Damn son, where you been... Every time I go back to the hood and encounter someone I haven't seen in a minute, regardless of whether or not I was previously very close to the person or found them especially trust worthy in a past life, I get met with that same phrase.... "Damn son...." The blog world doesn't work that way. Bloggers often write for narcissistic or ego-driven ends. They blog about breakfast and jealousies.

Yesterday I squeezed my father's shoulder as he ignited the flame which consumed the corpse of his only brother. I held my mother as she wailed while watching flames consume a coffin I had no relationship towards, so my unchecked imagination guided my mind as it wandered into contents and associations of flesh and family. Two nights earlier I was looking at paintings and commenting about bathroom line etiquette with two artists who've had work in the Biennial. I was supposed to be putting into action plans to expand Griot substantially in anticipation of 2009 and beginning plans for a second business in art consulting, thinking to myself that I really should be blogging in the week of the 4th, a period during which every candidate and his baby's mother drops the media bombs that it makes sense to drop during the much ignored news cycles preceding National Holidays. Suddenly, a cancer inside my blood relative became impatient. Some force decided it was my uncle's turn.

I went to Gurdwara and listened to a few lines about what Guru Nanak Dev said about death. It helped me a bit. I don't know how much it helped Joan. She is more deeply schooled in the scriptures of Sikhism than I am. I saw her from across the sangat. My gaze drifted to the sequins covering the walls on this beautiful building in Glen Cove that my family helped to build and I was at a total loss for anything I might say to console someone who I so admire. My aunt has had to live as a cultural chameleon. When you are different everywhere you go, you learn to make that difference work for you. Joan grew up in England to a mixed race couple: Scottish and French. That made her different enough by most occidental standards. Different enough so that she was capable of marrying a sardar in London in the 1960s. It made the Daily Mail. Two page spread with photos... something like "Joan weds Hindu" was probably the headline. My aunt is pretty impressive, she's always been a role model for me. I wonder how she handled that attention as a 20-something.

Flu sucks... While I have a million and one things to do at work and after work, including printing tee shirts (or preparing to do so), I am at home in bed. Not only that, my Blackberry has been acting all screwy so I can't really even mess around on the internet under my covers.

Yesterday, I almost passed out in the shower. I worked up enough energy to go to the grocery store and bought orange juice and ginger ale. Fell asleep in front of the TV while watching John Adams on HBO. I can't believe Paul Giamatti has found a way to endear the man to me. Bastardly good acting. I see why the church wanted the activity banned.

I eventually woke up and checked some work email, took a shot of NyQuil and went back to bed. Today I feel like I have a bit more energy. I'm looking forward to walking to Barnes & Noble, which is all of 4 blocks from my house. This is why people live in big cities: even in Brooklyn, while I'm on my death bed, I'm within walking distance of good literature at discount prices. I plan to pick up a manual on Photoshop. Maybe I'll convince someone to deliver it to my house so I don't have to carry it home.

I want to try to learn something on my sick days. I've been doing this nine to five thing for a long time. I suppose the only reason it is worth doing is because when you get sick, you have sick days. But then you feel overcome with guilt for getting sick. It sucks. Guilt is such a strange principle. My mother is Catholic and my father is Indian. Lots of guilt to inherit from those cultures. At least I have culture I suppose.

I've been reading Foucault in bed. In Society Must Be Defended Picador collects the lectures he delivered at the College de France from 1975-1976. It's a wonderful read, but very cerebral. I might have to put it down and pick up something else. Maybe something with pictures. [UPDATE: I got that Photoshop manual, plus the new issue of Artforum and Lapham's Quarterly. Good stuff. Wonderful pictures. Maybe if I feel better, I'll read the articles too.]

I've picked up some of the election coverage lately. Obama is making moves in Pennsylvania. I hope I get better soon enough to make a trip out there and campaign for the man. I've no tolerance left for the Clintons. I'm a resident of New York. I will be voting for whomever runs against her the next time she is up for re-election as the U.S. Senator from New York. I've really had enough of her shit.

What she is doing at this point can only be characterized as embarrassing. I know that she hasn't gotten a fair shake because she's a woman or rather she has been criticized in certain unfair ways only because she is a woman. And yes, that's unfair. But I've been treated unfairly and insulted in certain racially provocative ways because I'm a minority, but I don't think that legitimizes trying to divide the race or divide people by their gender for my own personal gain. And that seems to be what Clinton is doing.

