by the city’s garbagemen. So it’s not a stretch...

The sculpture that is creating so much controversy is a memorial made out of steel from the World Trade Center. The original plan was to place the sculpture at the Saratoga Springs City Center. But as it was built it became clear that area wouldn't be big enough to display it. Some people suggested it be placed at the fire house instead. "I have a public safety concern because I don't want visitors in the driveway," said Mayor Scott Johnson. Safety concerns were raised by some, size concerns were raised by others. The visitor center lawn was brought to the...

Confederate soldier stands his groundBy: Danielle Battaglia Published: August 14, 2011 Despite the Reidsville Confederate Monument officially departing his post on Scales Street, another soldier is taking his place and standing up for what he believes is right. On Friday morning, Jamie Funkhouser, the confederate soldier who came to Reidsville in June to raise awareness for the city council meeting discussing the future of the monument, returned to bring awareness to the fact that the soldier will soon be moved. The Reidsville Monument stood at the intersection of Scales Street and West Morehead Street for 101 years until Mark Anthony...

Chicago attorneys and activists are planning a monument to memorialize the victims of police torture. The group is asking artists to submit proposals for the monument. Group members say their goal is "to honor the survivors of torture, their family members, and the African American communities affected by the torture."

Bahrain on Friday tore down the protest movement’s defining monument, the pearl at the center of Pearl Square, a symbolic strike that carried a sense of finality. The official news agency described the razing as a facelift. “We did it to remove a bad memory,” Bahrain’s foreign minister, Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, said at a news conference. “The whole thing caused our society to be polarized. We don’t want a monument to a bad memory.” The destruction of the monument was part of a chain of events that, in a matter of days, turned Bahrain from a symbol of...

The director of Al-Arabiya TV, a popular Arab-language news station, wrote that "Muslims never asked for" the proposed mosque at Ground Zero, and "do not care about its construction," in a column for London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat on Aug. 16. “I can't imagine that Muslims [actually] want a mosque at this particular location, because it will become an arena for the promoters of hatred, and a monument to those who committed the crime,” wrote Al-Arabiya director Abd Al-Rahman al-Rashid in the column, which was translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

Sarah Palin was dismissed as a light weight and Islamophobe. They can't say the same about Newt!In my posts (here, here) objecting to the building of a mosque near the site of Ground Zero in New York set to open on the 10th anniversary of the attacks by radical Islam, I hardly mentioned the significance of the name "Cordoba House" which the mosque builders proposed for this 13 story mega mosque. The name did not escape the notice of Newt Gingrich: Newt Gingrich Statement on the Proposed “Cordoba House” Mosque near Ground Zero July 21, 2010 6pm There should be...

Just a thought. In the middle east, for showing that one is a Christian, for proslytizing, and for any other Christian act, one would be killed without question and it has been that way for a long time. So, in memory of all those Christians who have been killed by these muslims, I say, we aquire land in Egypt and other parts of the middle east because there are so many "freedoms" that these islamic countries have to offer, and build huge Catholic Churches and churches of other denominations and on top of that, Synagogues; and all make it sort...

"Under President Obama's vision for a "21st century conservation agenda," the federal government would bring together cities, states, tribes and nongovernmental organizations working on conservation efforts, and encourage families to spend more time outdoors, officials said."

The first round of a new fight over White House power to unilaterally impose new protections on large tracts of western lands went to the Obama administration. The Senate on Thursday rejected, 38-58, Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) bid to block White House authority to designate national monuments in western states. DeMint wanted to attach the amendment to legislation approved yesterday aimed at bolstering tourism in the U.S.

A recently revealed Department of Interior “internal working document” has set off similar fire alarms across the West. It identifies BLM lands as potential sites for designation as new national monuments, as possibly meriting “special conservation” status or as targets of “land rationalization”. Unlike a national park or national wildlife refuge, these actions are carried out by the Executive Branch without any need for Congressional approval. The Department of Interior document in question ­- reportedly drafted at the behest of Obama’s Interior Secretary Ken Salazar – identifies more than six times the land area locked up in the Grand Staircase...

