I saw a young woman with magenta hair bicycling in Madison, Wisconsin, a tote bag slung over one shoulder.

What was the slogan on the tote bag? "NOW MORE THAN EVER." What?! A Nixon fan?!!

What slogans of today will lose the association with a particular political cause or candidate and — half a century or so in the future — become usable for other causes by people who would hate that cause or candidate if they knew what the hell he/she/it was?

Yes We Can... Stronger Together... Change We Can Believe In... Make America Great Again...

There's background on Nixon's slogan in a WaPo article dated March 15, 2017: "Now, more than ever, ‘now more than ever’ needs to go/The phrase's resurgence is historically inappropriate":

Fear of blue and desperate clinging to "character-defining grey."

"The resurfacing will dramatically and permanently transform the character-defining grey, achromatic appearance of the reflecting pool basin. The new colouration will cause the pool to resemble a large swimming pool rather than the reflective civic landscape it was designed to be, distorting the experience of the site for the millions of visitors who come to it each year."

So said the Cultural Landscape Foundation, a Washington society, quoted in The London Times, which looks like this, going all in on AI imagery:

I was going to ding the the Cultural Landscape Foundation for writing "grey" instead of "gray," but when I saw "colouration," I had to assume that The London Times imposes its British spellings on quoted material.

It's funny how people are getting cranked up over the color blue. The Foundation associates blue with backyard summer fun incompatible with what the reflective pool is supposed to be.

Goodbye to Jesse Jackson.

"Jesse Jackson, a leading African American voice on global stage, dies at 84/As a civil rights activist, he joined the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama, and Memphis. He later launched two historic presidential campaigns" (WaPo)(gift link).

Here's Meade's video of him, from 2011, at the Wisconsin protests:

And here's my photo of a button that I still have right here on my desk and that I wore in 1988:

Discussed in an old diavlog, here, back in 2007, when Obama was first running for President.

From the Washington Post obituary: 

Should the widow stand back and know that her place is to quietly mourn and to express no opinions?

I'm reading The Washington Post: "Erika Kirk emerges as vocal public figure, redefining role of political widow/Vocal and stridently determined to advance her husband’s work, she has embraced her public role" (gift link).

In modern times, the number of women who have found themselves in this unenviable and tragic situation in the United States is small. The group is largely limited to the widows of the men slain in the tempestuous mid-1960s. Some biographers who chronicled the lives of those men — Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and John F. and Robert F. Kennedy — are wary of drawing historical comparisons that might by extension elevate Charlie Kirk, who made numerous disparaging remarks about Black people...

Inflammatory characterization casually inserted. 

... to the stature of an iconic civil rights leader or a president. But they see important distinctions between the ways the widows of the ’60s acted in their unwanted roles and the ways Erika Kirk is defining it.

“It’s such a different era and the partisanship is so much more extreme now,” said David Margolick, who wrote a book on the relationship between Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, and whose journalism is being turned into a documentary about Coretta Scott King and the Kennedy widows flying RFK’s body home after he was killed. “And people are all in their respective political communities and have very little interaction with people on the other side. In [the era of the earlier widows], as partisan as it was — and some people really hated the Kennedys — there was respect for the presidency that crossed party lines. The mourning wasn’t red and blue.”

"... conversations unbecoming to a Christian..."

I know the pain of losing loved ones to assassination. Charlie Kirk stood for life, faith, and truth—unashamed of Jesus. Now is not the time to attack him, but to honor his legacy, pray for his family, and ask: Where will you spend eternity? pic.twitter.com/p6zF34CNZD

— Alveda C. King, Ph.D. (@AlvedaCKing) September 17, 2025

"Some critics have pointed to the statue’s disproportionate head, shoes and arms. Dr. King’s shoes were made slightly larger, to evoke the big shoes he had to fill..."

"... his left arm was bulked up, to underscore the weight and power of the untitled book he holds; and his head was slightly enlarged, to be better seen, according to the sculptor, Andrew Luy.... A few want to fix the statue somehow, and at least one said it should be redone.... The city, whose population has about 8 percent Black residents, is standing behind the artist and his work.... The city will add a small sign nearby to explain the exaggerations, an idea that Mr. Luy said he supported. 'Art evokes some emotion in people, and it has for eternity,' Mr. Luy said. 'It is very subjective, so I was prepared for positive and or negative comments about it.'"

