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It must have been a pretty beacon of Black culture in the past when Martin Luther King lived and preached in Sweet Auburn. Now the neighborhood in the Southeast of Atlanta is pretty dilapidated, the Martin Luther King National Site with museum, birth home, grave, and Ebenezer Baptist Church its single gem in the middle. Coming from downtown his larger than life face greets the brave visitor who dares to enter the somewhat scary looking area.
Here is where Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama addressed the congregation of Ebenezer Baptist Church the Sunday before the holiday and former US president Bill Clinton observed the yearly ceremony sitting two seats away from Republican presidential candidate and former Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee.
Between 1960 until 1968 Martin Luther King preached here. It was closed when we visited in late November 2007 but we got a shorter sermon just a little bit later.
Every buildings of the Martin Luther King Site has its own gift store, the church being no exception.
They have to make some money since entrance to the museum is free. It exhibits a visual biography of Martin Luther King. Photos, signs, and objects transport you back to segregation.
The tour inside his birth home was already filled up with visitors and we were left to explore the porch and admire the pictoresque outside.
His birth home was clearly the best restored building in vicinity, the neighboring structures patched up as necessary but the other houses around kind of run-down. 
His current home is also more beautiful than the rest of the environment in Sweet Auburn.
His tombs is built amidst a huge pool filled with turquoise water framed by exotic planes.
Stopping to read a sign out of nowhere a man shows up: beige suit with red tie, small mustache. He starts talking although we indicate that we just want to read the sign. He begins explaining where to find the Martin Luther King's house only to end in a plea for money: ”A’m embarrassed but ma ca’ is down the road at the Metro station an’ A jus’ need some money, maybe fou’ dollars. A’m a preacher and A have adanity.” He opens his black wallet, one side displaying a red and yellow sticker that I can’t really decipher and the other side showing the top third of a business card saying something about plumbing. We say we came for the free admission and move on. He says “God bless you” and does the same. 
Around the corner of Ebenezer Baptist Church another sort of worshipping goes on. Although I was very eager to visit the pews Jerone urged me on, down Auburn Avenue along the Freedom Walk into downtown. Sweet Auburn is like a little city in itself with police station, barber shops, food marts, bars, and clubs.
Another jewel along Freedom Walk is Sweet Auburn Bakery where a small yeast bread (not bigger than a German regural bun) costs $1, everything else the same size between $3 to $5 a piece, and a whole Bundt cake even $35! But it seems to be a unique place with old baking equipment displayed underneath the counter. The baker hands us her business card. It shows a photo of her and Bill Clinton who bites heartily into a sweet potato cheesecake, a signature pastry. The tiny store reminded me of single, small European bakery along a road. It already just smells tempting standing outside, you open the door, something jingles, and you're spoilt for choice what to pick. Sweet Auburn Bakery was a neat contrast to the build-in baking sections in supermarkets like Kroger or Walmart which claim to be a bakery but never appear to me as such. 
Back in downtown a scene like from Gone With the Wind beamed into modern times reminds us: Tomorrow we need to visit Margaret Mitchell.
By Stine Eckert
Forty years after Martin Luther King's death I asked people in his birthplace Altanta: Is this country ready for a Black president? And what would Martin Luther King tell Black presidentrial candidate Barack Obama if he would meet him today?
Bruce Abington:
I don't think this is a good time for Obama. It is better to wait and for him to become vice president first and then after four years more run for president. He has not enough experience yet like Hillary. It will be easier if he would run later, that is already the next step. Martin Luther King would tell Obama that he is doing the right thing but at the wrong time, that he has to go about it in a different way. I have not decided yet for who I will vote.
* * *
Ashley Donald, Ali McCreary, Beatriz Almeida (f.l.t.r.):
- Go Obama!
- Obama is so appealing because he's a people' s person, genuine. He means good.
- I think he can handle it being president. He's civilized, educated. We need to look past color and gender.
