BREVITAS

SOMETHING THEY PROBABLY FORGOT TO QUOTE ON MLK DAY

One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." . . . A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. - MLK Jr.

OUTLYING DISTRICTS

NPR - Democratic strategist Donna Brazile — who managed Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign and is herself a superdelegate — says she will quit her position within the Democratic Party if her superdelegate colleagues decide the party's nomination. "Let's wait for some of these other states to help sort this out," Brazile, a News & Notes contributor, told Farai Chideya.
Related NPR Stories

EMENDATION

CORRECTED LINK: WHAT A REAL ECONOMIC RECOVERY PLAN LOOKS LIKE

FURTHERMORE. . .

BBC - Hamsters have become the must-have pet in China since the Year of the Rat began on 7 February. Pet shop owners say stocks are running low - and prices high - as children clamour for a furry friend. According to the Chinese media, prices have tripled across the country. In the Year of the Rat, this tiny creature has become the most acceptable rodent, a type of animal that is not everyone's first-choice pet.

[Your editor had a number of hamsters, one of which he called Charmin so his boys and their young friends wouldn't squeeze it. One day I came home and found a note from one of these friends that read, "Charmin II died. I came in and found him dead in the cage. He is in the sandwich bag by cage so you can give him a proper burial. We went biking." -Sam]