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Love Songs For Valentines Day! Come one come all with your favorite Love Songs, and by all means use your imagination...

President Barack Obama wished Muslims well for the feast of Eid al-Fitr marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. … Wishing Muslims across the United States and around the world "Eid mubarak" (happy holiday), Obama said the celebrations in America speak to "the truth that communities of faith—including Muslim Americans—enrich our national life, strengthen our democracy and uphold our freedoms, including the freedom of religion. That is why we stand with people of all faiths, in the United States and around the world, in protecting and advancing this universal human right." …

We hear it so often around this time of year: "Happy Holiday!" "Season’s Greeting!" Everyone seems to be in the mood for some kind of festive celebration. Exactly what is the holiday that we are celebrating? Are we allowed to say it? Is it a forbidden word? Are we afraid to say it? Will people be offended if we actually tell them what the holiday is? What ever happened to Christmas? What ever happened to the Christ of Christmas? Long ago there was no room in the inn. Is there any room for Him in today’s celebration? Are little children...

Hey, remember when presidents had to actually lead and accomplish things before having a national holiday named after them? Well, now all you gotta do is be black and show up for the job. Plans are under way! Plans are being made to promote a national holiday for Barack Obama, who will become the nation's 44th president when he takes the oath of office Jan. 20. "Yes We Can" planning rallies will be at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. every Tuesday at the downtown McDonald's restaurant, 1100 Kansas Ave., until Jan. 13. The goals are to secure a national holiday...

On the national holiday that celebrates the birth of famed civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., the AP decided to remind us all that there was more to King than the popularized view of him affords. AP says that it is a shame that King has been "frozen in a moment in time that ignores the full complexity of the man and his message." Who can disagree with this? After all, very often notable historical figures end up being turned into cardboard cartoons known for that one "frozen moment" in history that made them famous. But, even as the...

History and culture are not merely rituals repeated every year to keep the memories of dead people and traditions alive -- but is our daily living being created anew each and every day. And that should be the significance of the King Day beyond the remembrance of the particulars that tend to grow irrelevant in time -- as they well should. Every moment that’s ever been, has been the summation of all that has gone before -- and is not merely the old being made to seem fresh and new. Those moments, had their own unique place and time in...

ATLANTA (AP) - On the eve of what would have been Martin Luther King Jr.'s 77th birthday, his legacy is under attack and its greatest defender is unable to speak. King's widow, Coretta Scott King, is recovering from a stroke that partially paralyzed her, and on Saturday made only her first public appearance since last year's King holiday observance, smiling from a wheelchair at the Salute to Greatness Dinner. The couple's four children are divided over whether to sell the family-run center that promotes King's teachings. And the spotlight is again hitting King's more human side in a new book...

Most Americans think there has been significant progress in achieving the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of racial equality, although blacks are more skeptical, an AP-Ipsos poll found. Racial integration has swept across much of U.S. life, and blacks have gained economic ground since the height of the civil-rights movement. Two decades ago, the government established a federal holiday in honor of the slain civil-rights leader. On some measures such as annual income, blacks have closed the gap considerably with whites in the past few decades, census figures show. The progress for blacks may have stalled, however, and...

Racism was once an important issue in this country. Martin Luther King Day reminds us of the time and the struggle. Unfortunately today, a once-important issue has been so politicized and exploited, it has been cheapened into meaninglessness. The character attacks by Sen. Edward Kennedy and his Democratic colleagues on Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito are a good example of this. The contingent of Democratic senators, with no substantive arguments to question the stellar credentials of Alito, chose instead to smear him, and of course the brush that liberals predictably reach for in smear operations is racism. The allegations that...

DES MOINES, Iowa—Des Moines activist Adin Davis and Gov. Tom Vilsack will be recognized tomorrow during the state's ceremony honoring Martin Luther King Junior. The Iowa Commission on the Status of African-Americans will award Davis a King Lifetime Achievement Award. He will be recognized for his activism, diversity consulting and organization of King and Kwanzaa celebrations in Des Moines. Davis, who met King 40 years ago in Chicago, says the late civil rights leader was a hero who changed the hearts of Americans. Vilsack will be honored for helping to restore voting rights for felons who have served their sentences...