- The blue states will like him, yes. But not in jesus land, in the middle.
- I think especially the oldest and the youngest women are for him. He has a problem in the middle.
- I come from Chappaqua where Hillary lives. She lives two blocks away and in her street the people have Obama flags in their yard.
- Martin Luther King would say: Black Pride!
- I am for Obama.
- I am for Obama.
- I am for Hillary.
- You suck. (laughter)
* * *
Black woman who wouldn't give her name:
There's a chance for Obama because we've come a long way. Lots of Blacks are entertainers, business people, and politicians now. Blacks have a lots more money and power than they used to have. They brought us here as slaves and didn't give money, that's why we're behind, now we're building up again. Martin Luther King would say to Obama to go after his dream and when he gets in to office to look after the poor, not only the Black poor but all the poor. He was for everybody. I'm not voting because I'm Christian and this government is not Christian so I cannot participate.
* * *
Steve Mole:
There are slim chances for a Black president because there has never been one before. Martin Luther King would tell him to keep pushing forward, to keep trying. I haven't really decided yet for who I will vote but Omaha is not a choice; Huckabee is more appealing to Americans.
* * *
Kim Bowmar:
I don't think Obama has much of a chance. The country is not ready yet. There is not enough tolerance yet. Iowa was just one profile that there might be a chance but now it's fading because people have realized he could win and therefore they fight him. Martin Luther King would say to Obama: Good luck and be careful. There's not a lot tolerance yet but a lot of hatred.
* * *
Corinthia Terry:
I am for Clinton, not for Obama. I liked Bill Clinton because he wanted to help the African-Americans; he liked to keep peace. If Obama wins I'm happy and unhappy. Martin Luther King would say to him: "I've waited all this time, my dream is finally coming true."
was my first thought when i saw the german cultural garden in cleveland. my heart skipped a couple of beats: goethe, schiller, german quotes from wilhem tell and faust, father ("turnvater") jahn...oh freude! i was so happy that i hugged the gray cold stone... 
...did some spontaneous exercises for friedrich jahn...
...and proudly flirted with the german flag. who would have thought that i would get so patriotic after i felt european first, saxonian-anhalt second, zeitzering third but never german german. situational identity is the key. 
it turns out that my initial hunch was right. the statue is a replica of the original weimar gentlemen in front of the national theater modeled by ernest reitschal in 1856 - confirmed by information from an e-book from the cleveland memory project of ohio state university. the document also reveals the following:
the german garden is just one of 23 cultural gardens in cleveland's univerity circle area, was set up in cooperation with the cleveland park department. the money for the project was raised by card parties, poetry readings, song recitals and coffee and cake benefits. on june 2, 1929 the garden was opened and since 1932 a group of women members of the german cultural garden association has been actively managing the pictoresque green patch.
the document also provides an explanation why the garden was planted at all:
"The purpose of the German Cultural Garden Association as set forth in Article II of its constitution, was to 'awaken by honest and broad study, investigation and promulgation of the underlying principles of German Literature, Art, Science, and Culture, past and present, and thereby exemplify and emphasize their cultural value as contributions to mankind."
i was alreday wide awake upon that suprising discovery: what a homecoming!
