Hey, it's all the time I had. But just once I'd like to see a political convention where the keynote speech is delivered by a candidate with a giant, oozing cold sore. I'd like to see him/her intermittently dab it with a linen hanky. I'd like to see the fleshtone makeup caked on it and cracking like the ground of the Sahara. I'd like a wily cameraman to zoom in on it with a macro lens.

I'd like to hear ...ffffwwweert... just as one of many waves of applause settles down for the next applausable quote. I'd like to see a light bulb explode harmlessly onto a would-be first lady, making her shriek, and bringing the entire assembly to a 7 or 8-second halt. Then Mr. Candidate makes an awkward joke in an attempt to pick up where he left off, but of course the teleprompter was just hacked by a cunning dyslexic, so he really can't...

They're just so excruciatingly boring, these things.

There's a lot of praise being thrown around for the speech given by Barack Obama. Sorry I missed it. I caught a snippet, and his delivery seemed refreshingly straightforward, clear, and well, good. I liked what I heard in that particular snippet. But something else occurred to me while watching the news coverage of his speech: He's constantly referred to as "black", yet he's 50% white. This fact seemed buried during what little coverage I saw. I'm not making any point here, I'm honestly wondering, and hoping you'll tell me, when is a reference to a black man or woman warranted instead of a white man or woman, when the individual is a product of both races? Is Obama called a black man because he looks more black than white, or is it because black overrides white when there's a 50-50 conflict? This is not a loaded question. I had read once that the EOC actually defined these things...in the same way that the percentage of benefit-qualifying Native American blood in one's veins was set at, what, one-sixteenth? I forgot. One-twelfth? Help me out here...(woa, that's an awkward word there—twelfth. Did I spell that right? Can't be.)

It's like Tiger Woods...he's often referred to as "black", but he's not. He calls himself "Cablinasian." Pretty cool, for accuracy's sake. Or how about Halle Barry...I thought it was odd when she was dubbed the first black woman to win an oscar for a leading role. Isn't she half white? So...why...who...when is...what's the correct formula for understanding the racial identification question, and most importantly, when will the day come when race no longer defines us?

Labels: at home, politics