This is excellent news. Obama and Russian president Medvedev met and agreed that we need to reduce our mutual warhead numbers below the level agreed upon in 2002 (possibly even lower than 1700, which is still enough to incinerate the human population many times over, unfortunately). This is a great step, since in the current economy, neither country can afford to maintain its current number of warheads, anyway, nor does our current level of warheads serve any national security purpose (since even 10% of 1700 warheads is enough to pretty much wipe out humanity).

BUT THERE'S SOMETHING THAT ***YOU*** CAN SUPPORT OBAMA ON:

(from the article at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/01/AR2009040100242.html)

"Obama also pledged to work for ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which the Senate rejected in 1999. Senate aides said Wednesday that trying to bring the treaty to a vote probably would take time, and they predicted that it does not currently have enough votes to pass."

PLEASE LOBBY YOUR SENATORS TO SUPPORT OBAMA BY RATIFYING THE COMPREHENSIVE NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY. Contact information to email or call your Senator can be found at www.senate.gov in the upper right hand corner (the "find your senator" search box). As much as it probably pleases the arms industry for us to randomly detonate nuclear weapons in superfluous tests (so we have to buy more to replace the ones detonated), this does not serve the interest of the U.S. taxpayer in an era of ballooning deficits and financial crisis. Further, and of equal importance, tests will invariably have a negative environmental impact, so the fewer they are the better. I'm not sure if there is some worst case scenario where a test procedure could mistakenly be viewed as aggressive, but even a miniscule possibility of this should be reduced as much as possible (the fewer tests that occur, the less likely this is, if it is likely at all) (although traditional missile tests are more likely to cause such a misunderstanding than what I imagine would be underground detonations that are probably standard for nuclear testing).

PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO PERSONS OF CONSCIENCE AND SUPPORTERS OF PEACE IN YOUR CIRCLE

I am co-owner of PKG Entertainment, home of The Package.

In the latest news on The Package, the video for their single "Making Waves" has garnered over 16,000 plays on a variety of platforms including vladtv.com, nahright.com and through exposure on other tastemaking blogs. They just played to a packed house at Indulj in DC's U Street corridor (the show was webcasted live on thehotconversation.com).

In PKG Entertainment news, we are working through our radio promo company to secure a slot at the End of the Week showcase in New York City this month (more on that when the date becomes final). We also will have the long-awaited official release party for the "New Golden Era" album tentatively planned on April 18th at the Velvet Lounge, also on the historic U Street corridor (final details being ironed out now). Video of The Package performing live at the H Street Festival in front of a diverse crowd in the heart of Northeast Washington can be found at http://vimeo.com/2683567

newgoldenera.com

if you're in dc, they rock live at indulj (1208 u st nw) this saturday, show starts at 8pm

PLEASE FORWARD!

If you are incensed about this as I am, please email Online Editorial
and News editor Chris Shaw webeditor@nypost.com to demand a
retraction! Even items in the gossip column should be based on truth!

This is an outright fabrication! Please read on!

If you don't know how to start your email in response to this
travesty, I have posted a copy of my email to the editor at the very
bottom of this email (scroll down) for you to alter as you choose.
Please use your own words, it makes your response more powerful!

Since I hate to think of adding to the Post's total hits count, i.e.
helping them get ad money, I pasted a copy of the article under my
letter.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Alan
Date: Jan 16, 2008 1:42 PM
Subject: Sen. Obama SLANDER Alert! NY Post Page Six Posts Alarming Mistruth!

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01142008/gossip/pagesix/hillary__barack_rap__rock_142152.htm

Monday January 14, NY Post gossip column Page Six (link above) alleged
that Sen. Obama came onstage at Iowa victory party to the tune of
misogynist rap tune, "99 Problems" (chorus: "I got 99 problems but a
b---h ain't one") as a retort to Sen. Clinton. No reputable news
outlet has picked up on this story, but I have already begun receiving
emails about it. Legal action may be necessary to fight this
falsehood. At a minimum, a retraction is needed ASAP! Please inform
the campaign legal staff. Thank you!

