Martin Luther King

This month America celebrates the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., the courageous and charismatic leader who did more to lift the burdens of racism from African Americans than any other person of the 20th Century. The outlines of his story are by now well-known to any informed American but they will always bear repeating. I say: America celebrates, but don’t we all do? I mean to me he is an example of what people can obtain if they persevere and believe in their cause.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was the son of a pastor father and a schoolteacher mother. He grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. As a child, his friendship with two white children was cut off by their prejudiced parents. At eleven, a white woman used the N-word on the young lad. When the boy and his father, “Daddy King,” went to a shoe store, the clerk tried to shoo them to the back of the shop, telling Daddy King that “We don’t serve colored in the front of the store.” The elder King replied, “If you don’t serve colored in the front of the store, then you don’t serve these colored at all!” Father and son immediately left the place. When Martin was fourteen years old, a teacher of his took him to a speech competition where he won first prize. When the teenager and his teacher boarded the bus back to Atlanta, the bus driver made them give up their seats to white passengers. Later Martin recalled his feelings about this incident: “That night will never leave my memory. It was the angriest I have ever been in my life.”

Although he didn’t yet know how or when he would do it, the young King made up his mind to fight racism.

He also decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a minister. King was of unusually high intelligence so he was admitted to Morehouse College before even graduating from high school. While there, he learned about Mahatma Gandhi, the man whose peaceful protests won freedom for India; King decided that this was a good model for African Americans to follow. He also met Coretta Scott, the woman who would become his wife and stand by his side through both persecution and glory.

In 1954, King and his new bride went to Montgomery, Alabama where Rev. King became the minister of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. That same year, the Supreme Court ruled in the landmark Brown v. The Board of Education case that racial segregation in the public schools was unconstitutional.

On December 1, 1955, a seemingly minor incident occurred that would propel the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to fame and permanently change American society for the better. An African American woman named Rosa Parks was sitting at the front of a Montgomery bus. She was very tired after a long day at work. A white man came on board the bus and the bus driver told her to give up her seat to him.

Rosa Parks refused.

Read more and watch the video on:

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=1d0f7beff4defeb716b60b23e2a32263.1248462

Making manakish

Mankousheh or the plural manakish, are very well known in Lebanon and other Arab  countries. It’s dough and on it thyme (za3tar) or cheese or kishek and then baked sometimes in the oven sometimes on “Saj” like you see on the picture below. Manakish belong to the patrimonium of the country and all over Lebanon you can find small bakeries making them. Our senior citizens love to make their own mankouseh, and that’s what they did today in a very enjoyable atmosphere.

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Execution in Iraq

So the 2 other men were hung today at dawn!!! I guess we are powerless, we just cannot do anything about this cruelty. But I don’t want to give up, I want to continue fighting for abolition of death penalty. It is too early for Amnesty to having written something, so I will wait and see if there are any petitions…