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel received an earful from Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch on Friday, one day after a leaked administration memo indicated the president was considering naming two new national monuments in the state. Hatch's office said the senator called Emanuel to complain about the potential unilateral action and Emanuel promised to provide an official response after consulting with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. "I made very clear to him that if the Administration goes down this road, it will meet absolute outrage and opposition from across the state and from me representing Utah in the United States...

A bright blue sky could not hide the gray shadows of pain that marked the eyes of the families of the victims of the "9/11" terrorist attack that found themselves in Arazim Park in Jerusalem on Thursday. They had gathered together with international dignitaries and Israeli leaders to dedicate a new monument to the their loved ones, who lost their lives in the senseless 2001 attack on America by the Al Qaeda terrorist organization...

'Chuck' bucks have run dryJust 3G in donations for 'Rangel' school By MELISSA KLEIN and ISABEL VINCENT Last Updated: 6:42 AM, November 8, 2009 Donors have contributed just $3,315 to the Rangel Center at City College since the Harlem congressman became enmeshed in scandal last fall. The center -- which critics have derided as a "monument to me" -- needs $30 million to renovate a derelict building in Harlem and fulfill its mission to prepare minority students for public-service careers. But data provided by the college shows Rangel's pet project has amassed just $6.6 million in pledges, and only $650,000...

The Kenyan Government plans to build a Sh112 million cultural centre in honour of US President Barack Obama at his ancestral home in Kogelo. The Sunday Nation has learnt that the proposal to construct the Obama Cultural and Leadership Centre, will be part of discussions by permanent secretaries during a meeting at Nairobi's Harambee House on Monday. The project is meant to attract a large number of tourists from across the world, who may be interested in visiting the ancestral home of the man who surmounted racial barriers, to become the president of the world’s most powerful nation. Ironically, the...

To celebrate its revival after the 1995 earthquake, the city of Kobe held the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the "life-size" statue of Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Tetsujin #28 ("Ironman #28" or Gigantor) robot on Sunday. Minoru Yada, the 78-year-old voice actor of Tetsujin #28's fictional inventor Dr. Shikishima, led the the 28 people who cut the ribbon by yelling out "Tetsujin-28-go!" Yada was holding a mockup of the trademark remote control that the manga and anime's hero, schoolboy Shoutarou Kaneda (Jimmy Sparks), carried to control the robot. MBS News, Jiji Press, and The Kobe Shimbun all posted video reports from the ceremony. The...

The monument "African Renaissance" under construction near Dakar International Airport in Senegal(photo taken on Aug. 10.) The monument, 50 meter high, is to be completed in coming December. N. Koreans have been building it since last year.

Ronald Reagan's birthplace, a second-story apartment over what was once a small-town tavern in Tampico, Ill., is today marked by a museum. John Adams' birthplace is a national park. Even Rutherford B. Hayes, whose birthplace is today covered over by a BP gas station, merits a metal plaque commemorating the location. But while most of America's 44 presidents have tourist attractions or monuments of some kind marking their birthplaces, President Barack Obama – for several reasons – may not be granted the honor. Three obstacles in particular stand in the way: First, though Obama maintains he was born in Honolulu,...

WASHINGTON, June 12, 2009 – A granite monument dedicated to 40 U.S. servicemembers who perished in an air crash in Australia during World War II has found a permanent home at Fort Myer, Va. Left to right, retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Bruce A. Wright; Australian Air Vice-Marshal Kym Osley, head of the Australian embassy’s defense staff; U.S. Army Secretary Pete Geren; Harry McAlpine, president of the Returned and Services League’s Washington, D.C., sub-branch; U.S. Army Col. Laura J. Richardson, garrison commander of the Fort Myer Military Community; Robert S. Cutler, executive director of the Bakers Creek Memorial...