You know how you can only remember seven of the eight reindeers' names? Or 11 of the 12 Jewish tribes?Well, I find that "year in review" posts work in the reverse: I never have trouble coming up with what to review. The trouble is in keeping the review to a manageable size.

When President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration team announced the pick of pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation a firestorm of controversy was unleashed.

The election of Barack Obama to serve as the 44th President of the United States does not bring and end to racism nor racial politics. However, the election of the first non-white president will likely have an effect on political engagement and involvement (empowerment) of not only African Americans but other racial and ethnic groups as well.

Pumpkin and Pecan evaded the terrible fate of those poor Sarah Palin Wasilla turkeys thanks to President Bush, whose mind is apparently more focused on pardons than on our tanking economy these days.

You may not remember Addie Polk, but perhaps you remember her story at the tail end of the presidential campaign. Polk is the 90-year-old Akron, Ohio widow who shot herself as sheriffs attempted to evict her from her foreclosed home. In a debate on the House floor last month, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) derided the proposed $700 billion plan to rescue the financial system by declaring,

America's new first family is multicultural and diverse, so I'm holding out hope that a Barack Obama cabinet will be a diverse one, too, but not just on ethnicity. I want to see plenty of lipstick and mascara around the first cabinet meeting held by President Obama, too. When lots of names of men started getting floated as cabinet possibilities in the days immediately after the election, my heart sank and I started to feel a little anxious. Where were all the women's names? In 2008, surely there could more than a few token mentions.

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:

Looking back, it seems kind of crazy, the pre-occupation with What Will They Do To Joe Lieberman? But the truth is, I still can't decide if it really matters or not.

The passage of California's Prop 8, Arizona's Prop 102, Florida's Prop 2, and Arkansas Initiative Act No 1 on November 4th, dealt a hefty blow to the GLBT community and the marriage rights movement. While I do not live in any of those 4 states, so those amendments do no directly affect me, they do indirectly affect me. And everyone in the GLBT community. The passage of those amendments sets the tone for the rest of the nation. They set precedence for other states to follow suit.

By now, you've probably heard that last Wednesday, the morning commuter crowds in Manhattan and a few other US cities were the targets of an elaborate prank. Volunteers distributed 1.2 million copies of a bogus edition of the New York Times dated July 4, 2009 and boasting the banner headline: "Iraq War Ends." An anti-corporate activist group called the Yes Men claimed responsibility for the hoax.

Much of the perspective provided during the campaign and reactions to the election of Barack Obama have been framed by the legacy of America's long history of blacks, whites, racism, oppression and the struggle to realize civil rights.

Loads of media types are already wondering aloud, what kind of parents the Obamas will be. For me, that question is sort of silly -- won't they continue to be the same kind of parents they've always been?