The November election is just around the corner. The
US political season is in full swing and so are the political jokes. The one below is of course by Republicans - apparently a dig at Democrats on the recently concluded Democratic Convention.

4:00 PM – Opening Flag Burning Ceremony

4:05 PM – Singing of “God Damn America” led by Rev. Jeremiah Wright

4:30 PM – Tips on Dodging Sniper Fire – Hillary Clinton

4:45 PM – Jesse Jackson Leads Castrati Choir in Singing “Great Balls of Fire”

5:15 PM – John Edwards Speaks on “Family Values” via Satellite from Hotel Bathroom

12:00 AM – Official Nomination of Obama via Text Message Sent by Scarlett Johanson

Very cute.

Well, after reading that and musing at Republicans’ audacity to write any jokes after 8 years of the comedian called George W Bush, I decided to come up with my list on the Republicans and their convention scheduled next wee.  Actually, it wasn’t too hard to compile a list, given the jokes provided by Republicans the last 8 years.

Enjoy!

4:00 PM – 4:10PM Opening Ceremony – Bush burning the Constitution with fire imported from the Iraqi oil fields.

4:10PM – 4:15PM Singing of “God Bless Whining Americans” by Senator Phil Gramm and wife Wendy Gramm.

4:15 - 4:30PM Tips on dodging Friendly Fire on a hunting trip – Dick Cheney

4:45 PM – 5:00PM Senator Larry Craig enters stage tapping to the tune “I am not gay and never have been gay”

5:00 PM – 12:00 AM Workshop on Family Values and “Value Pack” deals in the Free Market Global Economy.

Speakers include:

The Reverend Ted Haggard on how to get value pack deals in the US on crack cocaine and male prostitutes.

Rush Limbaugh on how to ‘score’ big (or small depending on your preference) deals on Oxycotton, Viagra and under age sex in the global economy – especially in the emerging market of The Dominican Republic – soon to be named “The Dominican Republican Getaway”.

… and finally,

Senator David Vitter’s brief presentation on how to avoid diaper rash while ‘working’ with a hooker.

12:00 AM - Official Nomination of McCain announced with a spectacular video presentation of great ball of orange mushroom cloud on the big screen and the song “Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran” in the background.

A response to Kevin Myers - The Leprechaun

Mr Myers, the obvious thing to do to an article like yours would have been to give a well thought out response in hopes of getting a productive dialogue started.  But I don’t think your article was designed for such things. No, I think it has a different purpose.  I mean I can try and explain as to why the West is mostly responsible for the horrible situations that are happening in Africa today or every other continent for that matter and how it goes as far back as the days of Western colonialism and Slavery. I can also talk about the hypocrisy of the West and how it still exploits the rest of the world through fancily named organizations like “The World Bank”, IMF, WTO etcetera. The hypocrisy was never more evident than at  the recent G8 Summit where Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, urged the rest of the world to” not waste food” as he and the rest of the leaders gorged on an 18 course meal . But of course, you already have the pre-canned standard answer, “Why is it’s always the West’s fault?’  or ‘stop blaming others for your own failures’.  No, I think there is more to your bile diatribe than just meets the stomach.

I can also start with the title of your article - “Africa is giving nothing to anyone - apart from AIDS” which is deliberately mean spirited but hopelessly flawed.  Mr Myers, as you know, we had always been told that the first case of the AIDS virus was apparently discovered in Africa, if one is to believe the Western theory of the origin if the AIDS virus, of course. So, if that is true, the next obvious question is how did it get to the rest of the world? But as you confidently stated in your article, we Africans are incurably ignorant and  incapable of doing anything as basic as feeding ourselves let alone come up with a plan to import a deadly disease to the other side of the globe. So, the next question is, did we actually give it to you, or did you take it from us?  Yes, Mr Myers, we didn’t give it to you - you took it from us, just like you did and still do with everything else. And  who is the less intelligent ‘species’ one in this equation?

I can also talk about how a man, who supposedly has seen it all first hand, can have such mean and hateful things to say about innocent victims? I am curious to know what made you care to ‘tour the territory on foot and financially’ in the first place? Was it the human side, which I’m convinced you have none after reading your article, or your tabloid journalist side? Were you there for a sincere compassion cause or for a  Kevin Cater picture moment? At least Kevin Carter took his life, whatever his reason. No, I am not suggesting that you do the same, because you don’t strike me as the type with such conviction.