By Op-Ed Contributor Jerone AndersonOn Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke's recent decision to lower interest rates and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's emergency plan for the current lending crisis.This seems like a very dangerous behavior for a leading candidate to make. Promising huge government spending to bale out the constituents who will most likely vote democratic. http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1024530420080111It sets a terrible example of effectively trying to buy votes with promised government spending and also of fiscal irresponsibility unless such a measure is balanced by cutting spending somewhere else in the budget. Even then such a measure seems to overstep the bounds of government in the private sector and should probably be avoided.Ironically it is the Clintons who got us into the housing mess by their failure to understand how to make stable banking systems during Mr. Clinton's presidency. By providing regulation changes to make bank consolidation possible it allowed banks like CitiGroup to profit in the short run but probably helped destabilize the banks bringing us to a mortgage crisis over loans that should never have been made to begin with. http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15&pid=248817The current social net and policy changes to prevent predatory lending make sense but direct spending to help bail out failed mortgages is a patchwork solution which promotes continued irresponsibility and fails to bring lasting structural change to the underlying problems in the financial system. Ben Bernanke has maintained a Greenspan style of interest rates which were kept too low for too long in the interests of maintaining growth but instead allowed for another asset bubble and increased liquidity in the system furthering the extension of credit in the subprime market. Greenspan followed a similary flawed policy in the late 1990s by keeping interest rates low until the bubble collapsed and then trying desperately to cut rates to aid recovery of a situation that could have been prevented to begin with. Now it appears with Ben Bernanke's comment to lower interest rates still further perhaps to around 4% is a similar desperate measure. The market now expects this kind of behavior and factors in the interest rate drops which now must occur at a time when inflationary pressures are relatively high. If rates had been held higher at perhaps at 6% during Bernanke's tenure it would have helped prevent the bubble, the collapse and the inflation which resulted from it and more inflation that will result from trying to fix the bubble with still lower interest rates. The fact that unemployment was below 5% last year (i.e. below the Non Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment - NAIRU) is an indication of this type of policy and helps explain some of the domestic inflationary pressures we have been seeing in the last couple of years. Unfortunately indexes such as the broad price index are little used or standardized and policy decisions revolve around the politically motivated thus intentionally inaccurate CPI which fails to reflect the true rate of inflation. Thus the failure of the market or fed to properly calculate the need for interest rate increases. Using the NAIRU as a kind of inverse inflation metric, though far from ideal, is one way to see what kind of problems may be coming along.Now the fiscal end of the stick is being fashioned to match by the likes of Hillary Clinton promising "good new jobs" and money for her voting constituency. While the Romans were at war abroad the government gave out money to the poor and pacified them with circuses to distract them from the reality. All we need now are the circuses.
CLP interviewing in Almaty/Kazakhstan
Text by Stine Eckert; Pictures by CLP (6) and Stine Eckert (1)
With money earned in day jobs three young Seattle journalists ventured into the Middle East and South East Asia to bring back compelling underreported stories and strong pictures from a world that US-Americans mostly know for conflicts and catastrophes. Publishing online they create a model for future journalism in the Web 2.0. Now they’re taking off to East Africa.
Jessica (middle) and Sarah(right) working in Pakistan
Catching up with people in the plains of Kyrgyzstan: Sarah (2nd from left) and Jessica (2nd from right)
For eight months they journeyed through Thailand, Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Israel, Palestine, and Egypt. They saved up $24,000 from donations by supporters and jobs: Sarah worked in the family furniture business, Alex as construction worker, and all of them freelanced. Already during college they traveled extensively. “Our rhythm was study, work, travel, study...” Sarah graduated with a BA in media and political science, Jessica with a BA in sociology and Roman Languages from Hunter College, NY, and Alex from New School University, NY with an emphasis on international politics. He’s the photographer of the group, speaks Arabic and Spanish. Jessica provides expertise for audio pieces and takes care of the website, speaks Spanish and French. Sarah who already won several prices awarded by the Independent Press Association is the main reporter and spokesperson of the CLP. The students in the Ohio University auditorium hang on her lips as she talks about Pakistan. “When we wanted to interview a little boy about his attendance of an Islamic school, our translator greeted him ‘So, you want to become a terrorist?’ and the interview was over.” She speaks about how the Pakistani secret service intimidated their translator: “But the hospitality of the Pakistani people was overwhelming. We never ate alone.”