____

TEMPLATE TO USE FOR RESPONSE EMAIL

Dear Mr. Shaw:

This letter concerns the following "news" item on the Post gossip
page, Page Six:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01142008/gossip/pagesix/hillary__barack_rap__rock_142152.htm

On Monday, January 14, the online version of Page Six ran a false
story about Barack Obama coming out to the tune of Jay-Z's "99
Problems" to delivery his Iowa victory speech (link posted above),
when in fact an entirely different song was playing when Sen. Obama
entered the event to deliver this speech. I have spoken with
volunteers on the scene when Sen. Obama entered the event to deliver
his speech and googled news accounts of his entrance and every
indication is that the song to which Sen. Obama entered the event that
night was U2's "City of Blinding Lights", a customary entrance theme
for the Senator.

see: http://weblogs.newsday.com/entertainment/music/blog/2008/01/obama_and_u2s_city_of_blinding.html

This story is categorically false and constitutes libel. The story
accuses Sen. Obama of misogyny, a very serious charge, and the story
itself has no validity. The true fact of which song was playing when
Sen. Obama entered the stage could have been ascertained through a
quick usage of Google, a basic pre-requisite of modern journalism, or
even through interviews with people present at the event or perusal of
news accounts covering the event. The story contains no mention of an
attempt to contact the Obama campaign for comment, a basic
prerequisite for journalism as well, nor does it name a source that
allegedly witnessed (heard) the song being played as Sen. Obama
entered the stage.

This story should be retracted by the Post immediately and removed
from your site.

Thank you for your commitment to true journalism.

ps: The fact that Page Six took almost two weeks to report this story
and no other news outlet reported this occurence also militates in
favor of a presumption of falseness.

Regards,

________

THE OFFENDING ARTICLE IN QUESTION

January 14, 2008 -- PRESIDENTIAL hopeful Barack Obama claims to run a
clean campaign, but someone in his camp took a swipe at Hillary
Clinton through the candidate's theme song.

As Obama and his wife, Michelle, strolled triumphantly into his
victory party in Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan. 3, Jay-Z's "99 Problems"
was blaring. In it, Jay raps, "I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain't
one."

Some listeners took it as a not-so-sly reference to Hillary.

"We didn't know he used that," a shocked Clinton spokesperson said.

Obama has no problem admitting he's a rap fan.

"I tell you what, I can tell you the kinds of stuff I love dancing to
. . . I'm sort of the generation of Stevie Wonder and Earth, Wind and
Fire," he told CNN on the campaign trail. "But I'm sort of hip to the
younger stuff. You know, like Beyoncé's 'Crazy in Love.' That's a good
song to dance to. Eminem . . . although he curses sometimes."

Clinton seems less committed to any musical style. She made a
"Sopranos" spoof video last year to unveil her official campaign song,
"You and I," by Céline Dion. The lyrics go: "High above the mountains,
far across the sea, I can hear your voice calling out to me." The song
later disappeared from her campaign, however.

But maybe Clinton could use a rap number of her own. Lil' Kim's hit,
"Can't [bleep] With Queen Bee," would have been perfect to celebrate
her win in New Hampshire. It goes: "It's a new day, and all you . . .
back-stabbing . . . haters, you're all history. So you can hate, or
hail the Queen. I got a vision, I think for the future, baby."

Instead, she entered her New Hampshire victory party to "Ain't No
Mountain High Enough," by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. But now she's
using the Big Head Todd and the Monsters rock song "Blue Sky." The
lyrics go: "Yes, you can change the world, true love discovers. She
stands, and she won't back down. Oh, yes, you can change the world.
There is no other one. Just see if you can find blue sky."

"We use a variety of songs. Those are the most recent," said Clinton's
spokesperson.

Obama is still technically in the lead. Read on! And feel free to copy/paste/bulletin!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_%28United_States%29_presidential_primaries%2C_2008

Obama has more delegates pledged to him at this point than Sen
Clinton (although he is only ahead by a single delegate at this point,
post-NH, see the link above). For those that don't know, who gets the
nomination in the Democratic National Convention is based on who has
the most delegates pledged to their name. So, that's all that matters,
no matter who wins how many primaries, the important thing is to
compete strongly enough to get the MOST delegates, TOTAL.