Your arrogance and pomposity, it seems, has no limit. You seemed to be worried more about your Irish readers than the readers from the rest of the world. How provincial one can get, especially when it comes at the expense of the miserable no good poor Ethiopians who have nothing to give to the rest of the world except a deadly disease.

And what exactly was the purpose of comparing the Irish famine to Ethiopia’s? Aside from the factual inaccuracy you provided on the length of the,” Great Irish Famine“ which by most accounts occurred between 1845 and 1849, I really could not understand the logic.  First of all, the Ethiopian population did not double, let alone more than double, between the 1980’s and now. But “white lies” and all aside, don’t you think you kind of defeated your own argument there with your point about the Hercules and Mercedes reference - cute to be sure - but so obviously obtuse? Of course we have more means to deliver food to many staving people compared to say 200 YEARS AGO! - thus helping people live longer.  

As for the Lockheed Hercules reference, I am sure you are aware, being an accomplished and well travelled Western journalist and all, that when the West sends the Lockheed Hercules to some of these miserable famine regions, it also makes sure that it balances it out by sending a few other Lockheed products like the F-15’s, F-16’s, U2’s etc to that same government for different reason. Right? You know, just to keep the cycle of what you called ‘idiotic wars’ going.  

You also had the audacity to write that we Africans are outstripping our resources.  And which ones would those be, Mr.  Myers? Let me see, could it be the oil that is being pumped out of the Nigerian Delta by Western murderous companies like Shell and Chevron or the diamonds which are being robbed from Sierra Leone and Liberia?  How about in our own backyard in Ethiopia where your people are hoarding our indigenous grain, teff for their luxury as if we have a surplus of it? Yeah, ignore the West’s insatiable and voracious appetite for natural resources and the plundering and polluting of the environment. But the facts don’t matter, do they?  It’s always us the darkies, isn’t it sir?  Well, it’s typical of the West.  It’s like beating an innocent man bloody, robbing his money, leave him on the ground and later charging him with loitering for letting his blood run on the ground. Talk about taking responsibility for your own actions. 

But that’s not what caught my attention about your article.  It is something rather peculiar. Mr. Myers, to be honest, I have never seen such vivid and repeated sexual references for a serious and sobering opinion.

It starts with your bizarre characterization of people as:

“…dysfunctional economic, social and sexual system”.

Sexual system?  What is that Mr. Myers, - a new category to define the wretched in poor parts of the world?  

Your hateful characterization was not limited just to Ethiopia. Oh no! You wrote of Africa as an entire continent:  

“…of sexually hyperactive indigents, (emphasis mine) with tens of millions of people who only survive because of help from the outside world.”  

And we don’t even use Viagra! Can you imagine if we did?

You sounded like a white Southern racist during the days of slavery in the US, when you flawlessly managed to infuse your racist tendencies with your curious sexual obsession with Africans and wrote:

“Indeed, voodoo idiocy seems to be in the ascendant, with the next president of South Africa being a firm believer in the efficacy of a little tap water on the post-coital penis as a sure preventative against infection.”

Journalism at its best!

There’s more.  Recounting one of your many past good deeds, you spoke of a young man in Ethiopia by declaring:

“The wide-eyed boy-child we saved, 20 years or so ago, is now a priapic, Kalashnikov-bearing hearty, siring children whenever the whim takes him.”

You know Mr Myers, a normal and decent human being would be happy or even proud of his own humanitarian act in extending a helping hand to a child who, through no fault of his own, was put in a miserable situation, no matter how that person turns out as an adult. But I sensed some serious anger and bitterness in that statement of yours.  What were your hopes for that wide eyed young man, anyways?  Were you hoping he would join the Catholic Church? No, I am not hinting at anything here and yes I do know that you are of the Catholic faith. Stop being so sensitive! Anyway, at least that ‘wide eyed 20 year old’ had, right or wrong, the courage of his convictions to fight for what he believed in.  In other words, Mr Myers, he was not a coward like some who have convinced themselves that they are part of the solution by sitting behind a computer and by picking on innocent victims who can not defend themselves.  Speaking of cowards, don’t you come from a country where, as recently as 10 years ago, innocent men women and children were being blown up in a cowardly way in the streets in your cities instead of fighting the enemy face to face like the 20 year old you wrote about? 

