Fuck Ron Moore and fuck SciFi network. That's just plain sloppy writing. I'm sorry I ever started watching this hack-job of a TV series.

It's no wonder that its ratings are so low they can barely get it back for one more season and all the cast members are jumping ship. I hope they series gets cancelled mid-season and Ron Moore and his writers never work again. Fuck all of them.

WHAT A TWEEST!!!1

UNIX uses '\n'

Windows uses '\r\n'

Who though that one up?

(Yes, I'm aware some other systems use '\r' alone. Those systems aren't used to host enterprise messaging applications).

http://maven.apache.org/
http://esper.codehaus.org/
http://mc4j.org/confluence/display/stripes/Home/

Tomorrow we'll have a JIRA install at work. I'm pretty psyched! Finally, buh-bye scarab.

Recommended:

http://xstream.codehaus.org/

Java Concurrency in Practice - NOTE: THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE

Last month I discovered Order of the Stick. After reading the whole series and buying Neverwinter Nights Diamond I decided to buy the Core Rulebook set.

What's interesting, is that a lot of the content is the same as first edition, but revised. So the Monster Manual has a lot of the same monsters as the original, such as devils and demons, unlike the Second Edition.

It's also clear that as much as D&D has been a influence on PC games, PC games have had an influence on D&D. Characters now increase their attributes every four levels, have skill "ranks," etc. And all characters are above average - when creating a character, you now are supposed to roll four dice and throw out the lowest number.

It's also clear that the designers of the 3rd edition have re-oriented the game towards fun. Any character is allowed to multi-class, no matter what their race. What to have a gnome barbarian-sorcerer? No problem! In fact, make that a half-gnoll fighter-cleric - the Monster Manual includes content on playing various humanoid races as Player Characters.

Another thing that's interesting is that Halflings are now more like Kender than Hobbits. At least, their description of the race is more Weiss/Hickman than Tolkien, and Halflings are all slim in their illustrations with no mention of being barefoot.

import java.util.concurrent.locks.AbstractQueuedSynchronizer;
 
public class AqsSample {
 
    public static void main(String[] args) {
 
        Restroom restroom = new Restroom();
 
        Thread larry = new Thread(new Patron("Larry",restroom));
        Thread moe = new Thread(new Patron("Moe", restroom));
        Thread curly = new Thread(new Patron("Curly", restroom));
        Thread wanda = new Thread(new Attendant("Wanda", restroom));
 
        larry.setName("Larry");
        moe.setName("Moe");
        curly.setName("Curly");
        wanda.setName("Wanda");
 
        larry.start();
        moe.start();
        curly.start();
        wanda.start();
 
    }
}
 
interface Door {
    void lock();
    void unlock();
    void open();
}
 
abstract class Person {
    final String name;
    Person(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }
    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }
}
 
class Attendant extends Person implements Runnable {
 
    private final Restroom restroom;
 
    Attendant(String name, Restroom restroom) {
        super(name);
        this.restroom = restroom;
    }
 
    public void run() {
        restroom.beCleanedBy(this);
    }
 
}
 
class Patron extends Person implements Runnable {
 
    private final Restroom restroom;
 
    Patron(String name, Restroom restroom) {
        super(name);
        this.restroom = restroom;
    }
 
    public void run() {
        walkToDoor();
        restroom.beUsedBy(this);
        System.out.println(getName() + ": \"ahhhhhhh!\"");
    }
 
    private void walkToDoor() {
        System.out.println(getName() + " is walking towards the restroom door...");
        try {
            Thread.sleep(1000L);
        } catch (InterruptedException ex) {
// eh...ignore
        }
    }
}
 
class Restroom {
 
    private Door door = new RestroomDoor();
 
    void beCleanedBy(Attendant wanda) {
 
        String name = ThreadUtils.getCurrentThreadName() ;
        System.out.println(name + " is cleaning the restroom...");
        door.lock();
        try {
            Thread.sleep(5000L);
        }
        catch (InterruptedException ex) {
            System.out.println(name + ": \"ok, ok, I'm finished!\"");
        } finally {
            System.out.println(name + ": \"the restroom is now available\"");
            door.unlock();
        }
 
    }
 
    void beUsedBy(Patron patron) {
        String name = ThreadUtils.getCurrentThreadName();
        System.out.println(name + " is trying to open the restroom door...");
        door.open();
    }
 
