It feels like 2008 has been a year of literary issues and stand-offs. Authors misbehaved on Amazon. Publishers in the the UK discussed age-banding books and adding morality clauses to children's authors contracts. Commentators called books for boys emasculating because girls no longer have to be rescued. And now one popular author is theorizing on her blog that another popular author is racist. Why? Because the accused author is Mormon. Please note that this post contains spoilers for all books in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, including the recently released Breaking Dawn.

Perhaps after the sexism in media coverage of Hillary Clinton's campaign or the nasty attacks on Michelle Obama, my ears perked up more eagerly this morning at the BBC Radio interview of Cherie Blair, wife of Great Britain's former Prime Minister Tony Blair. She considers herself an advocate of women's rights and didn't realize until she became a member of the Bar in Great Britain that being a woman could hold her back.

Yesterday, I was walking my dog with my cousin and some friends by the beach in an oceanside town north of Boston. We were walking three little white haired terriers, and when two men approached with two more little white dogs, my cousin exclaimed, "It must be white dog day at the beach."An older man walking his dog towards us stopped, smiled, and said, "Well, Obama Osama says white dogs are ok."I did a double take and stared at the man- and he sensed my shock and said, "see that's a joke, I was trying to make a joke."

Southern California teacher Karen Salazar has been let go from Jordan High School because she was "brainwashing" students with an Afrocentric curriculum. Salazar's mentor, a veteran teacher assigned to her, disagrees:

This summer on July 23 and 24, CNN is airing a 6 hour documentary on what it's like to be Black in America .  In the promo they point out that the program "isn't just about Black people, it's about Black Americans".  As I put these dates on my Outlook calendar, I got to thinking about what it's been like for me being Black in America. 

While going through the contents of my car's trunk, I turned up an unmarked cassette tape. It was a partial recording of a reading by the poet and anti-war activist, Robert Bly, made sometime during the Vietnam war. Bly, ever the commentator, made the point that America was the only western nation that had become a nation by stealing their land. He added, "If you have ever been poor enough to steal a coat, you know something. You know that you may wear that coat, but you'll never love it."

Recently, a newspaper reporter asked me to comment on the attitudes of African Americans toward Sen. Barack Obama's presidential candidacy. I told him I would share my thoughts on the understanding that I had not personally polled all 30 million of us. No doubt, he thought me tedious. But I think it is important, especially lately to note the particularities of our experience.

As I was surfing the blogosphere for the elder beat, I came across this Reuters report: Older white women join Kenya's sex tourists By Jeremy Clarke MOMBASA, Kenya, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Bethan, 56, lives in southern England on the same street as best friend Allie, 64. They are on their first holiday to Kenya, a country they say is "just full of big young boys who like us older girls".

Cross Posted At Megan's Minute. I recently came across the website What About Our Daughters which was started by blogger Gina MacCauley. First let me say I know I'm a little late to this particular party since at BlogHer alone, weemsrj, Kim Pearson, and lainad have all written articles about the site. As I write this, there's a demonstration going on in Washington D.C. that Gina, her readers, an activist named Shane Johnson and others have been promoting. It's covered in this article by Marisol Bello in today's USA Today. Here are excerpts:

Ann Coulter is all over the blogosphere for saying that Jews need to be “perfected” by becoming Christians, and that America would be better off if everyone were Christian. In fact, The National Jewish Democratic Council has called on the media to stop booking Coulter.