Sunday evening update--and a question

The back is feeling better after a pretty rotten night and very sore morning. I finally caved to the lure of the pain pills the other night, and they helped a little. Today, the pain seems to have moved back where it started in my lower back--a very familiar place, I might add. So I am mildly optimistic that I am improving. School starts tomorrow and the last few days have not been terribly productive, so I hope my lost time will not show up in a big way. Between that and my back, I am hoping to avoid too much of the political news of the day.

In one of my email conversations, we have been pondering the issue of race in America. Where are we on that subject? Is the nomination of Obama proof that we have made progress?

I kind of think that we have made progress. Not as much as we would like to think, but progress still the same. Not as much as we would like, because I truly believe that Obama had little choice but to nominate a white male as his running mate. Two minorities on the ticket, or even a white woman (imo) would have been too radical. But more progress than I sometimes see because I hear so many people looking for other reasons not to vote for him. They can't come out and say it is because he is black, but could perhaps believe one of the scurrilous rumors that the right has planted about him (radical Muslim, radical Christian, baby killer, etc).

On that note, Frank Rich suggests that the media is more concerned about race:

"Most Americans, unlike the press, are not obsessed by race. (Those whites who are obsessed by race will not vote for Obama no matter what he or anyone else has to say about it.)"

A good column, btw, that included this little tidbit on media bias.

What Obama also should have learned by now is that the press is not his friend. Of course, he gets more ink and airtime than McCain; he’s sexier news. But as George Mason University’s Center for Media and Public Affairs documented in its study of six weeks of TV news reports this summer, Obama’s coverage was 28 percent positive, 72 percent negative. (For McCain, the split was 43/57.) Even McCain’s most blatant confusions, memory lapses and outright lies still barely cause a ripple, whether he’s railing against a piece of pork he in fact voted for, as he did at the Saddleback Church pseudodebate last weekend, or falsifying crucial details of his marital history in his memoirs, as The Los Angeles Times uncovered in court records last month.

Ok, I am done for this evening. Hope you all have a good week.