From "Statue of Martin Luther King Draws Criticism Over Its Proportions/A statue in Florida has prompted complaints about its shoes, arm and head but also a discussion about art and representations of historic figures" (NYT).

What do you think? Your first question might be how tall was MLK Jr.?

"Whether he was high as a kite or hungry as a hippo, he didn’t deserve to be crushed."

Said Darlene Chaney, cousin of Cornelius Taylor, quoted in "In Cities’ Rush to Clear Homeless Camps, People Have Been Crushed to Death/Atlanta’s mayor began a drive to clear homeless encampments. But when heavy equipment came to raze one, nobody noticed that Cornelius Taylor was still inside his tent" (NYT).

In the modest home where they shared a childhood with Mr. Taylor, Ms. Chaney and her brother Derek, both truck drivers, described him as a bright, kind man wounded by a dark teenage episode they did not fully understand. He dropped out of high school and resisted their efforts to help, while complaining that many people view the homeless with disdain. His baptism in a prison chapel raised hopes for change that went unmet.... On good days, friends found him protective and kind. Bad days evoked his street name, Psycho. “If he didn’t get his way, all hell would break lose,” [his girlfriend Lolita] Griffeth said.

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."

Wrote Albert Camus, in my favorite of the 8 responses I got when I asked Grok "List similar quotes to 'He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.'" (The quote is something Trump put up, without context, on Truth Social.)

Is that a "similar" quote? Eh. "Similar" is a weak word. What's not "similar"? And what does it mean to "save" your country?

Here are the other 7 quotes:

I have gone 60+ years without viewing the crucial seconds of the Zapruder film.

And this morning, I cannot scroll through X without it popping up in my feed over and over. I am still managing to avert my eyes, and yet I feel that I have now seen it... in the vertical realm of my peripheral vision. 

In any case, I'm glad to see that Trump has kept his promise and signed an order to release the rest of the files on the assassination of JFK, MLK Jr., and RFK. Here's RFK Jr. reacting:

RFK Jr. is thrilled that President Trump declassified all JFK, RFK, and MLK assassination files.

“I think it's a great move because we need to have more transparency in our government.”

“He is keeping his promise to have the government tell the truth to the American people… pic.twitter.com/R17PLW3rX7

— End Tribalism in Politics (@EndTribalism) January 24, 2025

"[Nixon's] men broke into the Democratic National Committee in 1972—so what?"

"Lyndon B. Johnson’s men almost certainly bugged Barry Goldwater’s campaign plane in 1964. The John F. Kennedy administration authorized the wiretapping of Martin Luther King Jr. for its own political reasons. The Franklin D. Roosevelt administration surveilled Charles Lindbergh when the famous aviator led the America First Committee and contemplated a presidential run in 1940. Did Nixon try—albeit unsuccessfully—to obtain the tax returns of political adversaries? Well, Roosevelt successfully ordered the Internal Revenue Service to investigate opponents such as William Randolph Hearst, Huey Long, and Charles Coughlin. Nixon operated a clandestine unit inside the White House—the so-called plumbers—to trace and stop officials who leaked to the media, you say? Under previous administrations, the FBI acted as a giant government-plumbing agency, surveilling troublesome journalists such as Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson. Indeed, a probably core reason for the exposure of the Watergate break-in was that the long alliance between Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover faltered after 1971, for complex reasons, obliging Nixon to use amateur investigators for the Watergate burglary and other black-bag jobs that, under past administrations, the FBI would have conducted for the president...."

Writes David Frum in "Richard Nixon Was Unlucky/The Watergate scandal forced his resignation 50 years ago. Today, he’d probably have gotten away with it" (The Atlantic).

Nixon gave his resignation speech 50 years ago last night.

ADDED: The Atlantic homepage has a link to Hunter S. Thompson, "He Was a Crook/A scathing obituary of Richard Nixon, originally published in Rolling Stone on June 16, 1994."

"Who among the protesters really thought that Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, and the board of trustees would view the occupation of Hamilton Hall..."