This ain't spin control, folks, it's real politics. :-) It's kind of
sad that the media is so poorly trained in explaining the process. The
individual campaigns have little incentive to talk about this kind of
stuff because it's (1) boring (2) confusing to the average voter and
(3) likely to be spun badly by opponents (imagine Obama coming out and
saying "Well, yeah, but I have more delegates than you, though"...it
would look a little arrogant and most people wouldn't even understand
it).

So, stay fired up, my friend! We're still in a great position!

 

I don't often bang for new guys, but i've been listening to this kid ras kass is mentoring called Namebrand, I ***urge*** you to check this cat out with the free mixtape available for download at the link below...he holds his own alongside lyrical heavyweights ras kass and crooked i....i am SO excited about this new cat, man, haven't felt this way about a new kid in a minute...he's got the total package...swagger, political rhymes, battle raps....a very strong new jack....i'm very proud...i met him when i promoted a ras kass show in dc last year and he's also MAD HUMBLE, so I am definitely cheerleading for this kid. spread the word on this young cat!

(and, if i may get my bill cosby on, he doesn't curse that much either! that didn't start mattering much to me until i had my daughter)

[IMG]http://www.reupentertainment.com/ktn.jpg[/IMG]

1. Open Up
2. I'll Hush You
3. Show Me (Freestyle)
4. Who Dem Boyz ft. Crooked I
5. Tranzformerz Ft. Ras Kass
6. 1
7. The Return (He's Back)
8. Yeah!! ft. Ras Kass
9. Mattress Money ft. Printz Haze
10. The Game Will Be Alright
11. Miss Conception ft. Jayou (Ghetto Blastrz)
12. Get It In ft. Ras Kass (Produced by: Alchemist)
13. You Aint Shit ft. The Pozerz
14. Say Good Bye
15. My Garden
16. Let's Rock (Bonus Track)

http://www.reupentertainment.com/knowthename/knowthename.rar

ps: Obama wins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1) If I was a Christian, I wouldn't celebrate Christmas because it has nothing to do with Jesus any more. The news is steady reporting about whether people are in shopping malls, not whether they're in CHURCH.

2) I ain't a Christian

3) I'm not particularly big on rampant consumerism.

All this to say, STOP WISHING ME A MERRY CHRISTMAS!

It's like walking up to a Buddhist and wishing him a good Ramadan. STOP IT!

LOL.

edit: One of my astute readers has noted how serene Buddhists are. Okay, it's like walking up to Raekwon and wishing him a happy Hanukah. Better?

I don't delete the Christmas comments because they come from a good place, I guess, but um...STOP IT. LOL.

as if i didn't have enough things to do, i recently became inspired to start volunteering for the obama campaign...i feel like the brother has a good chance to go the distance...unfortunately, most of the primaries will be over by feb 5, so the pressure is on...

i started a fundraising page and i'm asking people if they support obama to try to give what they can...the link is below...

http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/dashboard/main/spirit

http://www.suntimes.com/news/novak/612755,CST-EDT-NOVAK21.article

Robert Novak: "One underlying reason for bright Republican prospects
in Louisiana's statewide elections... is the departure from the state
of an estimated 173,000 African Americans, dependable Democratic
voters, after Hurricane Katrina."

___

It takes a unique (borderline insane) lack of empathy for someone to see the post-disaster displacement of thousands of people as a "bright prospect" for their political party, let alone label it as a "departure", as if almost 200,000 black people decided to go on vacation after the levees broke. The Beltway warps people's brains...this guy needs to take a 'departure' from writing.

Feel free to email Lil Rob and let him know how you feel about his callousness at novakevans@aol.com

Next April marks the 40th anniversary of King's assassination. A few years ago, a jury ruled in favor of the King family in a wrongful death suit. The jury agreed with the King family's main contention that the killing of Dr. King was a conspiracy, i.e. that James Earl Ray did not act alone...read on...

(and find one more reason why I hate the Washington Post...lol)

__

http://www.douglasvalentine.com/who_killed_martin_luther_king.html

This article appeared in the February 21, 2000, issue of The Consortium.

Note: Doug Valentine worked as an investigator for the King family and testified at the trial about suspicions that Dr. King might have been under U.S. government surveillance at the time of the assassination.

Who Killed Martin Luther King?
By Douglas Valentine

On Dec. 8, a jury in Memphis, Tenn., deliberated for only three hours before deciding that the long-held official version of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination was wrong.

