Jeff Chang has a post about recent ICE raids at public schools in Berkeley and Oakland that is well worth reading.  As Jeff rightly suggests, we can not let the attention garnering presidential campaigns distract us from other ongoing issues:

I've been working overtime of late doing some academic research and writing that I hope will soon see the light of day, as well as doing my best to stay afloat in the ever expanding blogosphere.  Two of my recent contributions to The Huffington Post have focused on our food crisis or what I call a "subprime food industry."  Our volatile housing market and rising fuel costs in our cars are not the only things we need to be worried about.  As the recent protests in Egypt, Haiti and India rising food costs are also legitimate concerns.  The second article is a more recent one from this Friday and it addresses the verdict in the Sean Bell murder trial.  Here I present my thoughts on the discomforting relationship that exists between Sean Bell and Barack Obama because of the overwhelming media coverage that these two Black men have received for very different reasons.  Here's an excerpt:

I have also recently contributed to the Applied Research Center's Daily Blog Racewire.  My first post was on Tuesday's Democratic Primary in Pennsylvania.  Entitled "Still A Big Man's Game" it explores the role of party officials such as Pennsylvania's Governor Ed Rendell in keeping Hillary Clinton's campaign afloat.  It's surprising that with all the calls asking Howard Dean, John Edwards or Al Gore to intervene and advise Clinton to bow out of the race, there's very little discussion about the diehard Clinton supporters in the upper echelons of the Democratic party who have been ensuring Clinton's victories in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. 

 Last but not least, The Night Shift Chronicles is still running.  We are still in the process of upgrading the layout and adding more content on a regular basis.  Slowly but surely it's taking to it's new incarnation. 

 Ok, I'll stop here for now. 

This past Sunday I attended the Brooklyn Blogade at Frank White's Cafe & Gallery in Clinton Hill.  Curated by ClintonHill blogger lesterhead, this was an opportunity to break bread with other brooklyn based bloggers, swap ideas, and exchange business cards (which of course, I forgot to bring...). 

Pictures and more reporting can be found at the Clinton Hill Blog, and you can follow their links to see other report backs and pictures.   

On Sunday, January 20, Clinton Hill will host the Brooklyn Blogade, a monthly event for Brooklyn-based bloggers to meet, greet and chill.

Clinton Hill Blog (CHB) will host this month's event.  Click here for more details 

As a friend recently pointed out Kenya's current political upheaval is reminiscent of Ivory Coast's sudden turnaround in 1998, where another former calm African country suddenly became marred by political instability.  With reports now emerging claiming ethnic violence, death tolls as high 1,000 and counting, and mass exoduses to neighboring countries, this political impasse bears serious consideration before it unravels any further.  What prompted the conflict is a stolen election by Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, who instead of letting democracy take its course, intervened and disabled Raila Odinga's bid to become Kenya's next elected President. In American terms, imagine if, ironically enough, George Bush were to decide in November that a surging Obama did not deserve to be President and inserted himself for a third term in office.  This is essentially what took place in Kenya.

Conceding that my own reportage on this issue is limited, I hope you will turn your attention to colleague Tavia N'yongo's recently created blog that has been covering the events in Kenya in greater detail.

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