George,

Meditating on the legacy of Martin Luther King, I've been puzzling about why we have garbage and trash collection on his holiday, as well as on Labor Day. Both of these are holidays for city employees, but apparently not for workers under sub-contracts. I find this ironic, since Dr. King was in Memphis to support the garbage-collectors' strike when he was murdered.

Is Waste Management paying overtime to the crew? Is working on MLK Day and Labor Day required? Does the City know? I trust that it cares.

In the larger context of the King holiday, the imperial George W. Bush is now dressing himself in the more humble mantle of Dr. King. "We love him," says the unctuous W with a touching little catch in his voice. It's always hard to know what someone who is dead would have done were he still alive, but I'd wager a lot that Dr. King would have his followers marching in the streets to protest Bush's adventure in Iraq. Everyone remembers Martin Luther King's passion for racial justice, but many have conveniently forgotten his prophetic sermons and his radical voice raised against all violence, and especially war. And almost everyone now ignores or represses his condemnation of the moral outrages of capitalist, corporate America.

Virginia Germino (electronic mail, January 18, 2005)