She's got the endorsement of every crooked union man from Allegheny County to Philadelphia casting a vote for her and she still can't win outright. So the only strategy she has got left is to divide up the women and minorities--to make them all feel guilty if they consider not voting for her. She's causing mass hysteria and paranoia. Her people are telling Hispanics that an Obama administration would look out only for blacks. With her ads she's telling unionized whites that the black guy will shake up the unions so that they will have to admit more people of color, and they're scared shitless about what would happen if someone opened up organized labor to the Mexicans. Meanwhile, Obama has released no such plans, he's run a post-partisan campaign, and he's the fucking avatar of electability.

What she is doing is making people distrustful of the process and of power in the hands of Obama. She is scaring and dividing the country. She is causing harm. She's doing it because she thinks she can gain from it. And it is really unfortunate. But at the end of the day who cares because she's gonna lose anyway. So what's the damn point?!

With the 3 a.m. ads she is circulating this amorphous fear. She's trying to convince middle class white women that they should be trembling in the night if a black man were to make it to the White House. Yes, this race has turned out to be about race, but mostly because that's the direction that Hillary Clinton is pushing it. You've even got Orlando Patterson calling her out for race baiting. Orlando Freakin' Patterson. [LINK]

She raised a great deal of money early in the campaign, but that money is ear-marked for the general election, which means she can't use it yet. This is why she has been behind in the money race and why new money is so important for her. In order to raise more money, she has to tried to convince very wealthy people who were not previously convinced that they should contribute money to her campaign. That means she is making promises and offering favors for large, lump sum contributions. That means she has indebted herself to the wealthy to gain the cash to stay in this race and damage the prospects of Barack Obama. [UPDATE: And she is still losing the race for new money by a ratio of 2 to 1. He raised $40 million to her $20 million, but he raised it from more new donors and contributions to Obama have averaged less than $100 per donation. That my friends is democracy.] [LINK]

So even after she loses, she is still going to owe those favors. I want to know who is planning to challenge her when she is up for re-election and I will be contributing to that wo/man's campaign. I'm really fed up with this shit.

[UPDATE: An article in Friday's NYTimes shows that Hillary's continued presence in the race has damaged positive perceptions of Obama as he remains mired in a battle with her and susceptible to her muck-flinging. Recently, I spoke to a friend who was an adamant Hillary supporter. She no longer supports Hillary, is somewhat appalled by her recently, and can't understand why she isn't bowing out of the race at this point considering that the nomination battle is already over and everyone who understands how the nomination process works understands that Obama is the nominee. So why is Hillary still in the race? She has managed to erode support for Obama even while she is losing her own supporters. What this means is simple. Hillary Clinton is harming the prospects of the Democratic Party. She needs to be contained. She needs to be voted out of the Senate. Don't worry too much about the election in November though: Obama still has a healthy lead over McCain in the polls.] [LINK]

McCain's gaffe wasn't minor... It was alarming and worrisome because it might not have been a gaffe, i.e. not a mistake. We don't know how this will play in the media, except that so far the media has decided to play down its significance. CNN is seizing on it as if describing McCain's misstatements as such are a partisan issue. It's not about partisanship. It's about reality and unreality. It's about either having a grasp of the issues as they are or not.

McCain's analysis of the significance of Iran is mistaken. He is playing up it's hostility to the U.S. Iran does not make such a priority of hating the U.S. that it is willing to team up with and train al Qaeda. They still have Osama bin Laden's brother in custody. Why would they train bin Laden's militia? That militia would then turn on Iran. So there is no connection in terms of training and support between al Qaeda and Iran, the same way there was no operational connection between al Qaeda and Iraq. To suggest that this is so on more than one occasion is blasphemous to anyone with a basic knowledge of foreign policy and national security.

If McCain is going to run for the presidency on the basis of his foreign policy skills and experience, this is a huge blow. It also might somehow be related to age. He's old. He might have trouble keeping track of all the variables simultaneously. Republicans and the mainstream media present McCain as an authority on military and strategic matters. His repeated misstatements--unless they are corrected, renounced, and explained--are a very big problem. The New York Times and Houston Chronicle are trying to abdicate McCain while accusing everyone who is concerned about his command of the issues of playing politics. [LINK]

CNN's Political Ticker is also attempting to condemn Democrats for criticizing the statements. I think that's bullshit and a result of media bias and stupidity. The press has such a hardon for McCain. More so than they have for Obama because so far Obama hasn't buttered up to the press whereas McCain has been playing the 'indignant statesman' role for years and they've eaten it up. [LINK]

The Democracy Arsenal blog, which a project of the Truman National Security Project, has pointed out that this is a significant issue because McCain has tried to connect Iran and al Qaeda on several occasions and provide links to video of his repeated gaffes. [LINK]

Also, according to CNN, Bush still thinks war is a good idea even when it is a poorly conceived and un-winnable war. Well, that's not true. The Iraq War has had a winner. The problem is that the winner has been Iran. [LINK]

Black is the New President... There are a couple things in the mix right now that give me pause to put together a post during my lunch hour. I could just keep working on my application to these Critical Studies programs or the next wave of Griot designs or innumerable other things. There have been a lot of changes in my life recently, i.e. over the past few months while I wasn't blogging. My girlfriend Chris (who just got into the creative writing MFA program at Brooklyn College) moved in with me, I got my degree (magna cum laude), I got a BlackBerry, I wrote and submitted my first exhibition proposal, and the Wire is over. I've been busy and stressed and tired, but happy. I mean, the Wire was fuckin sick.

