Politics

The day after the presidential election, I went to work at a small inner-city public high school to find people walking the halls with contented smiles. Even the students who generally find it easier to scowl than breathe were beaming. As their principal, I reprimanded them, half-heartedly, numerous times for suggesting that we all should’ve…

“Hey, dark ‘n lovely!” Gotta love the brothers who show their affection for the dark-skinned girls, even if they are hollering out the window of a passing car. Gotta love it even more when the brother is the president, and the object of his affection is front and center for the world to see. It’s…

Don’t call it reparations. Call it a belated bailout of the Freedman’s Savings Bank, chartered by Congress in 1865 as a financial haven for freed slaves, and failed in 1874 after its white board lost all the money after a spree of wild speculation. It was like black people’s version of Bernie Madoff (but the…

OK, so it’s Inauguration Day and you’re standing back 10 rows deep along the parade route. You’ve lost your family members who stopped somewhere a block or so away. You’re supposed to meet up with friends afterward for a celebratory toast, but you haven’t spotted them anywhere. And you’ve managed to grab some cool pictures…

In the end, Roland Burris will likely be the next senator from Illinois. The law and cynical race politics are on his side. That simple fact was largely obscured in yesterday’s political theatrics. In a damp, cold rain, Burris showed up on Capitol Hill and was met at the perimeter by the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms, Terry…

In November 1969, the great Nina Simone released what would be her entrée to mainstream popular culture, one of her biggest selling records ever, and an anthem of a movement that, robbed of its messenger 19 months earlier in Memphis, still carried forth his message: To be young, gifted and blackIs where it’s at. The…

Being a Republican on Capitol Hill may be a little lonelier over the next two years than it has been over the past two. In the U.S. Senate, Republicans can look back just two short election cycles and be wistful about what they’ve lost: a Republican president, a GOP-controlled Congress and, more broadly, the country’s…

A few weeks ago I received a phone call from two semi-drunken friends who were at a bar on the East Coast. They demanded I write about the idiot formerly known as Gov. Rod Blagojevich. I promised to do so, but deep down I probably wanted the whole shameful situation to go away. As an…

The inauguration of Barack Obama is 15 days away, and here in a cold capital, the anticipation is palpable. People are shelling out recession cash for ball dresses and tuxedos; others are leaving town in advance of the hordes. Pennsylvania Avenue is slowly being turned into a great stage for the grand human drama that…

Back when I had the good sense to see a therapist, she made a suggestion that stuck with me.  Every year, she said, sit down and compose a list of the 10 things that you are thankful for over the past 12 months.  I have composed such a personal list every year since. It is an exercise…