The jury's verdict implicated a retired Memphis businessman and government agencies in a conspiracy to kill the civil rights giant.

Though the trial testimony had received little press attention outside of the Memphis area, the startling outcome drew an immediate rebuttal from defenders of the official finding: that James Earl Ray acted alone or possibly as part of a low-level conspiracy of a few white racists.

Leading newspapers across the country disparaged the December verdict as the product of a flawed conspiracy theory given a one-sided presentation. The Washington Post even lumped the conspiracy proponents in with those who insist Adolf Hitler was unfairly accused of genocide.

"The deceit of history, whether it occurs in the context of Holocaust denial or in an effort to rewrite the story of Dr. King's death, is a dangerous impulse for which those committed to reasoned debate and truth cannot sit still," a Post editorial read. "The more quickly and completely this jury's discredited verdict is forgotten the better." [WP, Dec. 12, 1999]

For its part, the King family cited the verdict as a way of dealing with its personal grief. "We hope to put this behind us and move on with our lives," said Dexter King, speaking on behalf of the family. "This is a time for reconciliation, healing and closure."

But should closure -- or forgetfulness - follow a verdict that finds the federal government complicit in a conspiracy to assassinate one of this nation's most historic figures? Are there indeed legitimate reasons to doubt the official story? And how should Americans evaluate this unorthodox trial, its evidence and the verdict?

Without doubt, the trial in Memphis lacked the neat wrap-up of a Perry Mason drama. The testimony was sometimes imprecise, dredging up disputed memories more than three decades old.

Some testimony was hearsay; long depositions by deceased or absent figures were read into the record; and some witnesses had changed their stories over time amid accusations of profiteering.

There was a messiness that often accompanies complex cases of great notoriety. The plaintiff's case also did not encounter a rigorous challenge from Lewis K. Garrison, the attorney for defendant Loyd Jowers. Garrison shares the doubts about the official version, and his client, Jowers, has implicated himself in the conspiracy, although insisting his role was tangential. Some critics compared the trial to a professional wrestling match with the defense putting up only token resistance.

Yet, despite the shortcomings, the trial was the first time that evidence from the King assassination was presented to a jury in a court of law. The verdict demonstrated that 12 citizens -- six blacks and six whites -- did not find the notion of a wide-ranging conspiracy to kill King as ludicrous as many commentators did.

The trial suggested, too, that the government erred by neglecting the larger issue of public interest in the mystery of who killed Martin Luther King Jr. Instead the government simply affirmed and reaffirmed James Earl Ray's guilty plea for three decades. Insisting that the evidence pointed clearly toward Ray as the assassin, the government never agreed to vacate Ray's guilty plea and allow for a full-scale trial, a possibility that ended when Ray died from liver disease in 1998.

At that point, the King family judged that a wrongful death suit against Jowers was the last chance for King's murder to be considered by a jury. From the start, the family encountered harsh criticism from many editorial writers who judged the conspiracy allegations nutty.

The King family's suspicions, however, derived from one fact that was beyond dispute: that powerful elements of the federal government indeed were out to get Martin Luther King Jr. in the years before his murder.

In particular, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover despised King as a dangerous radical who threatened the national security and needed to be neutralized by almost any means necessary.

After King's "I have a dream speech" in 1963, FBI assistant director William Sullivan called King "the most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country." Hoover reacted to King's Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 with the comment that King was "the most notorious liar in the country."

The documented record is clear that the FBI and other federal agencies aggressively investigated King as an enemy of the state. His movements were monitored; his phones were tapped; his rooms were bugged; derogatory information about his personal life was leaked to discredit him; he was blackmailed about extramarital affairs; he was sent a message suggesting that he commit suicide. "There is only one way out for you," the message read. "You better take it before your filthy, abnormal, fraudulent self is bared to the nation."

These FBI operations escalated as black uprisings burned down parts of American cities and as the nation's campuses erupted in protests against the Vietnam War. To many young Americans, black and white, King was a man of unparalleled stature and extraordinary courage. He was the leader who could merge the civil rights and anti-war movements.