Anyway, Tracy Morgan articulated a dope reply to Tina Fey's endorsement of Hillary. Bitch might be the new black, but black is the new president, BIATCH!

While George W. Bush has reaffirmed his legacy as an enemy of human rights, the Democratic nomination contest continues amidst Republican meddling. It has become quite clear that despite Obama's message of unity, the Republican Party has become so dominated by uninspired cynics and enemies of democratic integrity that they have been voting in the Democratic primaries in order to cause our contest to drag on for longer than necessary.

There is plenty of evidence of how pathetic the Republicans have become. It was not enough to elect George W. Bush, who is arguably the worst president in the world and a man utterly lacking in integrity. According to the NYTimes, "Mr. Bush [recently] vetoed a bill that would have explicitly prohibited the [C.I.A.] from using interrogation methods like waterboarding, a technique in which restrained prisoners are threatened with drowning and that has been the subject of intense criticism at home and abroad. Many such techniques are prohibited by the military and law enforcement agencies." [LINK]


Tina Fey's call to arms against Obama appears to have awoken many Republicans. According to the Boston Globe, "For a party that loves to hate the Clintons, Republican voters have cast an awful lot of ballots lately for Senator Hillary Clinton: About 100,000 GOP loyalists voted for her in Ohio, 119,000 in Texas, and about 38,000 in Mississippi, exit polls show.... Spurred by conservative talk radio, GOP voters who say they would never back Clinton in a general election are voting for her now for strategic reasons: Some want to prolong her bitter nomination battle with Barack Obama, others believe she would be easier to beat than Obama in the fall, or they simply want to register objections to Obama." [LINK]

The recent news cycles have been dominated by negative coverage of Obama relating back to his friendship of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. Now I don't think anyone should be forced to take responsibility for the opinions of their close friends, and certainly George Bush never has been asked to explain why Pat Robertson is such a piece of anyway... but Obama did everything right with Wrightgate. I'd reiterate what Bill Bradley said on Meet the Press yesterday. Sen. Obama disavowed the statements of Wright, he asked Wright to resign from his spiritual advisory role, and he said that division is bad. So why is this still an issue? Probably because its on YouTube now. Read the Wall Street Journal's analysis of the issue to understand how it developed. [LINK]

I'm glad that this is coming out in the primary and the best political commentators (e.g. Kevin Drum at Political Animal) have said that this is going to get the MSM's attention at some point and no one knows how it will play, but I hope it doesn't keep playing out over and over because it strikes me as negative but insignificant. America has some bad things in its history and those bad things should be addressed, confronted, or meditated upon lest we lose the trust of our own citizens. Tracy Morgan makes a good point, we are a racist country after all. That doesn't mean the racism is exclusively coming from white sources. Thomas P.M. Barnett wrote a great column recently about how important it is to maintain the middle. [LINK]

I agree with TPMB wholeheartedly. I think when Obama finally has a heart to heart about this with the American people through a media agent of his choosing, it will hopefully accomplish two things. First I hope it will get regular Americans to appreciate the grievances of the marginalized. Second, I hope it will get the media to warm to him a bit. I hope that it will inspire some trust in the marginalized so that they might see their interests as political ones which require their participation in the system to ensure that their issues will be addressed.

Despite Clinton's wishes (at this point I think her aspirations for the presidency are merely a dream) it doesn't look like she will get the nomination or even be a running mate. Nancy Pelosi dispelled the rumors of a joint Obama-Clinton ticket recently. [LINK]

The fact that Pelosi would come out publicly against many of Clinton's tactics is very important. Hillary would like to do several things at this point. First she wants the press to start counting the number of caucus delegates separately from the count of pledged delegates. If you want to know why or if you don't know what I'm talking about, check out the Columbia Journalism Review piece explaining her new rhetoric. [LINK]

Not only does Pelosi come out against the idea of a Dream Team ticket, she also indicates pretty clearly that she would be against the plan which Hillary has floated for going after superdelegates during the convention if the popular vote ends up being against here. According to ABC News, Pelosi says, "If the votes of the superdelegates overturn what happened in the elections, it would be harmful to the Democratic Party." Finally, it is seeming less and less likely that Florida will have any delegates seated because they won't get a re-vote there and the only way she is gonna get a single Michigan delegate is if they re-do that primary, which means she's not going to get them all. With this bleak overview--I mean, the Republicans are voting for her and she still can't win--it seems extremely obvious that her campaign has lost all its momentum and is likely over.