But back to your comment. Priapic?  As curious as I was about your comment on the “dysfunctional-ity” of our “economic, social and sexual system”, the word “priapic” jumped out at me like African cheetah at a racist European tourist. And being the uneducated, voodoo riddled, wide-eyed African that I am, I looked it up in the dictionary. And the most common definition of the word is:

Priapic - overly concerned with masculinity and male sexuality.

Are you starting to see the pattern here yourself?

You continued:

How much morality is there in saving an Ethiopian child from starvation today, for it to survive to a life of brutal circumcision, poverty, hunger, violence and sexual abuse…”

Funny you mentioned sexual abuse because just the other day, I was reading about employees from a Swiss NGO who were accused of child molestation in Addis Ababa, where they were there to supposedly help needy children. Well well, Mr. Myers, it seems that some Europeans have a different opinion than yours. I guess some Africans, especially young boys and girls, may indeed have something to give to the rest of the world especially to Europeans. How is that for a ‘broad-brush stroke’? How does it feel when it brush runs on the other direction?

I also skipped a few sexual references, because I figured you’d get the picture by now. You have more sexual references in one article than a gynecologist diagnosing a patient with STD.  Is this just simply your style or perhaps a symptom to a more serious and personal issue like a deprivation of some sort which manifests itself in one’s everyday life? Subconsciously, of course?  And I am not being flippant about this; I am very serious.

After I read your article, I was curious about you so I looked you up on the internet, to see your contribution to the world.  I even saw your picture and could not help muse how you could have fit real comfortably with those Afrikaners who have been killing and torturing black people in South Africa during Apartheid.  But who am I to judge? That is reserved only for you intelligent  European types, right?

What is strange about your views is that, for an isolationist, you seem to have your nasty and lascivious fingers caught in almost all parts Africa more often than a six year old’s hand in a cookie jar. And of course, predictably, I found a few more similar hateful articles about this race and that color. 

So, what is the purpose of your article? What is the subtext of it? What exactly are you suggesting Mr. Myers?  Population control for Africans only especially Ethiopians? Even though you have not come out and told us directly, the only conclusion we - at least speaking for myself, can come to is that you’d rather see these starving people die than see them multiply.  In other words, since we Ethiopians only have the AIDS virus to offer to the rest of the world, it is best to let us die and reduce our population to a manageable number so on your next financial tour you do not have to give as much.  

But the problem with that approach is that, as stated in your ‘honest’ and ‘factual’ article (according to many readers including, sadly enough, some Ethiopians) we are multiplying faster than we are dying!

So there are, as far as I can tell, two other ways of controlling a population.  One is exterminating people in mass, a la Hitler or Stalin, but it appears that the West is having difficulty keeping up with the ‘legal’ or ‘justified’ way of killing innocent people using fake or as you called it, ‘idiotic wars’ in Iraq, which by the way you enthusiastically supported.   

The other way is population control through some sort of government policy.  But as you have concluded in your article, we Africans are inherently stupid and incapable of implementing such intelligent policies. So, since it is practically impossible to prevent a bunch of “sexually hyperactive indigents” from having intercourse, the only other option is to let them have sex but prevent them from conceiving. I am no expert in this field, but it seems to me that there is only one way to accomplish that.  And that is to convert every starving male population in Ethiopia to homos… No you are not suggesting that, are you?  Hmmm, now I see where that animosity and bitterness towards that 20 year old came from! Unfortunately for you Mr Myers, that kind of stuff is not only frowned upon strongly in our country, (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but it can also be a source of some undesired pain and discomfort especially for someone like you.  I guess you don’t know us Ethiopians as well as you thought you did.

I read recently that Meles Zenawi won a leadership award from a US based newspaper called Africa Times. Most fittingly, the award ceremony was held in Los Angeles, at The Renaissance Hotel in Hollywood California, the make believe capital of the world. Is there anything more appropriate and at the same time ironic than giving a “leadership” award to an imposter like Meles in Hollywood California at a hotel named “Renaissance”? You think Meles and his gang saw the irony in this? Nah, that’d be asking too much of their minds.

Accepting the award on behalf of Meles Zenawi, Ambassador Taye Atske Selassie, Consul General of Ethiopia in Hollywood, correction, Los Angeles, said that he wished Mr. Zenawi himself was there to receive the award in person. But he told the audience that Mr Zenawi was location in the Moyale desert working as hard as ever to start another border war, this time with Kenya. OK I made this part up.

What is interesting about this story is it comes on the heels of the news that Meles finally admitted giving away some ‘disputed’ land to the Sudanese government along the Ethio-Sudanese border from 100 years ago. Disputed for 100 years? I got news for you Mr. Zenawi, your whole presence in Ethiopia is disputed! And will be for 100 years. What is this man doing trying to ‘settle’ a 100 year old land deal? How did a 100 year old border dispute get at the top of the agenda in Meles’ Parliament over so many of the other urgent issues facing the country, like the current food shortage around the world, the Somali endless occupation or even the Ethio-Eritrea border issue which was the cause for the needless death of so many Ethiopians and Eritreans? I am almost positive that the Sudanese were probably shocked to find out that Meles was planning to resolve this issue now. I can just imagine how the conversation went.

Meles: Hello President Bashir, remember that border dispute between our countries which started about 50 years before we were born?

Bashir: Uuuhh…not really…I think so… yes? What about it?

Meles: Well, I came up with a solution for it. You can have it, it is all yours.

Bashir: Oh no no, Mr Bresident, it is really not necessary, we don’t need it. We have blenty of oil now we are rich and growing. Really, we are OK.

Meles: No no no, take it take it. Just consider it a gift from my people, not Ethiopian of course, but my Tigrean people.

Bashir: Blease Mr Bresident …my beoble are OK…

Meles: I said take it, OK? It is a goodwill gesture from my beoble, I mean people. Don’t worry about it.

Bashir: OK, if you say so.

This is unbelievable! And now, what do we hear? Mr Zenawi’s forces attacked a military base inside Sudan and killed 19 people? What the hell is going on here? What exactly is Meles plotting?

Reading the story, I could not help be amused at some of the comments. A Sudanese army spokesman said:

“This was an attack and we don’t know the reason — we have no problem with Ethiopia and there are no border disputes or tribal clashes in that area,”

Well Mr spokesman, I guess you don’t know your neighbors that well do you? I suggest you have a little chat with the Somalis about Meles’ border etiquette. You might learn a few things and save a few lives in the future.

Bereket Simon, the ever colorful former mis-information minister to the Meles regime and now ‘special adviser’ offered this gem.

… the problem was that the long frontier was not properly demarcated. ” Sometimes locals from both sides trespass and minor incidents do happen,”

Yep, he is special alright! The border was not demarcated properly, so as it is customary with the Meles regime, how do you demarcate a border? With innocent people’s blood, just like Bademe. Mr Simon continued:

“If there was a minor incident involving local inhabitants … Ethiopia is confident both governments will solve the problem in accordance with the prevailing peaceful norms we maintain.”

Minor incident? Only someone from a regime like Meles’ would consider the death of 19 people as a ‘minor incident’.

One Sudanese security source and another government official said the attack may have been because Sudan had given refuge a to local Ethiopian officials few weeks earlier and had refused to hand them over to Addis Ababa.

Get out! You’re not accusing this Meles regime of retaliating for something as innocent and legal as sheltering some political refugees, are you? I am shocked! So unlike them.

It was not clear why the officials sought refuge in Sudan. Ethiopia is fighting rebels from the Oromo region which borders Sudan and who want greater autonomy for their areas.

Now that’s funny. Not clear why the officials sought refuge in Sudan? Hmm, let me see…why do monkeys run back up to the tree when they see the alligator coming out of the water?

As if the meaningless war with Eritrea and the invasion of a sovereign country in Somalia was not enough, Meles is now looking for a new adventure. Is it me or does Mr Zenawi strikes you as a mad man going around the neighborhood lighting fires and watching it burn? What is his motive? What is he scheming? And how does any organization justify giving an award of any kind to such a man?

Wait, there’s more. From the ‘Now What?’ file, the Djibouti government announced that it would introduce a new tariff on port services. And guess who is whining about it? Yep, the same man who decided that Ethiopia was better off without the services of the port of Assab when he decided to give away Eritrea to Issays as the first step in his long term plan to dismantle and dissolve the country known as Ethiopia. Meles apparently has dispatched his Trade and Industry Minister Girma Birru, (don’t you love the name, a trade and industry minister named Birru!) to Djibouti to talk some sense into them. An Ethiopian government source or a buffer to Meles said:

“The imposition of a new tariff without prior consultation would be unfair and difficult to accept,”

Translation: just because Mr Zenawi has been busy ‘resolving’ his other border issues with his other neighbors, it doesn’t mean that he does not have time for Djibouti. Mr Zenawi can walk and chew on starting another conflict at the same time. Someone better warn these Djiboutians that Meles would not hesitate to free them from a tyrant and a dictator any time just like he did in Somalia.

The source/buffer also said:

“The impact would hurt Ethiopia, which is suffering from inflation and rising global food and oil prices.”

Hmm, didn’t Mr Zenawi say that Ethiopia’s economy has ‘grew well’ despite soaring food and energy cost? So, which is it Their Excellency?

According to the article Djiboutian officials “could not immediately be contacted”.  

Oh God, I hope they are not where I think they are. Can someone check the basement of Djibouti to see if there’s anyone there?

 Barack Hussein Obama - The Presumptive Democratic Nominee

Barack Obama finally stood alone as the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for the presidency of the United States.  There is nothing more I can add to what has already been said by many about the historical significance of this moment, except that the US is one more step closer to maybe saving itself.

“I’ve just watched him on television, and as a family we are very happy. Really, it is something that is a trendsetter,” the politician’s uncle, Said Obama, told The Associated Press from the port city of Kisumu in western Kenya.

In Mexico City, hairdresser Susan Mendoza’s eyes lit up when she learned Obama had clinched the nomination. “Bush was for the elite. Obama is of the people,” she said.

Michael Cox, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, said Obama’s win “has sent out a lot of positive signals around the world.” “He has a very appealing persona — elegant, fluent, strings lots of sentences together into paragraphs,” Cox said. “But in terms of (his) actual policies towards the Middle East, Iraq, Iran, China, Europe — actually, we don’t know.”

The German government’s coordinator on U.S. relations, Karsten Voigt, said many Germans “find (Obama’s) mixture of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy very attractive.”

Jean-Marc Damier a 39-year-old man from the Paris suburbs who works in marketing, said Obama’s relative lack of experience could be an asset. “The candidate’s freshness can only do good, because the way things have been done before created a mess,” he said.

The Times of London, which proclaimed in a headline that “Obama waits on the threshold of history,” said in an editorial that Obama’s campaign “has rekindled America’s faith in its prodigious powers of reinvention — and the world’s admiration for America.”

Ngo Van Hung, a Vietnamese real-estate salesman, said Obama “seems to be a peace lover. He would have a better understanding of how to treat people of different nationalities and different countries.”

Jorge Serguera, a 70-year-old retiree in Havana, said he thought that, if elected, Obama would work to loosen Washington’s nearly 50-year-old trade embargo against Cuba. Obama is “a thinking man of ethics and ideals,” he said. “Bush’s leaving will let Cuba rest a bit after eight years.”

Of course, understandably, there were some skeptics as well.  

“The upcoming president, whether he is black or white, would have the same policy,” said Tarek Abdullah, an Egyptian store vendor. “Their Middle East policy and their policies towards Muslims in general will always be the same.” 

Read the full story here.

In the mean time, what has Obama been up to since he clinched the nomination?  Well, a couple of things that stand out are:

First - he has pledged not to accept any donations from lobbyists and PAC’s (Political Action Committees).  This is one step forward in taking money out of politics.   

Second - in what some reporters described as a very dramatic moment, Barack Obama apparently ” talked ” to Joe Lieberman in private, the former Democrat now Independent Senator, about his criticism of Obama’s Israel policy. 

This is a scene right out of 48 Hours.  The only thing missing was the cowboy hat and the toothpick. Look out Washington, there’s a new Sheriff in town, and his name is not Reggie Hammond; it’s Barack Obama!  I love it!