}
 
/**
  * A simple latch implementation. Adapted from Java Concurrency in Practice
  * by Brian Goetz, et. al. Listing 14.14 (p 313)
  */
class RestroomDoor extends AbstractQueuedSynchronizer implements Door {
 
    public void lock() {
        setState(-1);
    }
 
    public void unlock() {
        this.releaseShared(0);
    }
 
    public void open() {
        this.acquireShared(0);
    }
 
    protected int tryAcquireShared(int arg) {
        return getState() == 1 ? 1 : -1;
    }
 
    protected boolean tryReleaseShared(int arg) {
        setState(1);
        return true;
    }
 
}
 
class ThreadUtils {
 
    static String getCurrentThreadName() {
        return Thread.currentThread().getName();
    }
 
    private ThreadUtils() {}
}

---------- Java ----------
Larry is walking towards the restroom door...
Moe is walking towards the restroom door...
Curly is walking towards the restroom door...
Wanda is cleaning the restroom...
Larry is trying to open the restroom door...
Curly is trying to open the restroom door...
Moe is trying to open the restroom door...
Wanda: "the restroom is now available"
Larry: "ahhhhhhh!"
Curly: "ahhhhhhh!"
Moe: "ahhhhhhh!"

Output completed (5 sec consumed) - Normal Termination

I love my job. Pretty soon it's going to be a full year since I wrote a single line of database code! CRUD? Hibernate? What's that? My world is entirely about concurrency puzzles, pure OOP and blistering performance. J2SE 5.0 to teh extreme.

Just plain rocks.

If the United States falls into a period of instability caused by another catastrophic terrorist attack, an economic meltdown or a series of environmental disasters, these paramilitary forces, protected and assisted by fellow ideologues in the police and military, could swiftly abolish what is left of our eroding democracy. War, with the huge profits it hands to businesses and right-wing interests that often help bankroll the Christian right, could become a permanent condition. And the thugs with automatic weapons, black uniforms and wraparound sunglasses who appeared on street corners in Baghdad and New Orleans could appear on streets across the U.S. Such a presence could paralyze us with fear, leaving us unable to question or protest the closed system and secrecy of an emergent totalitarian state and unable to voice dissent.
Read full article

ALSO BY CHRIS HEDGES: THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT AND THE RISE OF AMERICAN FASCISM
Dr. James Luther Adams, my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, told us that when we were his age, he was then close to 80, we would all be fighting the "Christian fascists."

The warning, given to me 25 years ago, came at the moment Pat Robertson and other radio and televangelists began speaking about a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government. Its stated goal was to use the United States to create a global, Christian empire. It was hard, at the time, to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously, especially given the buffoonish quality of those who expounded it. But Adams warned us against the blindness caused by intellectual snobbery. The Nazis, he said, were not going to return with swastikas and brown shirts. Their ideological inheritors had found a mask for fascism in the pages of the Bible.
Read full article

WATCH ON C-SPAN BOOKTV
American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America
from February 4, 2007

In "American Fascists," former New York Times foreign correspondent and Harvard Divinity School graduate Chris Hedges warns that the Christian Right is threatening a tolerant, free American society. Hedges describes what he considers to be the movement's ideological ancestors - the Italian and German fascist movements of the early 20th century - and also argues that contemporary "American Fascism" manifests itself in militant, sexist, and homophobic behaviors and policies.

Holy crap - in the last year while I was distracted with other things, Justin Hall had a complete breakdown.

Man...

Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them...

We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

- Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)

ALL TIME CHICAGO BEARS TOP 5 PLAYERS LIST:

1) WALTER PAYTON
2) JIM MCMAHON
3) WILLAM "THE REFRIGERATOR" PERRY
4) TBD
5) TBD

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4606953615936485395

We are the Bears' Shufflin' Crew
Shufflin' on down, doin' it for you
We're so bad, we know we're good
Blowin' your mind, like we knew we would
You know we're just struttin' for fun
Struttin' our stuff for everyone
We're not here to start no trouble
We're just here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle

Well, they call me Sweetness, and I like to dance
Runnin' the ball, is like makin' romance
We've had the goal since training camp
To give Chicago a Super Bowl Champ
And we're not doin' this because we're greedy
The Bears are doin' it to feed the needy
We didn't come here looking for trouble
We just came here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle

This is Speedy Willie, and I'm world class
I like runnin', but I love to get the pass
I practice all day, and dance all night
I got to get ready for the Sunday fight
Now, I'm as smooth as a chocolate swirl
I dance a little funky, so watch me girl
There's no one here that does it like me
My Super Bowl Shuffle will set you free

I'm Samurai Mike; I stop' em cold
Part of the defense, big and bold
I've been jammin' for quite a while
Doin' what's right, and settin' the style
Give me a chance, I'll rock you good
Nobody messin' in my neighborhood
I didn't come here lookin' for trouble
I just came to do the Super Bowl Shuffle

