In today's pages: Remembering Martin Luther King, making fun of John McCain

Both pages recall the death of Martin Luther King Jr., 40 years ago today. The editorial board imagines the U.S. if King had lived:

We don't need to canonize King to appreciate his many accomplishments, nor declare time-wasting moratoriums to mourn his passing. He was a complex man with messy personal affairs who unified people of all races on the issue of civil rights, while dividing many with his controversial stance on the Vietnam War.... In the final years of his short life, King became nearly as concerned about the war and the plight of the poor as he was about racial discrimination...if King were alive today (he would have turned 79 on Jan. 15), the fight against poverty would probably be higher on the national political agenda and the opposition to the Iraq war more focused.

Goergetown's Michael Eric Dyson examines King's increasingly angry stance after 1965:

King's skepticism and anger were often muted when he spoke to white America, but they routinely resonated in black sanctuaries and meeting halls across the land. Nothing highlights that split -- or white America's ignorance of it and the prophetic black church King inspired -- more than recalling King's post-1965 odyssey, as he grappled bravely with poverty, war and entrenched racism. That is the King who emerges as we recall the meaning of his death.

And the Op-Ed page features photography of the Lorraine Motel, where King was killed, by Steve Schapiro.

Columnist Joel Stein has learned one thing from the John McCain campaign -- that jokes about the elderly are just fine. And the editorial board praises the House for passing a generous foreign aid package for AIDS patients around the world, and reflects on the Bush Administration's declassified torture memos.

Readers discuss illegal immigration on the letters page. L.A.'s Frank Galvan says, "This article helped put a human face on a population that is too often only considered by many to be just a problem...." But Van Nuys' Phil Hyman retorts, "Pardon me if I"m not breaking down in tears.... Who made them decide to come here illegally in the first place?"

*Photo Steve Schapiro, courtesy Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles