Senator Barack Obama wins the 2008 Student Council Election

That is ABC’s projection at least. If this inevitability holds up (and it will), Sen. Obama becomes the first biracial individual to be elected President of these United States.

What I think interesting about this whole deal is the focus on how we as a nation have come a long way in exorcising our racist demons of years past. Tonight I watched/heard a black U.S. Congressman say on national television that (I’m paraphrasing) America is ready to bury its race burden.

Really? I agree, racism (regardless of the criterion) is an evil that should be buried and done away with (one day it will but not by our efforts) but is this nation ready to bury its race burden?

Not judging by this election. Not when a large number of people vote for a candidate based mostly (if not solely) on the basis of the color of his skin (or half of his ancestry).

A black person voting for Barack Obama on the grounds that he’s half-black is just as racist as a white person voting for McCain on the grounds that he isn’t half-black. A Mexican voter voting for a Mexican candidate just because of his ethnicity is equally injurious. Racism is racism no matter who it’s coming from.

I truly believe that true progress would be marked by a total disregard for a candidate’s ethnicity or skin color. Color blindness is not making a huge deal of the melanin a person’s genes are programmed to express. Color blindness is looking past this, not focusing on it as has been done ad nauseam throughout this laborious election process.

Congratulations to Senator Obama on winning what has become, the world’s most important popularity contest. He should thank the press for delivering this victory to him, I would (tonight, ABC’s Diane Sawyer found it a Sisyphean task to contain her glee).

Judging by the amount of people present at his victory party, methinks the President-elect needs a bigger Jeep than this one (click on the pic and watch the celebratory hilarity ensue):

Just so long as he keeps the tires properly inflated…

Obama and The Gang Hit Up Starbucks

Click on the Pic and Enjoy!

Michelle Obama is probably the best one out of the bunch

Thanks to the anonymous farker who created this masterpiece.

To quote Jack Nicholson’s Joker, “I don’t know if it’s art, but I like it!”

So Good…

Chris Baker “Outs” Magic Johnson

Chris Baker, former local radio talk show host, has finally made a national name for himself. Just not in the way he might have envisioned (at least one hopes so).

He and current co-host Langdon Perry of Minneapolis’s KTLK are convinced that Earvin “Magic” Johnson faked being infected with HIV for the purpose of garnering the all-important sympathy vote.

According to this, the actual exchange went like this:

Baker: You think Magic faked AIDS for sympathy?
Perry: I’m convinced that Magic faked AIDS.
Baker: Yeah, me too.

The exchange betrays a certain modicum of ignorance for Johnson, back in ’91, announced he was infected with HIV and did not manifest any of the symptoms of AIDS (a syndrome). To this date I don’t think Earv has manifested the symptoms associated with AIDS.

Having listened to Baker here in H-town in the past, this exchange doesn’t surprise me, except for the immensely personal angle of this attack on Magic.

Barring omniscience on their part, Baker and Perry’s comments can be nothing but an insanely ill-conceived, not to mention, tasteless gag.

I wonder what the junior Senator from NY thinks of Baker’s “revelation”? I have some idea what she would think of Baker’s politics and views of her and her husband…

Rudy vs. Hillary, What Could Have Been…

Given the 3 horse (the number is down to 2, depending on who you ask) race that the 2008 election has become, Mr. Giuliani has not been heard from lately. If not for his recent schmoozing of the Democrat front-runner, Mr. Edwards would be in the same boat.

Leave it to Thomas Sowell to remind that Rudy once was a viable candidate,

Whoever said that overnight is a lifetime in politics knew what he was talking about. Just 6 months ago, the big question was how Hillary and Giuliani would do against each other in this year’s presidential elections.

The above is from Dr. Sowell’s latest version of Random Thoughts.

American Puritanism and Eliot Spitzer

From the pen of Tom Clancy,

The dollar was already falling… In Europe, traders on their way home heard their cellular phones start beeping to call them back. Something unexpected was afoot. Analysts wondered if it had anything to do with the developing sex scandal within the American government. Europeans always wondered at the American fixation with the sexual dalliances of politicians. It was foolish, puritanical, and irrational, but it was real to the American political scene, and that made it a relevant factor in how they handled American securities. — From Debt of Honor, emphasis mine

Thought this relevant in light of the revelations emanating from the state of New York earlier this week. I have a European co-worker who more or less agrees with Clancy’s take.

To a lesser degree, my admiration for Pres. Bill Clinton was not stifled when the Lewinsky scandal broke, but in fact it grew. My “reasoning” had to do with what I, in my darkened understanding, perceived his dalliance with a woman half his age as a sign of the man’s virility. I wholeheartedly agreed (past tense) with comedian Chris Rock in thinking that it was all Hillary’s fault. As the ever witty Rock commented,

A man is only as faithful as his options

Obama’s Hispanic Voting Block?

On our last visit to my native México we stopped by a convenience store and purchased some items one usually purchases at such an establishment, ice, drinks, snacks etc.

My dear sister (who along with her husband also were visiting there) bought me a pastry. A very delicious and thus unhealthy pastry. A pastry which if it were sold in the United States would be subject to much controversy.

The name of the pastry is “Negrito” which is Spanish for “little black boy”. The wrapper for this treat used to have a spear-wielding, bone-through-the-hair, dancing black boy (if you can stomach it, click here). Bread giant, Bimbo, is the company which makes it.

The wrapper housing today’s “Negrito” features a black boy (think Huey from Boondocks) on a skateboard. Who says México hasn’t outgrown colonialist attitudes? By the way the pastry is sold here in the States but understandably so, it is called something else.

Saw it at the local Wal-Mart a few weeks back and I can’t recall what it is called.

Some find it hard to believe that Mexicans are racist (melaninist to be fair). Probably because,

1) it is not understood how a people who are typically on the short end of discrimination can also discriminate others

AND/OR

2) Some mistakenly think us inferior and so can’t understand how one group of inferiors can regard another group of inferiors as well, inferior.

Words from a “Female male chauvinist”

Found this fascinating article in the Daily Mail,

“I’m a FEMALE male chauvinist – and proud of it: In a deeply provocative confession, one woman defies the sisterhood”

Though not her stated intent the writer will undeniably ruffle a few feathers, though this need not be the case if her argument is looked at as objectively as possible.

She manages to critique current presidential hopeful, Senator Hillary Clinton,

Why, for example, aren’t the women of America bulldozing all opposition and sending Hillary Clinton to the White House as the first credible female candidate in history?

Could it be that Mrs Clinton’s mannish trouser suits and selfaggrandising, policy-driven speeches smack of the masculine touch – and what heterosexual woman wants fake machismo in power?

The writer ends her column with what some might perceive as ghastly and appalling words,

The fact is that when we women are tired, weak, compromised, in need of sympathy and vulnerable, nothing beats the strong arm of male capability and its implied protection.

There always should be and will be female soldiers, surgeons, airline pilots, world leaders.

To these highly skilled and talented women, I salute your success. But perhaps I’m even more grateful to those who don’t get right to the top.

Thoughts?