We are the Bears' Shufflin' Crew
Shufflin' on down, doin' it for you
We're so bad, we know we're good
Blowin' your mind, like we knew we would
You know we're just struttin' for fun
Struttin' our stuff for everyone
We're not here to start no trouble
We're just here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle

I'm The Punky QB, known as McMahon
When I hit the turf, I've got no plan
I just throw my body all over the field
I can't dance, but I can throw the feel
I motivate the cats, I like to tease
I play so cool, I aim to please
That's why you all got here on the double
To catch me doin' the Super Bowl Shuffle

I'm Mama's Boy Otis, one of a kind
The ladies all love me for my body and my mind
I'm as slick on the floor as I can be
But ain't no sucker gonna get past me
Some guys are jealous of my style and class
That's why some end up on their (whistle)
I didn't come here lookin' for trouble
I just came down to do the Super Bowl Shuffle

They say Jimbo is our man
If Jimmy can't do it, I sure can
This is Steve, and it's no wonder
I run like lightnin', pass like thunder
So bring on Atlanta, bring on Dallas
This is for Mike, and Papa Bear Halas
I'm not here to feather his ruffle
I just came here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle

I'm L.A. Mike, and I play it cool
They don't sneak by me, 'cause I'm no fool
I fly on the field and get on down
Everybody knows I don't mess around
I can break 'em, shake 'em, any time of day
I like to steal it, and make 'em pay
Please don't try to beat my hustle
'Cause I'm just here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle

We are the Bears' Shufflin' Crew
Shufflin' on down, doin' it for you
We're so bad, we know we're good
Blowin' your mind, like we knew we would
You know we're just struttin' for fun
Struttin' our stuff for everyone
We're not here to start no trouble
We're just here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle

The Sackman's comin', I'm your man Dent
If the Quarterback's slow, he's gonna get bent
We stop the run, we stop the pass
I like to dump guys on their (whistle)
We love to play for the world's best fans
You better start makin' your Super Bowl plans
But don't get ready, or go to any trouble
Unless you practice the Super Bowl Shuffle

It's Gary here, and I'm Mr. Clean
They call me "Hit Man"; don't know what they mean
They throw it long, and watch me run
I'm on my man, one-on-one
Buddy's guys cover it down to the bone
That's why they call us "The 46 Zone"
Come on, everybody, let's scream and yell
We're goin' to do the Shuffle, then ring your bell

You're lookin' at the Fridge; I'm the rookie
I may be large, but I'm no dumb cookie
You've seen me hit, you've seen me run
When I kick and pass, we'll have more fun
I can dance, you will see
The others, they all learn from me
I didn't come here lookin' for trouble
I just came here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle

We are the Bears' Shufflin' Crew
Shufflin' on down, doin' it for you
We're so bad, we know we're good
Blowin' your mind, like we knew we would
You know we're just struttin' for fun
Struttin' our stuff for everyone
We're not here to start no trouble
We're just here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle

'85 Chicago Bears Return To Studio: Shufflin' Crew begins work on long- awaited follow-up album

Click to Watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nmZBUzrSdQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68x-HFAXV9M

Come on everybody - to the bandwagon! :)

Holy crap, this movie might have very well have changed the course of our nation's history had it gotten a wider theater release - had not 20th Century Fox buried it.

What the Hell - there's still a chance while it's on DVD. Go rent it this weekend - and then tell your friends.

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April 30, 1967, Riverside Church, New York

The sermon which I am preaching this morning in a sense is not the usual kind of sermon, but it is a sermon and an important subject, nevertheless, because the issue that I will be discussing today is one of the most controversial issues confronting our nation. I'm using as a subject from which to preach, "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam."

Now, let me make it clear in the beginning, that I see this war as an unjust, evil, and futile war. I preach to you today on the war in Vietnam because my conscience leaves me with no other choice. The time has come for America to hear the truth about this tragic war. In international conflicts, the truth is hard to come by because most nations are deceived about themselves. Rationalizations and the incessant search for scapegoats are the psychological cataracts that blind us to our sins. But the day has passed for superficial patriotism. He who lives with untruth lives in spiritual slavery. Freedom is still the bonus we receive for knowing the truth. "Ye shall know the truth," says Jesus, "and the truth shall set you free." Now, I've chosen to preach about the war in Vietnam because I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal.

The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing, as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we're always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty. But we must move on. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony. But we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for in all our history there has never been such a monumental dissent during a war, by the American people.