Man, that was a really long post and I didn't even mention how absurd it is that JP Morgan is basically gonna get paid by the Federal Reserve to acquire Bear Stearns. Crazy shit. Barry Ritholtz at the Big Picture blog has been offering up some really top notch commentary on the whole thing. Check some of it out if you have the interest, inclination, or ability. [LINK]

Best quote on the subject is from his site: "The NY Yankees paid more for A-Rod than JPM paid for Bear Stearns." Very crazy shit.

[Photos 2, 3, 5 and 6 of Obama, which appear above, where taken by Annie Leibovitz for Men's Vogue. The photo of Obama being held by his mother is from the recent profile of her which appeared in the New York Times.]

Hillary's offer for number two should get two words: Dees Nutts... I've kept quiet about this for a month now. I'm done trying to be a good Democrat, with a big D, and I'm going to start being a good citizen and democrat with a small d. This primary has not gone on for too long, but its clear that the amount of civility that has been present early in the campaign on the Obama side is not going to sustain the whole party or inspire reciprocation on the Hillary side. I blame Hillary, who was the presumptive nominee (according to herself and her shills in the media). Hillary Clinton is losing this primary for two reasons. First, half of the Democratic Party would prefer not to vote for her and have decided to vote for Sen. Obama instead (and some for John Edwards as well). The second reason is that Barack Obama is reinvigorating the electorate by bringing new blood into it. Hundreds of thousands of Americans, who otherwise would not have participated in the primaries, are registering as Democrats to cast a ballot on his behalf. Many of these people would not be voting in any primary if not for Obama and they very likely will not be voting for Hillary in November. Hillary Clinton is in no place to offer anyone anything. Her offer to Sen. Obama basically amounts to a chance to potentially be the next Joe Lieberman.

For my part, I am a political activist of sorts. I registered as a Democrat in New York State the first time I was old enough to vote. Though I had never before participated I campaigned for a Democratic candidate during the primaries in 2000 and renounced the party when my candidate lost his bid for the nomination. I registered independent when I moved back to New Jersey after college and I remained an independent when I moved to New York for a second time. I registered as a Democrat on Super Tuesday to vote for Obama last month. In 2000, after renouncing the party I still voted for Gore. In 2004, I voted for Kerry. I'm not voting for a machine Democrat a third time. In November, I'm not voting for Hillary Clinton. Period. Regardless of who is her running mate. That's not sour grapes, that's just being fed up with Democrat bullshit.

This is why I like Obama: he's not a machine Dem. He's just Barack Fucking Obama. I don't think he's some cat who is larger than life. I don't think he's someone who believes it is his "turn" the way Hillary seems to. It just seems to make sense that he would run this time around. She's not going to win. He's got a decent record. He's not as corrupt as the other people in the race. He isn't as much of a back room dealer the way McCain and Clinton are. And another thing: he's not a Yalie. This country has been run by Yalies for five consecutive terms and look where that has gotten us. I used to say to a friend of mine that I think Yalies have been so much more successful in politics than Harvard grads lately because Yalies come out of Yale with a chip on their shoulders and something to prove, i.e. that they can be just as successful as anyone from Harvard. That attitude freaks me out. What's wrong with it is that Yalies don't seem to know themselves. They can't identify merit by intrinsic value, only by comparison. They live their lives comparing themselves to others and then trying to manipulate public opinion to almost wish away their comparative shortcomings. It's insanity, but its why the country's economy, educational system, and entire sports industry have become built upon smoke and mirrors. We need reform.

We need a shock to the system. We need the first half-black president of Harvard Law Review to become the first half-black man to sit in the White House. This isn't about race. This is about the system. This is about the system needing a jolt. This is about the system needing someone at it's helm who clearly has risen due to merit, not connections and privilege. We need someone who isn't going to rise to the top on an entitlement empowered dream of dominance. We need someone who is curious, tenacious, calmly self-confident and sharp-witted. We need someone who can compromise and listen, who will tell it straight without being intimidated or cowed by the desire to have everyone like him. We don't need another Bill Clinton. We could definitely benefit from the first Barack Obama. We need a cigarette-smoking, poker-playing, strategic thinker with a mean jump shot. YEAH I SAID IT!