But, boy, do we have a long way to go. Check out this article about Obama organizers doing their best in Buchanan County, Virginia. Here's an excerpt:

...Obama's supporters, as they push to win this dead-even battleground state, are talking directly about race, betting that the best way to raise their neighbors' comfort level with the prospect of the first black president is to openly confront their feelings.

When Cecil E. Roberts, president of the coal miners union that shapes politics in much of this mountain region, talks to voters, he tells them that their choice is to have "a black friend in the White House or a white enemy." When Charlie Cox, an Obama supporter, hears friends fretting about Obama's race, he reminds them that they pull for the nearby University of Tennessee football team, "and they're black."

Union organizer Jerry Stallard asks fellow coal workers what's more important: improving their work conditions or holding onto their skepticism of Obama's race, culture or religion. "We're all black in the mines," he tells them.

Not everyone is enthusiastic. ('Course we knew that.) See the full story for more.

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The Fed Reserve, in a desperate action this morning to stop a bank run and preserve commercial liquidity, is pouring money into short term markets. As the AP reported an hour ago:

The US Federal Reserve opened up its coffers Tuesday to companies hit by the credit crunch with a new program that will buy up commercial paper, short-term debt critical for many corporate operations.

The latest effort in an all-out war against the credit crunch creates a new "liquidity backstop" for corporate finance and was established after the US Treasury determined it was "necessary to prevent substantial disruptions to the financial markets and the economy," the central bank said.

"Substantial disruptions to the economy" is a nice way of saying that without access to commercial paper, commerce in the the United States would grind to a halt.

Two days ago, Nouriel Roubini, the respected NYU economics professor, market expert, and editor of the RGE Monitor, had already made these urgent recommendations to stop a liquidity run. In an October 5 interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, Roubini advised the following moves:

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We mentioned yesterday that Doonesbury is running with a theme Mother Jones wrote about a few weeks back, namely that John McCain slams the role lobbyists have played in the financial meltdown while keeping dozens of Wall Street lobbyists on his campaign payroll. Here's yesterday's strip:

Doonesbury © 2008 G. B. Trudeau. Used by permission of Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.

Today, strip author Garry Trudeau continues the theme. Trudeau is naming, on average, 7.5 lobbyists in each strip. One wonders if he's in this for the long haul...

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An extremely 'well intentioned' young white guy I work closely with said to me the other day that, appalled as he was by this "new" notion of white privilege he'd just heard of, thank god he'd never been its beneficiary. Others had, of course, but not him and man! would such a thing suck if it actually did exist.

While trying not to either laugh at him or slit his throat, I informed him about a study done by U of Chicago and MIT professors. In that study, identical resumes were sent in response to their local papers' want ads. Identical, that is, but for names like "Jennifer" v. "Tanisha," and "Jamal" v. "Joe". Let's just sum it up thusly:

The authors find that applicants with white-sounding names are 50 percent more likely to get called for an initial interview than applicants with African-American-sounding names. Applicants with white names need to send about 10 resumes to get one callback, whereas applicants with African-American names need to send about 15 resumes to achieve the same result.

"Testers" (fake applicants sent out to rent apartments, buy cars, etc.) find basically the same results.

He could only stare at me in silent bewilderment that his white skin had ever, ever helped him. Him, with his Martin Luther King T shirts, pants sagging off his ass, and tongue stud but white bread name, let alone skin. I love the kid but he doesn't yet know that anybody can cover up their piercings, but only some of us can lose melanin for the brief duration of an interview. C'mon white folks. Tim Wise can't do it alone. Get a clue already.

Now comes an equally delicious way of proving that sexism and male privilege are all too alive and well (hat tip: Andrew Sullivan.) From Time:

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