Polls reveal that almost fifteen million Americans explicitly oppose the war in Vietnam. Additional millions cannot bring themselves around to support it. And even those millions who do support the war [are] half-hearted, confused, and doubt-ridden. This reveals that millions have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism, to the high grounds of firm dissent, based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Now, of course, one of the difficulties in speaking out today grows the fact that there are those who are seeking to equate dissent with disloyalty. It's a dark day in our nation when high-level authorities will seek to use every method to silence dissent. But something is happening, and people are not going to be silenced. The truth must be told, and I say that those who are seeking to make it appear that anyone who opposes the war in Vietnam is a fool or a traitor or an enemy of our soldiers is a person that has taken a stand against the best in our tradition.

Yes, we must stand, and we must speak. [tape skip]...have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam. Many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path. At the heart of their concerns, this query has often loomed large and loud: "Why are you speaking about the war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent?" Peace and civil rights don't mix, they say. And so this morning, I speak to you on this issue, because I am determined to take the Gospel seriously. And I come this morning to my pulpit to make a passionate plea to my beloved nation.

This sermon is not addressed to Hanoi, or to the National Liberation Front. It is not addressed to China or to Russia. Nor is it an attempt to overlook the ambiguity of the total situation and the need for a collective solution to the tragedy of Vietnam. Nor is it an attempt to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue, nor to overlook the role they must play in a successful resolution of the problem. This morning, however, I wish not to speak with Hanoi and the National Liberation Front, but rather to my fellow Americans, who bear the greatest responsibility, and entered a conflict that has exacted a heavy price on both continents.

Now, since I am a preacher by calling, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is...a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed that there was a real promise of hope for the poor, both black and white, through the Poverty Program. There were experiments, hopes, and new beginnings. Then came the build-up in Vietnam. And I watched the program broken as if it was some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war. And I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money, like some demonic, destructive suction tube. And you may not know it, my friends, but it is estimated that we spend $500,000 to kill each enemy soldier, while we spend only fifty-three dollars for each person classified as poor, and much of that fifty-three dollars goes for salaries to people that are not poor. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor, and attack it as such.

Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hope of the poor at home. It was sending their sons, and their brothers, and their husbands to fight and die in extraordinarily high proportion relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in Southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with a cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same school room. So we watch them in brutal solidarity, burning the huts of a poor village. But we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago or Atlanta. Now, I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.

My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettos of the North over the last three years--especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through non-violent action; for they ask and write me, "So what about Vietnam?" They ask if our nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without first having spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence I cannot be silent. Been a lot of applauding over the last few years. They applauded our total movement; they've applauded me. America and most of its newspapers applauded me in Montgomery. And I stood before thousands of Negroes getting ready to riot when my home was bombed and said, we can't do it this way. They applauded us in the sit-in movement--we non-violently decided to sit in at lunch counters. The applauded us on the Freedom Rides when we accepted blows without retaliation. They praised us in Albany and Birmingham and Selma, Alabama. Oh, the press was so noble in its applause, and so noble in its praise when I was saying, Be non-violent toward Bull Connor;when I was saying, Be non-violent toward [Selma, Alabama segregationist sheriff] Jim Clark. There's something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press that will praise you when you say, Be non-violent toward Jim Clark, but will curse and damn you when you say, "Be non-violent toward little brown Vietnamese children. There's something wrong with that press!

As if the weight of such a commitment to the life and health of America were not enough, another burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1964. And I cannot forget that the Nobel Peace Prize was not just something taking place, but it was a commission--a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for the brotherhood of Man. This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances. But even if it were not present, I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me, the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the Good News was meant for all men, for communists and capitalists, for their children and ours, for black and white, for revolutionary and conservative. Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved His enemies so fully that he died for them? What, then, can I say to the Vietcong, or to Castro, or to Mao, as a faithful minister to Jesus Christ? Can I threaten them with death, or must I not share with them my life? Finally, I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men the calling to be the son of the Living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood. And because I believe that the Father is deeply concerned, especially for His suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come today to speak for them. And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak not now of the soldiers of each side, not of the military government of Saigon, but simply of the people who have been under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them, too, because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution until some attempt is made to know these people and hear their broken cries.