It is time for conservatives to lay claim to the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. King was no stalwart conservative, yet his core beliefs, such as the power and necessity of faith-based association and self-government based on absolute truth and moral law, are profoundly conservative. Modern liberalism rejects these ideas, while conservatives place them at the center of their philosophy. Despite decades of its appropriation by liberals, King’s message was fundamentally conservative. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, triggered by Rosa Parks’ refusal to abide by local segregation laws, sparked King’s rise from ministering a small church in Montgomery...

Commemorating the day Thomas Jefferson declared religious freedom for all Americans, the nation today celebrates Religious Freedom Day as declared by President George Bush. "The right to religious freedom is a foundation of America," said Bush in his proclamation Friday. "Our Founding Fathers knew the importance of freedom of religion to a stable democracy, and our Constitution protects individuals' rights to worship as they choose." In 1786, Jefferson drafted the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, protecting the civil rights of people to express their religious beliefs without suffering discrimination. Now, 14 years after the first Religious Freedom Day proclamation by...

Oh, the words we hear dead men say! When I heard there would be a protest on MLK Day in San Antonio, Texas, where the largest parade in the nation is held for this heralded man, I questioned why. I couldn’t imagine a protest of any kind, until I heard the reason. Because military jets would be flying overhead--in honor of MLK Day--as the processional of followers made their way through the downtown streets of this mostly Hispanic city, there would be shouts of anger and protests at military planes which these protestors felt did not accurately portray Martin Luther...

Commemorating King at Duke By Steve Miller FrontPageMagazine.com | January 16, 2006 It was painful to sit through and disturbing to see the incredible affection that was showered on Belafonte--not only from the adoring audience, but from university officials and even the Mayor of Durham, who lovingly furnished Belafonte with a key to the city. The event was held in the Duke Chapel, which seats about 1600 people. Every seat was filled plus about 200 more people sitting or standing. Many in attendance where adults from the Durham community, but there were certainly a fair number of students there as...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Mayor Ray Nagin suggested that recent destruction from hurricanes Katrina, Rita and other natural disasters is a sign that "God is mad at America," and also mad at black communities for tearing themselves apart with violence and divisive politics. "Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it's destroyed and put stress on this country," Nagin said as he and other city leaders commemorated Martin Luther King Day. "Surely he doesn't approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America also....

Crowds yelled 'shame! shame!' as two Air Force jets from nearby Randolph Air Force Base flew over San Antonio's Martin Luther King, Jr march today, marring a celebration which is generally one of the largest in the country. Bickering between march organizers and leaders who claimed the presence of what they called 'fighter jets' at an event organized to honor the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize colored this year's event, with many saying they wanted the King Day celebrations to become a demonstration against the Bush Administration and the war in Iraq. "The inclusion of a fighter jet is...

Clinton Slams Bush, White House in Harlem By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press Writer 34 minutes ago Sen. Hillary Clinton on Monday blasted the Bush administration as "one of the worst" in U.S. history and compared the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to a plantation where dissenting voices are squelched. Speaking during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, Clinton also offered an apology to a group of Hurricane Katrina survivors "on behalf of a government that left you behind, that turned its back on you." Her remarks were met with thunderous applause by a mostly black audience at the Canaan Baptist...

NEW YORK - The American Civil Liberties Union today ran a full-page advertisement in the Washington Post criticizing the president for authorizing the National Security Agency to engage in illegal surveillance of Americans. The ad invokes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights pioneer who was an innocent victim of illegal government wiretapping and draws the correlation between abuse of government power and illegal warrantless wiretapping authorized by President Bush. "It has never been acceptable for the government to spy on Americans without having to go to court and present evidence as to why the individual is under suspicion....

Sounding a little like a preacher, a fired-up Sen. Hillary Clinton lambasted the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event, predicting the presidency "will go down in history as one of the worst" and saying the House of Representatives is run like a "plantation" where dissenting voices are squelched. "When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I'm talking about," Clinton, D-N.Y., told the crowd at the Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem. "It has been...

SAN FRANCISCO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to mend fences with labor today by appearing at a union-sponsored breakfast here in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. After a few scattered boos, the audience listened politely to his speech and laughed at his Terminator jokes. But when it was over, Tim Paulson, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council, harangued the governor for ``attacking all of us in our community.'' ``There were so many people who wanted to walk out of this breakfast here today,'' Paulson said, to enthusiastic applause. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi also got...