Sarah riding in Kolkata, India
“Perhaps we celebrate the mass media too much”
“There are not many CLPs out there”, says Ohio University Director for International Journalism Professor Bob Stewart. Like his student Julia Marino, he’s a big fan of Sarah, Alex, and Jessica because they created their own jobs. “It’s brave and shows commitment, something that I like to see in my students, too.” He especially appreciates the CLP’s approach to publication: genuinely researched articles tailored for online use and exclusively published on the website instead of feeding the web with already existing newspaper reports. “They’re an exception,” he says. In contrast to Europe, going off and exploring the world plus freelancing is not a popular and common ticket to US journalism. Most US students want to grab a job in the mass media says Professor Stewart: “Perhaps because we celebrate mass media too much.” It was he who invited the CLP to give lectures and workshops during OU’s Journalism Day to spread the word about this unusual media outlet. “There are many independent media but few of them travel to deliver in-depth reports and feature stories online.” Being a locally popular singer-songwriter and accomplished guitar player his support has gone as far as giving a benefit concert to round up money for the CLP’s trip to East Africa this month. He’s not the only local supporter. OU graduate student Julia Marino’s initial enthusiasm with the CLP has gone further than with most groupies: She joined the CLP backed up by $4.000 of the John R. Wilhelm Scholarship for Foreign Correspondence awarded by OU’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. It’s the first time the money is given to a student to work within a non-commercial alternative media instead of financing time with CNN, AP or other global players in the business. “The CLP does something valuable in the here and now. Julia will learn a lot with them,” says Professor Stewart.
Julia Marino and Ernest Waititu organized an African benefit dinner for the current trip
“I don’t want to support corporate greed”
Julia is thrilled to a colleague of the three Seattle journalists now: “Everything that I admire and respect about journalism I see in the CLP”. She’s disenchanted with mass media thinking of product marketing and eyeball chasing. “I don’t want to support this corporate greed; the CLP is a new generation of journalists, hungry for news, curious to discover the world.” She will provide video for the website on the East Africa trip.
The CLP didn’t only have an impact on OU’s faculty and students but also on Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism instructor Jane Ellen Stevens who uses the CLP website to teach journalism from scratch. “[The CLP is] important, because of how Sarah, Jessica and Alex approach their reporting: from the bottom up, not the top down. They live in a place for a while, to get to understand it. Whereas most of traditional international reporters bounce from one war, famine, and disaster to another they cover other issues in ways that provide a portal to greater understanding of a place and the people who live there.” Meanwhile her students have started projects copying the CLP says Stevens: “Small groups of journalists can start their own online journalism site and do significant reporting that helps people understand issues very clearly and make connections with people in ways that haven't been possible before the advent of the web.”
“A million people tell you how crazy you are”
When Sarah and Jessica were about to graduate in November 2006, Sarah was sure she missed the online journalism hype: “I thought now I have a degree in journalism that is irrelevant.” In her opinion colleges don’t teach students enough online and multimedia skills that are in high demand in the real world. “There’s a lot you can teach yourself. We sat down in a park and asked what we wanted to really do and came up with the CLP,” she says. Said and done. With a laptop, iPod, and camera they simply took off. She’s convinced that journalism is at the crossroads: “Everyone who loves journalism should use this great opportunity. A million people tell you how crazy you are. But everyone can do it.”
Exploring the streets of Bhopal, India: Sarah and Jessica
Today the four take off to Africa supported by the renowned Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and accompanied by OU graduate and native Kenyan Ernest Waititu who created the website afrikanews.org for his Master’s project and will guide the CLP to cover East Africa. Don’t miss genuine stories from enthusiastic journalists who report beyond mainstream. Visit:
In the mountains of Kyrgystan: Sarah, Jessica, and Alex (from left to right)
standing in line to see the show tonite... it's the last week of the special exhibition "inspiring impressionism" and overwhelmingly caucasion, latin american, and asian visitors flocked to monet, renoir, cassat to admire their work.
european flair: the other current exhibition displays antiquities from ancient egypt, the near east and greco-roman background from the louvre in paris 
first i had to queue up to pay my $15 (with student discount, adults pay $19) and again for entering the impressism exhibition which was packed with audio guide listening art roamers. audio guides where included in the pricy prize and nicely done with not only texts but background sounds like wind, water, and barking dogs according to the subject of the painting.