Increasingly, King saw the two issues as intertwined, as President Lyndon Johnson siphoned off anti-poverty funds to prosecute the costly war in Vietnam. On April 15, 1967, less than a year before his murder, King concluded a speech to an anti-war rally with a call on the Johnson administration to "stop the bombing." King also began planning a Poor People's March on Washington that would put a tent city on the Mall and press the government for a broad redistribution of the nation's wealth.

Covert government operations worked to disrupt both the anti-war and civil rights movements by infiltrating them with spies and agents provocateurs. The FBI?s COINTELPRO sought to neutralize what were called "black nationalist hate groups," counting among its targets King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

One FBI memo fretted about the possible emergence of a black "Messiah" who could "unify and electrify" the various black militant groups. The memo listed King as "a real contender" for this leadership role.

With this backdrop came the chaotic events in Memphis in early 1968 as King lent his support to a sanitation workers' strike marred by violence.

The government's surveillance of King in Memphis -- by both federal agents and city police -- would rest at the heart of the case more than three decades later.

On April 4, 1968, at 6 p.m., King emerged from his room on the second floor of the Lorraine Motel. As he leaned over the balcony, King was struck by a single bullet and died.

As word of his death spread, riots exploded in cities across the country. Fiery smoke billowed from behind the Capitol dome. Government officials struggled to restore order and police searched for King's assassin.

One of those questioned was restaurant owner Loyd Jowers whose Jim's Grill was below the rooming house where James Earl Ray had stayed and from where authorities contend the fatal shot was fired.

Jowers told the police he knew nothing about the shooting, but had heard a noise that "sounded like something that fell in the kitchen." [The Commercial Appeal, Dec. 9, 1999]

The international manhunt ended at London's Heathrow Airport on June 8, 1968, when Scotland Yard detained Ray for carrying an illegal firearm. Ray was extradited back to the United States to stand trial as King's lone assassin. The FBI insisted that it could find no solid evidence indicating that Ray was part of any conspiracy. But the authorities contended they had a strong case against Ray, including a recovered rifle with Ray's fingerprints. The rifle fired bullets of the same caliber as the one that killed King.

While Ray sat in jail, Jowers's name popped up again in the case. On Feb. 10, 1969, Betty Spates, a waitress at Jim's Grill, implicated Jowers in the assassination. She said Jowers found a gun behind the caf‚ and may actually have shot King. Two days later, however, Spates recanted. [The Commercial Appeal, Dec. 9, 1999]

On March 10, 1969, Ray accepted the advice of his attorney and pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to 99 years in prison.

Three days later, however, he wrote a letter to the judge asking that his guilty plea be set aside. He claimed that he was innocent and that his lawyer had misled him into making the plea.

Ray began telling a complex tale in which he was duped by an operative he knew only as "Raul." Ray claimed that Raul arranged the assassination and set Ray up to take the fall. Government investigators rejected Raul's existence and insisted that Ray was simply spinning a story to escape a long prison term. The courts rejected Ray's request for a trial. As far as the legal system of Memphis was concerned, the case was closed.

But there did appear to be weaknesses in the prosecution case that might have shown up at trial.

For instance, Charles Stephens, a key witness placing Ray at the scene of the crime, appeared to have been drunk at the time and had offered contradictory accounts of the assailant's description, according to a reporter who encountered him after the shooting. [For details, see William F. Pepper's Orders to Kill.] Outside the government, other skeptical investigators began to pick at the loose ends of the case.

In 1971, investigative writer Harold Weisberg published the first dissenting account of the official King case in his book, Frame Up. Weisberg noted problems with the physical evidence, including the FBI's failure to match the death slug to the alleged murder weapon. Questions about the case mounted when the federal government declassified records revealing the intensity of FBI hatred for King. The combination of factual discrepancies and a possible government motive led some of King's friends to suspect a conspiracy.

In 1977, civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy encouraged lawyer William F. Pepper to meet with Ray and hear out the convict's tale. Pepper said he took on the assignment in part because he had encouraged King to join in publicly criticizing the Vietnam War and felt a sense of responsibility for King's fate. Responding to growing public doubts about the official accounts of the three major assassinations that rocked the nation in the 1960s, Congress also agreed to re-examine the murders of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and King.

In congressional testimony, however, Ray came off poorly. Rep. Louis Stokes, D- Ohio, the chairman of the investigating committee, said Ray's performance convinced him that Ray indeed was the assassin and that there was no government role in the murder.

