Who is the father?

The top of the news today is talk going around that Barack Obama may not really be black enough for some people. It turns out that in the changing politics of what it means to be black in America, the fact that he is half-white, not a decedent of slaves and that he was raised in a white family adds up to make him less than black. First of all this is such a strange stand on the issue of race in this campaign, second in most places in the country if you look black then you are treated like you are black, people don't stop and ask if your mother was white. The matter of his lack of history of poverty is another issue in itself, the reality of the situation is that the first American black president is not going to be a poor black man, I don't know how to explain it better than to say that in the modern era at least, a poor man of any race has a slim chance of becoming president, and as harsh as it sounds, and as much as some would like to pretend it is not the case, a black poor man stands even less of a chance. To be clear on my point here I think that in a race, a rich black man has more of a chance that a poor white man, it isn't a simple race issue or class issue but a combination of the two forces.

If you listen to satellite radio - like my roommate wishes she could but the building next door blocks the view of the southern sky - you might be interested to note that the two companies that control the market are in talks to merge. It is an interesting development in the last couple years the ideas of mergers has changed. It used to be that a merger was a sign that a business was doing well, and sometimes that is still true such as in the case of Google buying out YouTube. However in many cases now that is simply not that case, take the case of SBC buying out ATT, this is not two companies who are doing well joining together to do even better, no it is two companies that are dying holding on to each other for support. The local and long distance phone markets business has long been in the hands of the companies that control the landlines. With cell phones everywhere, the first to suffer was the local markets, but they still had some advantage in the long distance market, but with more cell phone companies offering free long distance, like mine does, they are losing their share of that market as well. When you ad in the factor of email, phone services like Vonage and the fact that cable companies are providing phone service through their cables you see that the old phone companies are facing a greater and greater competition for the market that they used to own. Right now I have a landline in order to connect to the internet, in the next couple years if the price of cable internet access goes down, or if the technology and the price improve to make accessing the internet through cellular channels easier and more affordable, they will lose even more of the market share that they cling to. It is possible that within ten years ATT will be gone as a company.

There was a peace talk between leaders of the Palestinians and Israel that resulted in little more than to an agreement between the parties to meet again soon. Secretary Rice who was also a part of the meeting came alone to the meeting in Jerusalem said that she would also attend future meetings. While people will say that they is no point in attempting to talk peace deal through, I think that is like saying that these people deserve to live lives of poverty, violence and death - they don't - and if we can do something to bring about an improvement in their conditions then I say it is worth the effort.

Police in Chicago are saying that they have found the bodies of three womyn in two apartments, beaten to death with a hammer. The police were responding to a domestic violence call when they encountered a man hitting himself in the head with a blunt object in an apparent attempt at suicide. The man was taken into custody, the womyn were his wife, her sister and her mother, the mother was in the second apartment.

The surge of troops in the capital of Iraq is having some success, but there are concerns that some of the militants will go to the south where there are other concerns that are developing. According to one source there are actually four wars going on inside Iraq right now, the war of the American's verses the Islamic Terrorists, the war between the Shia and the Sunni - mostly in Baghdad, there is also the conflict in the north between the ethnic Kurds and the Arabs that in some cases were given Kurdish land under the rule of Saddam, in the south in the brewing conflict between various Shia sects who are fighting for power. At the end of the day, I know we have an obligation to help the people of Iraq, but at some point that obligation ends when the people of Iraq cannot or will not work together for their own peace, where is that point, I don't know.

TMZ has a video of Anna Nicole Smith with her face painted like a clown, that was shot by Howard K. Stern, in the video she talks to a baby in a carriage as if it were real, and Stern asks her if she is on a mushroom trip to which she replies, "what does that mean?" Later in the clip you can hear him telling Simpson how much money it will be worth. I am beginning have have strong doubts about that concern that this man had for Simpson or has for her baby. Stern has claimed that he cannot go to the court hearings because the baby needs him in the Bahama's but that didn't stop him and Simpson from leaving the baby to buy a yacht, it was this trip to Florida without the baby during which Simpson died. Meanwhile Mary Carey is claiming in a video on the Splash News website to have inside knowledge that Stern is not the father, that is it Larry Birkhead.

Thank you for reading, I shall report more tomorrow.

Dante