in the middle of the woodruff arts center. it not only features the high museum of art but several theatres including a puppet theatre and concert halls. a happening place where people in fancy clothes enjoy serious art. 
tricky house: in front of the high museum of art this house makes almost everyone smile. of course it's an optic trick that the house moves as you walk along. but it pleases the eyes so much they basically tell the brain to shut up wondering.
another eye ball charmer. the mobile playfully says: come close, here's sophisticated fun.
in modern white armor, the high museum of art.
midtown: where broad sidewalks gave restored my feeling that walking is okay and desired (after i rode an hour on bus and metro to get to this pedestrian paradise).
street light conversation:
- isn't she beautiful, our mysterious lady atlanta?
- mmh, you can never quite figure her out.
It must have been a pretty beacon of Black culture in the past when Martin Luther King lived and preached in Sweet Auburn. Now the neighborhood in the Southeast of Atlanta is pretty dilapidated, the Martin Luther King National Site with museum, birth home, grave, and Ebenezer Baptist Church its single gem in the middle. Coming from downtown his larger than life face greets the brave visitor who dares to enter the somewhat scary looking area.
Here is where Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama addressed the congregation of Ebenezer Baptist Church the Sunday before the holiday and former US president Bill Clinton observed the yearly ceremony sitting two seats away from Republican presidential candidate and former Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee.
Between 1960 until 1968 Martin Luther King preached here. It was closed when we visited in late November 2007 but we got a shorter sermon just a little bit later.
Every buildings of the Martin Luther King Site has its own gift store, the church being no exception.
They have to make some money since entrance to the museum is free. It exhibits a visual biography of Martin Luther King. Photos, signs, and objects transport you back to segregation.
The tour inside his birth home was already filled up with visitors and we were left to explore the porch and admire the pictoresque outside.
His birth home was clearly the best restored building in vicinity, the neighboring structures patched up as necessary but the other houses around kind of run-down. 
His current home is also more beautiful than the rest of the environment in Sweet Auburn.
His tombs is built amidst a huge pool filled with turquoise water framed by exotic planes.
Stopping to read a sign out of nowhere a man shows up: beige suit with red tie, small mustache. He starts talking although we indicate that we just want to read the sign. He begins explaining where to find the Martin Luther King's house only to end in a plea for money: ”A’m embarrassed but ma ca’ is down the road at the Metro station an’ A jus’ need some money, maybe fou’ dollars. A’m a preacher and A have adanity.” He opens his black wallet, one side displaying a red and yellow sticker that I can’t really decipher and the other side showing the top third of a business card saying something about plumbing. We say we came for the free admission and move on. He says “God bless you” and does the same. 
Around the corner of Ebenezer Baptist Church another sort of worshipping goes on. Although I was very eager to visit the pews Jerone urged me on, down Auburn Avenue along the Freedom Walk into downtown. Sweet Auburn is like a little city in itself with police station, barber shops, food marts, bars, and clubs. 
Another jewel along Freedom Walk is Sweet Auburn Bakery where a small yeast bread (not bigger than a German regural bun) costs $1, everything else the same size between $3 to $5 a piece, and a whole Bundt cake even $35! But it seems to be a unique place with old baking equipment displayed underneath the counter. The baker hands us her business card. It shows a photo of her and Bill Clinton who bites heartily into a sweet potato cheesecake, a signature pastry. The tiny store reminded me of single, small European bakery along a road. It already just smells tempting standing outside, you open the door, something jingles, and you're spoilt for choice what to pick. Sweet Auburn Bakery was a neat contrast to the build-in baking sections in supermarkets like Kroger or Walmart which claim to be a bakery but never appear to me as such. 
Back in downtown a scene like from Gone With the Wind beamed into modern times reminds us: Tomorrow we need to visit Margaret Mitchell.
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