‘The content of their character...’

Today is the actual birthday of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Had he lived, the good doctor would have been 83 years old. Tomorrow (16 January), it will be officially celebrated as a US holiday.

It’s not for me to speculate on what he would make of the world under POTUS Obama but I’d like to think he’d have continued to be the eloquent and fearless spokesman of the dispossessed that he had been for much of his life.

Here is Dr King in his own words, on August 28, 1963 in Washington DC.

There have been many songs written about Dr Martin Luther King Jr, most notably by Stevie Wonder ('Happy Birthday') and U2’s 'Pride (in the name of love)', both fine pieces of music in their own right but 'Strings of Life' is the tune that came out top in the Rusty Wire Poll of MLK tunes:

Happy Birthday Dr King.

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Down a Rabbit-Hole

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Seán Flynn. I'm 56 years old and I have been a front-line paramedic with the London Ambulance Service in the East End for the past seven years. It's a job I love and, by and large, it's the happiest I've been in a long and varied working life. I am also an accredited GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) coach with enhanced DBS clearance; both as a coach and as a registered clinician. I recently travelled to the West Bank in order to coach three teams in the territory under the aegis of GAA Palestine, introducing the children to Gaelic football. I was lucky enough to travel first to South Bethlehem, then to the Al Am'ari Refugee Camp in Ramallah and then on to Qabatya in Jenin. It's important to note at this point however that the individual with whom I was initially due to travel, pulled out on the morning of the trip as the result of a cancelled connecting flight; leaving me to fly out on my own. As a consequ...

Never thought my life would be like this

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A Deptford Particular

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