"... and say, 'Oh, if the students feel that strongly, then let’s divest from Israel immediately'? The point seemed less to make change than to manifest anger for its own sake, with the encampment having become old news. The initial protest was an effective way to show how fervently a great many people oppose the war, but the time had come for another phase: slow, steady suasion. This is not capitulation but a change in tactics.... We recall [Martin Luther] King most vividly in protests, including being imprisoned for his participation. However, his daily life as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was about endless and often frustrating negotiations with people in power, which eventually bore fruit. In this, as much as in marches, he and his comrades created the America we know today. Smoking hot orations about Black Power might have instilled some pride but created little beyond that...."

Writes John McWhorter, in "The Columbia Protests Made the Same Mistake the Civil Rights Movement Did" (NYT).

"There is a long and honorable history of civil disobedience in the United States, but true civil disobedience ultimately honors and respects the rule of law."

"In a 1965 appearance on 'Meet the Press,' the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. described the principle perfectly: 'When one breaks the law that conscience tells him is unjust, he must do it openly, he must do it cheerfully, he must do it lovingly, he must do it civilly — not uncivilly — and he must do it with a willingness to accept the penalty.' But what we’re seeing on a number of campuses isn’t free expression, nor is it civil disobedience. It’s outright lawlessness. No matter the frustration of campus activists or their desire to be heard, true civil disobedience shouldn’t violate the rights of others. Indefinitely occupying a quad violates the rights of other speakers to use the same space. Relentless, loud protest violates the rights of students to sleep or study in peace. And when protests become truly threatening or intimidating, they can violate the civil rights of other students, especially if those students are targeted on the basis of their race, sex, color or national origin."

Writes David French, in "Colleges Have Gone off the Deep End. There Is a Way Out" (NYT).

"[T]here are literally two Americas. One America is beautiful... overflowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of opportunity."

"This America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies; and culture and education for their minds; and freedom and human dignity for their spirits. In this America, millions of people experience every day the opportunity of having life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in all of their dimensions. And in this America millions of young people grow up in the sunlight of opportunity. But tragically and unfortunately, there is another America. This other America has a daily ugliness about it that constantly transforms the ebulliency of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this America millions of work-starved men walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do not exist. In this America millions of people find themselves living in rat-infested, vermin-filled slums. In this America people are poor by the millions. They find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity."

Said Martin Luther King Jr., in the late 1960s, in a speech title "The Other America."

John Edwards also had a "Two Americas" speech when he was a presidential candidate in 2004 and 2008.

I'm reading the Wikipedia article "Two Americas" this morning to escape from reading — in the NYT — "The Looming Contest Between Two Presidents and Two Americas/The general election matchup that seems likely between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump is about fundamentally disparate visions of the nation."

I don't know how much of this sort of thing we can stand:

Things maybe not said by Albert Einstein and Martin Luther King Jr.

I'd like to be more of a good sport about this column by Anne Lamott, "Age makes the miracles easier to see." But it begins with a quote and it ends with a quote ascribed to a monumental man and, in both cases, I don't think the man is the source of the quote.

Maybe if I were older, I'd "see" some essential truth in ascribing this to Albert Einstein...

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as if nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

... and this to Martin Luther King Jr....

"Don’t let them get you to hate them."

These lines sound less like something the man would say than like something that would get passed around on the internet by people who like what it says and extra-like it because of the grand name that got attached to it.

The Einstein "quote" is discussed at Skeptical Esoterica:

"Western civilization is what gave the world pretty much every goddamn liberal precept that liberals are supposed to adore."

"Please, somebody stop us before we enlighten again."

"The partitioning of the region wasn't decided by Jews but by a vote of the United Nations in 1947 with everyone from Russia to Haiti voting for it. But apparently, they don't teach this at Drag Queen Story Hour anymore."

"The mainstream media... was reporting on it like it was all beautiful... But then when it came out, a little boy pointed out — 'That’s a penis!' and everyone was like, 'Yo, that’s a big old dong, man.'"

Said Seneca Scott, the 43-year-old cousin of Coretta Scott King, quoted in "'Woke' $10M MLK 'penis' statue insults black community: Coretta Scott King kin" (NY Post).

ADDED: I wonder if the sculptor thoroughly knew it looked like "a big old dong" but believed people would be so conned to believe that it's supposed to be beautiful art that it would take months or years before his true vision dawned on them.