 

 

A new “March on Washington” is about to begin - a march not quite like the one which took place in 1963 , but a new kind of march.  And this one is being led by Barack Obama, a bright charismatic young Senator, who seems to have re-captured the hopes, dreams and optimism of the American people. Most importantly, he has managed to bring out what is decent and good about Americans.  He has inspired millions to see beyond race, color, religion, gender and political party for the good of the country emerging as a uniting figure in a time when political vitriol has paralyzed Washington.  Barack Obama has become a phenomenon, a leader to a new kind of “American Revolution”.

Obama’s ascendance to the status of presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party and a favorite to win it all in November, according to several polls, is as improbable as his own biography.  A ’black’ man born on the island of Hawaii to a Kenyan Muslim man and a white woman from Kansas… Kansas! (As a personal note of clarification, I am using the word black in quotes in this article when referecncing Barack Obama, with keen awareness of the “one-drop rule” regarding race in America. As a young man, he traveled overseas to Indonesia and lived with his Indonesian stepfather. After returning to the US, he studied at Occidental College in California before transferring to New York’s Columbia University where he received his Bachelor’s degree in Political Science specializing in international relations in 1983.  After graduating from college, he moved to Chicago where he became a community organizer before enrolling at Harvard University’s Law School.  At Harvard, he became the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, which is a journal of legal scholarship. In 1996, he became a State Senator in Illinois, which served as his launching pad for his political career. In a somewhat of a surprise, in 2004 he became a United States Senator from the state of Illinois beating the Republican Alan Keyes.  Even Hemmingway himself couldn’t have come up with a character as fascinating as this one.  Move over Tiger Woods, there is a new ’black’ star with a more colorful past ready to fill more meaningful holes in the lives of millions of Americans.
 
Martin Luther King, referencing John Donne, once said, “No man is an island entire of himself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”  But perhaps it is a man born on an island, with almost every piece of the continents in him, as a part of the whole, who just might be able to get us closer to Dr King’s dream, if not fulfill it.  A man representing the two extremes of America’s “stained original sin of slavery”, as Obama himself put it, a Kansas white and an Africa black with all the colors in between. 

Obama’s message is a simple one, “Yes We Can”. Three simple words made of only eight letters, yet very potent filled with hope, optimism and a belief in the original promise of America.  In his speeches, he has repeatedly reminded people that they themselves are the ones who are in charge of their own government. By doing this, he has given voice to the people who, for a long time, felt like their voices were not being heard by the powers in Washington.  He has been able to tap into that part of the people’s desire to get involved in their government by promising to bring them on board; a concept as old and as original as the Republic, but forgotten throughout the years because of the failure of leadership.  In the process, he has managed to galvanize people from all walks of life - black, white, brown, young, old, rich, poor, Democrat, Republican, and Independent.  
 
He has run a masterful campaign shattering several conventional wisdom theories about political elections in the US.  First, he has refused to resort to the old style of attack and destroy politics refusing to be dragged into the slimy and nasty side of presidential campaigning despite his opponents’ attempt to do so.  He has proven to the so called experts that focusing on the issues can actually bring positive results.  Second, he has proven that big money contribution and big money influence from lobbyists and corporations is no longer the way to getting elected to any office.  With an average contribution of just over $100, Obama’s campaign has used the internet as an incredible cash machine to finance his campaign by millions of Americans who are hungry for change. And finally, his campaign has shattered record after record for a primary, whether it is registering new voters or attending his rallies and speeches. What is even more astonishing about Obama’s campaign is that he is on the verge of derailing the mighty Clintons’ political machine in a relatively short period of time which is a rather stunning achievement.  He has all but clinched the nomination by beating Hillary Clinton in almost every meaningful category and often by stunningly large margins.  His campaign is already being recommended as a case study by CEO’s of leading US companies as a model on leadership. 
 
Ed Charles, a former baseball player in the 1950’s and 60’s, once said that a black baseball player had to be twice as good as his white counter part in order to be recognized as star and earn the same amount of money as the white player.  In that context, what Obama has done in the much more difficult field of politics is hard to believe.  His ability to remain calm under pressure, be it from the dirty tactics of the Clintons, who by the way, as of late, have shown their true color, (pun intended), or from the corporate media that is determined to derail his campaign, is a testament to his qualification to hold any office including the presidency. As a ‘black’ presidential candidate in the US, Barack Obama is well aware of the monumental risk he is putting himself and his family in by running for president.  And to have the courage to still proceed with his mission is a testament to his desire to bring true change to the country.  Someone once said that the true definition of courage is to know that you are scared but to go anyway. Barack Obama has shown his courage by running for president anyway. 
 
