The New York Times recently published a story of an all-female band from Saudi Arabia and people went nuts. (Well, bloggers showed plenty o' link-love to the NYT but many didn't provide any commentary about the news item.)

Yesterday the blogosphere was abuzz with the news that Al-Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al Zawahri called President-elect Barak Obama a House Negro:

The revellers have long gone home after celebrating in the streets,the champgane bottles are empty and the tears of joy have dried. It's now back to reality. While some rejoiced that come January a Democrat will be Commander-in-Chief and some rejoiced that an African-American man will hold the highest, most respected position of power in the world, other gritted their teeth and swore under their breath. Not simply because they are Republicans and were disappointed that John McCain lost, but because the next President will be a black man.

  I was going to talk about the rather chilly racial climate in Toronto post-presidential election, but this piece caught my eye. Sex columnist Dan Savage opined over the demise of Proposition 8 in California -and guess who is accused of its downfall?

As a producer for a conference company, I conduct a lot of research for program ideas and most recently, for potential speakers. I had tracked down an environmental lawyer that specialzes in the topic that my conference was on and went online to try and get her contact information. Because of her name, it was unclear what her cultural / ethnic background was - which was not really important, anyway - but I was a bit surprised when I saw a picture of her on her law firm's website after I googled her and a number of hits came up.