The sculptor — Hank Willis Thomas — is referred to as a "conceptual" artist. What is conceptual about the reproduction of a photograph of MLK hugging his wife? Cutting the image down to just the arms and hands? Or designing it to look plainly — once the scales fall from your eyes — like a big old dong?

OR: Perhaps the concept is an attempted sophisticated joke on white people: They’ll see the penis, but they won’t say it out loud because they are terrified at the idea that they will be called racist.

Honoring Martin Luther King Jr. with a hilariously/tragically bad monumental sculpture

I’m here at the Boston Common pic.twitter.com/rfNMrX8uEP

— stephanie marie (@MarieDawson69) January 13, 2023

ADDED: This angle is supposed to explain the conception of the sculpture:

"Mr. Zelensky invokes Martin Luther King Jr. in saying 'I have a dream," and then saying 'I have a need' to protect the sky, as he presses Congress for a no-fly zone."

 The NYT is live-chatting Zelensky's address to Congress, which is in progress now.

"President Zelensky is layering in American touchstones in his address: Mount Rushmore to discuss shared values, Pearl Harbor and 9/11 to recall shared threats."

UPDATE: He asks us to watch a video. The video evokes great empathy. It's hard for me to imagine anyone watching and not weeping. After the video, Zelensky speaks in English. I transcribed this line: "I see no sense in life if it cannot stop the deaths."

"My sense is that a law or regulation is at best an opening bid. Is it binding, legally or morally? Maybe..."

"... but the presumption should be neutral at best, or, realistically, highly skeptical. After all, laws and regulations are the products of legislators and bureaucrats, who are presumptively corrupt and dishonest. And everybody know that, really."

Writes Glenn Reynolds, commenting on Ilya Somin's "Martin Luther King on the Ethics of Resistance to State Authority/Georgetown philosopher Jason Brennan offers a valuable summary of King's thought on these issues." 

Somin's piece is at Reason. Excerpt:

"Is it more important for me to tell a basic historical truth, let’s say, about racism in America right now? Or is it more important for me to get a bill passed..."

"... that provides a lot of people with health care that didn’t have it before? And there’s a psychic cost to not always just telling the truth... using your prophetic voice as opposed to your coalition building political voice. And I think there were times where supporters of mine would get frustrated if I wasn’t being as forthright about certain things as I might otherwise be. And then there are also just institutional constraints that I think every president has to follow on some of these issues. And it was sort of on a case by case basis, where you try to make decisions."

Said Barack Obama, answering a question on the Ezra Klein podcast at the NYT about how he decided it was worth it, politically, to refrain from accusing people of racism.

The question, asked by Klein, specifically referred to the Tea Party, and Klein asserts, based on reading Obama's book, that it was clear that the Tea Party was "at least partly" racist. Obama had been musing about understanding people and bringing us together, and Klein, seeming to want to bring some edge to the discussion, asked "How do you decide when the cost of that kind of truth outweighs the value of it?"

I've edited down the answer, but if you look at the whole thing, you'll see that what I left out was blander than what I quoted. Obama referred to the "basic historical truth... about racism," then immediately turned to political expediency. He acknowledged the "psychic cost to not always just telling the truth," by which I think he meant the cost to himself personally in devaluing truth-telling. And he strangely equated truth with "using your prophetic voice as opposed to your coalition building political voice." Prophetic voice? 

CORRECTION: This post originally said Obama was wrong to say "Sarah Palin... was sort of a prototype for the politics that led to the Tea Party, that in turn, ultimately led to Donald Trump, and that we’re still seeing today." I was wrong. He has the chronology right.

ADDED: I wish Klein had pursued Obama about the slippage between telling the truth and speaking in a prophetic voice! Maybe it's developed in his book, but I'd say, just offhand, that prophesy relates to the future, and, normally, when we talk about telling the truth, it relates to the present and the past. 

AND: I don't think the book uses the idea of the "prophetic voice," because I'm not seeing that phrase in connection with the book title. What I can see is that Obama's early speeches, when he first ran for President, were discussed in terms of a "prophetic" tradition among black Americans. I suspect that Obama conflated telling the truth about racism with speaking in the lofty, inspirational style associated with Martin Luther King, Jr.