Things are heating up in New Hampshire ...

... and I don't mean the weather either.
Voters in the New England state have taken to the polls to vote in this year's first primary election and I am excited.
Under normal circumstances, I detest politicians but lately, watching this has been my alternative to The Young and the Restless. I keep waiting for an illegitimate child to pop out or for Hilary to announce to the world that she's been having an affair.
This whole process has been amusing to me and with the help of the good Lord, it'll all be over soon - on the Democratic side anyway. Joe Biden and Chris Dodd have already called it quits and Bill Richardson is hanging on by a thread - and nobody knows why. Now, it's a battle between Barack Obama, John Edwards and Hilary.
I can't say I'm surprised by that, but I can say that I am surprised that Obama and Clinton have not formed one of those Survivor-like alliances. I was surprised that the folks caucusing in Iowa picked Obama over Clinton and that Edwards came in second.
It was not unusual that Huckabee won in Iowa. I mean he is a Baptist minister and from what I understand, those folks in Iowa love them some Jesus! Then came Mitt because I guess he's closer to Jesus than Giuliani and Fred Thompson who said one of my favorite quotes last year. "I'm OK with the Lord, and the Lord is OK with me." That was a classic!
But there's also the Vietnam POW John McCain who is supposed to fare well in New Hampshire. I'm not really sure what he's trying to do by staying in the race but I think it will all be downhill after today.
I watched the debates on Saturday and saw a few things that kinda stuck in my craw and had me in stitches all at the same time. Huckabee made the statement that he wants to see less government in people's personal lives. This from a man who wants to isolate all the people who have HIV/AIDS and ban gay marriage and civil unions. Maybe it's me, but I don't think he's going to fare well with the country's LGBT community.
Something that surprised me is how Edwards started outright attacking Clinton saying that she was the "status-quo." I tell ya'll, this whole thing is turning into a high school drama and one of my favorite columnist/satirist Rick Horowitz got it right. Take a look:


Hopefully we can all come to an agreement on the lesser of both evils without settling this thing in the parking lot at 3:15.
Now, I am going to do something that I swore I wouldn't - make a prediction for the nominees for the November election.
That's right, you saw it here first!
I predict that it will be an Obama/Edwards ticket against a Huckabee/Romney ticket. Now who's gonna win, I can't tell you. I think that they should settle the whole thing in an American Idol-like competition. They can all perform as a quartet, then in duos and then separately to see who is the best.
It may be unorthodox but at least we know people will watch and vote.

I am amazed ...

... at how well the Republican presidential hopefuls skirt questions.

Against my better judgement, I watched CNN's YouTube Debate last night to see what was up because I didn't have a candidate yet. Let's just say that I still don't have one.

Because of the nature of my profession, I refuse to publicly identify myself as Republican or Democrat. But like other red-blooded and connected Americans, I have certain issues that I would like the government to address.

Sadly, last night, none of them were addressed. There was no talk of health care - universal or otherwise - and no one discussed education. I know the candidates could only answer the questions that were asked so that's why I fault CNN.

I hardly believe that with more than 5,000 questions posted that no one asked about health care or education. It seems to me that the biggest issue on the Republican agenda is cutting taxes, abolishing abortion, sending all the brown immigrants back to their countries and continuing the "war on terror."

What's even more disturbing is the answers to the question asked by an African American father and his son about what the candidates planned to do to stop black on black crime. Mitt Romney gets the award for the Vaguest Answer of the Night because that dude started talking about how fortunate the boy was because his father was there and how "Bill Cosby got it right."

Romney brought up a statistic that stated 69 percent of all African American children are born out of wedlock and we need to start getting back to family values.

***This is the part where I cock my head to the left and turn up my lips***

So you mean to tell me that if my parents would have been married when I was born, that would stop some random black boy from killing another? You'll have to excuse me if I am a little skeptical.

The reality of it is none of the candidates can do anything about black on black crime or any other issue that the minority folks who were born here face. They are ill-equipped - always have been and always will be. To paraphrase Kanye West and Michael Jackson, they don't care about us!

Maybe it is just me, but I would think that the whole black on black crime issue would be in the forefront right now - especially with the untimely death of Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor. That man was 24 years old and was shot by an intruder while in his home.

I'm not implying that the intruder/murder/thief was black, but according to Fox Sports columnist Jason Whitlock, the statistics say the odds are great.

Here's the column: http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/7499442

Either way, this is a tragic situation. With that said, I'm a little irritated by Whitlock's column - even though he spoke the truth. A lot of what Whitlock wrote is speculation, nothing more, nothing less.

I'm not saying that his checkered past should be overlooked or unaddressed. I'm not saying that we don't have our fair share of self-hatred.

I am saying that his speculation and ASS-umption that Taylor's murderer is black is premature.

He even went so far as to go on a five-graf tirade about how hip hop is to blame for black on black crime. Don't know how we got here? I don't either. I hardly see what any of this has to do with hip hop. As far as I'm concerned, Whitlock is no different from the white folks and the old folks who sit up and talk about how "they're doing it to themselves."

I will be the first to admit that the music has gotten out of hand, but make it the cause of all that is wrong in the black community. The real problem is those of us who are educated, who can put a face on what it looks like to be educated and do fairly well don't go back to our own neighborhoods enough to show these kids the truth.

We're too busy filling their heads with all this nonsense about being whatever they want to be if they put their minds to it. What if I want to be a coat rack? Or a park bench? What about race car? Can I be a race car?

To answer those questions, not just no. HELL NO!!! I can't be coat rack, a park bench or a freakin' race car because I am not made of the stuff needed to be any of that. What's the moral of the story kids? Everybody is not made of the same stuff as these professional athletes and entertainers. DANG!

***And for the record, I think Whitlock is referring to rap music, not hip hop. He's using the two interchangeably and he shouldn't be. That's like using woman and bitch interchangeably. The two are similar in nature but they are not synonyms. ***