The presidential campaign terrain is no place for the faint of heart - especially for a man of color. But, with the grace and agility of a Michael Jordan, the intelligence and oratory skills of a Martin Luther King, the smoothness and charisma of a Mohammed Ali, the strength and  resiliency of a Jim Brown, and the courage and passion of a Malcolm X, Barack Obama has emerged as the leader for the new generation of Americans.
 
But aside from all the glamour and the excitement, the hope and dream, what does a Barack Obama presidency mean to America and the rest of the world?   To start with, it would be like a breath of fresh air to have a family of color in the White House after all these years of white Anglo-Saxon male dominated presidency.  It would send several messages to the rest of the word. First, it is still possible for anyone to achieve the highest of ambitions, as long as the person stays true to his/her belief and does not give up on the dream. It would mean that there is still a chance for anyone to achieve America’s original promise even against the smallest of odds.  Second, it would send a signal to the rest of the world especially in regions where ethnic and religious conflicts are rampant like the Middle East, Africa and Asia - places where the US needs to improve its image.
 
Domestically, it would mean a fresh new start in mending the race relation that has plagued this country for centuries. Of course it does not mean that Barack Obama will solve race issues in America over night, but it would at least start the conversation about race and in addition, prove that a man or woman of color is just as qualified to hold the highest office in the country. Imagine, a ‘black’ president of the United States in the White House! I can just hear the outrage and the smear from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and ‘FIX News’, such as “Barack Obama has a secret plan to paint The White House black and call it “The Black House”.
 
How about Obama’s policies? Although he is predictably being labeled an extreme left wing liberal by the Republicans, Barack Obama is no flaming liberal. He has a long way from earning that label.  He is a moderate with a voting record slightly to the left of many Democrats in the Senate.  However, at times during his campaign, he has shown that he has the propensity to be lean far to the left on many issues. Yes, he will disappoint his supporters at times and we should be prepared for that reality. But his ability to bring different people together for a common goal, should allow him to move the country forward in the right direction. When a leader is able to bring people together in such record numbers and have them believe in his or her ideology, that leader can accomplish a great deal of his agenda.
 
So, here we are in the year two thousand and eight, early in the new millennium, at the doorsteps of history, with a young ‘black’ man leading the way to a new march on Washington. A march, which perhaps can be viewed as a redemption, if only partial - a fulfillment to the original one;  partial in that the possibility of a bi-racial ‘black’ man to a position of presidency of the United States can hardly be proof that racism has been eradicated from the country, but it is a big step forward in fulfilling that original promise. 

“A SONG FOR YOU”

Before Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and even Barack Obama, there was Malcolm X, one of the most brilliant political leaders and a great speaker.  Malcolm X is one of only 3 people whose speeches, still, stirs  every nerve in my body - the two others being Martin Luther King and John F Kennedy. Malcolm X knew how to talk to people in a language that is plain but yet very effective and thought provoking.  In addition, had charisma and a brilliant sense of humor. Today, he would have been 83 years old.

Below are a couple of short clips about Malcolm X.  The first one is an interview from 1963 at UC Berkeley, whcih is an interesting exchange between the interviewer and Malcolm.  What is even more interesting is the look of contempt the interviewer had for Malcolm and the confidence and self assuredness Malcolm answered the question.  

This second clip is a speech by Malcolm X explaining Black Nationalism.  

RIP Malcolm.

Commentary by Keith Olbermann

Keith Olbermann, the only real journalist left on TV today is at it again.  Here is another one of his brilliant commentaries about Bush’s recent comment on why he gave up golfing.  Yes, the shrub actually said that.  Just when you thought he had run out of stupid things to say, he reaches deep and pulls out a new one. 

Enjoy!!

PART I

PART II

HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY!!

To all you moms who have, at some point in your life, screamed some version of these words.

Happy Mothers’ Day Weekend!