The panel did leave open the possibility that other individuals were involved, but limited the scope of any conspiracy to maybe Ray's brothers, Jerry and John, or two St. Louis racists who allegedly put a bounty on King's life. But others on the panel, such as Rep. Walter Fauntroy, D-D.C., continued to harbor doubts about the congressional findings.

After a decade of on-and-off work on the case, Pepper decided to press ahead. He agreed to represent Ray and filed a habeas corpus suit on his behalf. Also, in 1993, a mock television trial presented the evidence against Ray to a "jury," which returned the convict's "acquittal." Pepper asserted that the government's case was so weak that Ray would win a regular trial, too. Jowers reentered the controversy as well, reversing his initial statement to police in which he denied knowledge of the assassination. On Dec. 16, 1993, in a nationally televised ABC-TV interview, Jowers claimed that a Mafia-connected Memphis produce dealer, Frank C. Liberto, had paid him $100,000 to arrange King's murder.

But Liberto was then dead and the man named by Jowers as the paid hit-man denied any role in the murder. [The Commercial Appeal, Dec. 9, 1999] In 1995, Pepper published an account of his investigation in Orders to Kill. The book contended that the conspirators behind the assassination included elements of the Mafia, the FBI and U.S. Army intelligence.

Pepper located witnesses with new evidence. John McFerren, a black grocery owner, was quoted as saying that an hour before the assassination, he overheard Liberto order someone over the phone to "shoot the son of a bitch when he comes on the balcony."

But Pepper's credibility suffered when he cited anonymous sources in identifying William Eidson as a deceased member of a U.S. Army assassination squad that was present in Memphis on the day King died. ABC-TV researchers found Eidson to be alive and furious at Pepper's insinuations about his alleged role in the King assassination.

Still, the King family -- especially King's children -- grew increasingly interested in the controversy. On March 27, 1997, King's younger son, Dexter, sat down with Ray in prison, listened to Ray's story and announced his belief that Ray was telling the truth.

In a separate meeting with the King family, Jowers claimed that a police officer shot King from behind Jim's Grill. The officer then handed the smoking rifle to Jowers, the former restaurant owner said.

The authorities in Tennessee, however, continued to rebuff Ray's appeals for a trial. Prosecutors concluded that Jowers's story lacked credibility and may have been motivated by greed. Ray's pleas for his day in court finally ended with his death from liver disease.

On Oct. 2, 1998, the King family filed a wrongful death suit against Jowers. The trial opened in November 1999, attracting scant attention from the national press.

Jowers, 73, attended only part of the trial and did not testify. His admissions of complicity were recounted by others who had spoken with him.

Former United Nations ambassador Andrew Young testified that he found Jowers sincere during a four-hour conversation about the assassination. "I got the impression this was a man who was very sick [and who] wanted to go to confession to get his soul right," Young said.

According to Young, Jowers said he had served Memphis police officers and federal agents when they met in Jowers's restaurant before the assassination. Jowers also recounted his story of Mafia money going to a man who delivered a rifle to Jowers's caf.

After the assassination, the man, a Memphis police officer, handed the rifle to Jowers through a back door, according to Jowers's account. [Scripps Howard News Service, Nov. 18, 1999]

A former state judge, Joe Brown, took the stand to challenge the government's confidence that Ray's rifle was the murder weapon. During one of Ray's earlier court hearings, Brown had ordered new ballistic tests on the gun and the bullet that killed King.

The results had been inconclusive, with the forensics experts unable to rule whether the gun was the murder weapon or wasn't. In his testimony, however, Brown asserted that the sight on the rifle was so poor that it couldn't have killed King.

"This weapon literally could not hit the broadside of a barn," Brown said. But he acknowledged that he had no formal training as a weapons expert. The jury also heard testimony that federal authorities were monitoring the area around the Lorraine Motel. Carthel Weeden, a former captain with the Memphis Fire Department, said that on the afternoon of April 4, 1968, two men appeared at the fire station across from the motel and showed the credentials of U.S. Army officers.

