With many nations sliding into recession, world leaders met in Washington, D.C., yesterday to forestall an economic disaster and rewrite financial rules. President Bush said he and other world leaders have agreed to coordinate and modernize their financial systems to keep the economic crisis from getting worse. Speaking after an economic summit of top world leaders on Saturday, Bush said the United States could have gone into a depression worse than the Great Depression if the government hadn't acted quickly. (MSNBC© ) President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday urged Congress to get moving next week on an economic rescue plan that would extend jobless benefits among other actions. (AP© )

King Family Demands Obama $$
The family of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is demanding a share of the proceeds from the sudden wave of T-shirts, posters and other merchandise depicting the civil rights leader alongside Barack Obama. Isaac Newton Farris Jr., King's nephew and head of the nonprofit King Center in Atlanta, said the estate is entitled to hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees — maybe even millions. "Some of this is probably putting food on people's plates. We're not trying to stop anybody from legitimately supporting themselves," he said, "but we cannot allow our brand to be abused." (AP© ) Their "brand"? Their "brand"?! The King children continue to be an ongoing embarrassment to the legacy of a great leader as they remain in the news not for continuing MLK's fight for social justice but for lawsuits (and threats thereof) over money. Mney seems to be the only thing the King family is ocncerned about as they completely miss th epoint that the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States is the very fulfilment of MLK's dream. Now, if somebody wants to make a rap CD using audio of King, a video using arc hive footage of king, or, say, a video game with MLK defeating racists or something--sure, I get the estate's point, here. And, certainly, somebody is profiting off of these King-Obama items, but I submit these items are a product of an epic moment--one which I am quite sure MLK himself would have cherished. I can't imagine Dr. King pouring out vinegar at this time in history by squabbling over money. Come Ferbuary, the major King-Obama marketing blitz will be over, at least for now. The constant bickering and unseemly money-grubbing by his family is a ongoing stain on his memory.

Radio Days
For the first time in history, the weekly Democratic radio address has been webcast on video. Well, duh. Indicative of the wrongheadedness of America's leadership, the presidential radio address, begun in the 1930's, continues to be broadcast on radio every Saturday. Radio. It's nearly 2009, a universe that communicates by iPhone and Blackberry, and they're still using radio. President-Elect Barack Obama's internet video address, available on YouTube and playable on demand, will be seen by hundreds if not thousands of times more people than the audience for the president's weekly radio address, a dusty anachronism which stopped effectively communicating to the nation forty years ago. I would compliment the Obama-Biden Transition Project's forward thinking except that this technology, some twenty years old now, is hardly a step forward. It is, however, a reassuring signpost that this administration at least exists in the same time continuum as the rest of the planet. (VOA© ): The presidential radio address was considered innovative in the 1930s when then-President Franklin Roosevelt first used it to reach out to the American people. Mr. Roosevelt's so-called "fireside chats" were a source of comfort and reassurance during times of economic depression and war.

California Wildfires
A wind-blasted wildfire tore through Los Angeles' northern foothills Saturday, devastating a large mobile home park, forcing a hospital to evacuate some patients and sending thousands of residents fleeing for safety. The fire broke out late Friday in the foothill community of Sylmar on the edge of the Angeles National Forest and quickly spread across 2,600 acres — more than 4 square miles — as it was driven by Santa Ana wind gusting as high as 76 mph. Dozens of homes were destroyed, officials said, and aerial footage from television helicopters showed rows of houses gutted in just in one subdivision. (MSNBC© )