Now, let me tell you the truth about it. They must see Americans as strange liberators. Do you realize that the Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945 after a combined French and Japanese occupation. And incidentally, this was before the Communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. And this is a little-known fact, and these people declared themselves independent in 1945. They quoted our Declaration of Independence in their document of freedom, and yet our government refused to recognize them. President Truman said they were not ready for independence. So we fell victim as a nation at that time of the same deadly arrogance that has poisoned the international situation for all of these years. France then set out to reconquer its former colony. And they fought eight long, hard, brutal years trying to re-conquer Vietnam. You know who helped France? It was the United States of America. It came to the point that we were meeting more than eighty percent of the war costs. And even when France started despairing of its reckless action, we did not. And in 1954, a conference was called at Geneva, and an agreement was reached, because France had been defeated at Dien Bien Phu. But even after that, and after the Geneva Accord, we did not stop. We must face the sad fact that our government sought, in a real sense, to sabotage the Geneva Accord. Well, after the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come through the Geneva agreement. But instead the United States came and started supporting a man named Diem who turned out to be one of the most ruthless dictators in the history of the world. He set out to silence all opposition. People were brutally murdered because they raised their voices against the brutal policies of Diem. And the peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition. The peasants watched as all this was presided over by United States influence and by increasing numbers of United States troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown, they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictatorships seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace. And who are we supporting in Vietnam today? It's a man by the name of general Ky [Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky] who fought with the French against his own people, and who said on one occasion that the greatest hero of his life is Hitler. This is who we are supporting in Vietnam today. Oh, our government and the press generally won't tell us these things, but God told me to tell you this morning. The truth must be told.

The only change came from America as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support and all the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps, where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move or be destroyed by our bombs. So they go, primarily women, and children and the aged. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the towns and see thousands of thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers. We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation's only noncommunist revolutionary political force, the United Buddhist Church. This is a role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolutions impossible but refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that comes from the immense profits of overseas investments. I'm convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be changed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

Oh, my friends, if there is any one thing that we must see today is that these are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. They are saying, unconsciously, as we say in one of our freedom songs, "Ain't gonna let nobody turn me around!" It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo, we shall boldly challenge unjust mores, and thereby speed up the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the rough places shall be made plain, and the crooked places straight. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together."

A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing, unconditional love for all men. This oft misunderstood and misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of mankind. And when I speak of love I'm not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of John: "Let us love one another, for God is love. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us."

Let me say finally that I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against this war, not in anger, but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and, above all, with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as the moral example of the world. I speak out against this war because I am disappointed with America. And there can be no great disappointment where there is not great love. I am disappointed with our failure to deal positively and forthrightly with the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism. We are presently moving down a dead-end road that can lead to national disaster. America has strayed to the far country of racism and militarism. The home that all too many Americans left was solidly structured idealistically; its pillars were solidly grounded in the insights of our Judeo-Christian heritage. All men are made in the image of God. All men are bothers. All men are created equal. Every man is an heir to a legacy of dignity and worth. Every man has rights that are neither conferred by, nor derived from the State--they are God-given. Out of one blood, God made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth. What a marvelous foundation for any home! What a glorious and healthy place to inhabit. But America's strayed away, and this unnatural excursion has brought only confusion and bewilderment. It has left hearts aching with guilt and minds distorted with irrationality.

It is time for all people of conscience to call upon America to come back home. Come home, America. Omar Khayyam is right: "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on." I call on Washington today. I call on every man and woman of good will all over America today. I call on the young men of America who must make a choice today to take a stand on this issue. Tomorrow may be too late. The book may close. And don't let anybody make you think that God chose America as his divine, messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with judgment, and it seems that I can hear God saying to America, "You're too arrogant! And if you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I'll place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name. Be still and know that I'm God."

Now it isn't easy to stand up for truth and for justice. Sometimes it means being frustrated. When you tell the truth and take a stand, sometimes it means that you will walk the streets with a burdened heart. Sometimes it means losing a job...means being abused and scorned. It may mean having a seven, eight year old child asking a daddy, "Why do you have to go to jail so much?" And I've long since learned that to be a follower to the Jesus Christ means taking up the cross. And my bible tells me that Good Friday comes before Easter. Before the crown we wear, there is the cross that we must bear. Let us bear it--bear it for truth, bear it for justice, and bear it for peace. Let us go out this morning with that determination. And I have not lost faith. I'm not in despair, because I know that there is a moral order. I haven't lost faith, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. I can still sing "We Shall Overcome" because Carlyle was right: "No lie can live forever." We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant was right: "Truth pressed to earth will rise again." We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell was right: "Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne." Yet, that scaffold sways the future. We shall overcome because the bible is right: "You shall reap what you sow." With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when the lion and the lamb will lie down together, and every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid because the words of the Lord have spoken it. With this faith we will be able to speed up the day when all over the world we will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we're free at last!" With this faith, we'll sing it as we're getting ready to sing it now. Men will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. And nations will not rise up against nations, neither shall they study war anymore. And I don't know about you, I ain't gonna study war no more.