The men then carried briefcases, which they said held photographic equipment, up to the roof of the station. Weeden said the men positioned themselves behind a parapet approximately 18 inches high, a position that gave them a clear view of the Lorraine Motel and the rooming house window from which Ray allegedly fired the shot that killed King.

They also would have had a view of the area behind Jim's Grill. But what happened to any possible photographs remains a mystery. Weeden added that he was never questioned by local or federal authorities.

Former Rep. Fauntroy also testified at the Kings-Jowers trial. Fauntroy complained that the 1978 congressional inquiry was not as thorough as the public might have thought. The committee dropped the investigation when funding dried up and left some promising leads unexplored, he told the jury.

"Had we had [another] six months, we may well have gotten to the bottom of everything," Fauntroy testified on Nov. 29. "We didn't have the time to investigate leads we had established but could not follow. ? We asked the Justice Department to follow up ? and to see if there was more than just a low- level conspiracy."

Other witnesses described a strange withdrawal of police protection from around the motel about an hour before King's death. A group of black homicide detectives, who had served as King's bodyguards on previous visits to Memphis, were kept from performing those duties in April 1968.

In his summation, trying to minimize his client's alleged role in the conspiracy, Garrison asked the jury, "would the owner of a greasy spoon restaurant, and a lone assassin, could they pull away officers from the scene of an assassination? Could they put someone up on the top of the fire station?" The cumulative evidence apparently convinced the jury. After the trial, juror Robert Tucker told a reporter that the 12 jurors agreed that the assassination was too complex for one person to handle. He noted the testimony about the police guards being removed and Army agents observing King from the firehouse. "All of these things added up," Tucker said. [AP, Dec. 9, 1999]

Even before the trial ended, the media controversy about the case had begun. Many reporters viewed the conspiracy allegations as half-baked and the defense as offering few challenges to the breathtaking assertions.

The jury, for instance, heard little about the gradual evolution of Jowers's story, which began with a flat denial and grew over time with the addition of sometimes conflicting details. In a commentary on the case, history writer John McMillian reaffirmed his confidence in Ray's guilt and his certainty that the wrongful death suit was "misguided." But McMillian noted that the King family's suspicions about the government's actions were grounded in the reality of the FBI's campaign to ruin King's reputation.

"While King was alive, he and his family suffered needlessly from slimy government subterfuge," McMillian wrote. Though believing Ray was "justly punished for being King's assassin,? McMillian wrote, ?the FBI has never been held accountable for a much more lengthy, expensive and organized campaign to destroy King." [The Commercial Appeal, Nov. 26, 1999]

Other critics focused on Pepper. Court TV analyst Harriet Ryan noted that the King family's motivations appeared sincere, but "the same cannot be said for Pepper [who] stands to gain from sales of his book."

Gerald Posner, author of the conspiracy-debunking book, Killing the Dream, argued that the trial "bordered on the absurd" due to a "lethargic" defense and a passive judge who allowed "most everything to come into the record." Posner also cited money as the motive behind the case. He accused Pepper of misleading the King family for personal gain and suggested that the King family went along as part of a scheme to sell the movie rights to film producer Oliver Stone.

Pepper responded that a film project that the King family had discussed with Warner Bros. had fallen through before the civil case was brought. He noted, too, that the family sought and received only a token jury award of $100. [WP, Dec. 18, 1999]

But the back-and-forth quickly muddied whatever new understanding the public might have gained from the trial.

Part of the confusion could be traced to the effectiveness of Posner and other critics in making their case in a wide array of newspapers and on television talk shows. Some of the blame, however, must fall on Pepper and his flawed investigation that did include some erroneous assertions.

The larger tragedy may be that the serious questions about King's assassination have receded even deeper into the historical mist.

As Court TV analyst Ryan noted, "Whatever theories Garrison and Pepper get into the record ... it is not likely they will change the general belief that Ray was responsible."

Though Ryan may be right, another perspective came in 1996 when two admirers of Dr. King -- the Rev. James M. Lawson Jr. and actor Mike Farrell -- wrote a fund- raising letter seeking support for a fuller investigation of the assassination. They argued that the full story of Martin Luther King Jr.?s assassination was too important to the country to leave any stone unturned. They stated: "There are buried truths in our history which continue to insist themselves back into the light, perhaps because they hold within them the nearly dead embers of what we were once intended to be as a nation."