On another blog someone posted this article by Tim Wise entitled "Jeremiah Wright, Barak Obama and the Unacceptability of Truth -- Of National Lies and Racial America".  It was such an excellent article I thought I would link to it here also.  The full article at Counterpunch.org.  An excerpt:

"But white folks have a hard time hearing these simple truths. We find it almost impossible to listen to an alternative version of reality. Indeed, what seems to bother white people more than anything, whether in the recent episode, or at any other time, is being confronted with the recognition that black people do not, by and large, see the world like we do; that black people, by and large, do not view America as white people view it. We are, in fact, shocked that this should be so, having come to believe, apparently, that the falsehoods to which we cling like a kidney patient clings to a dialysis machine, are equally shared by our darker-skinned compatriots.

This is what James Baldwin was talking about in his classic 1972 work, No Name in the Street, wherein he noted:

Sometimes we need to remember who we're fighting.  Hey...comedy entertainment.  It's all true, folks.

In case the sub-prime lending scandal and the Eliot Spitzer scandal has you trying to figure out what going on.....Greg Palast clears up any "mismatched" facts...  The Palast Site. 

An excerpt:

"Here’s how it worked: The Grinning Family, with US average household income, gets a $200,000 mortgage at 4% for two years. Their $955 monthly payment is 25% of their income. No problem. Their banker promises them a new mortgage, again at the cheap rate, in two years. But in two years, the promise ain’t worth a can of spam and the Grinnings are told to scram - because their house is now worth less than the mortgage. Now, the mortgage hits 9% or $1,609 plus fees to recover the “discount” they had for two years. Suddenly, payments equal 42% to 50% of pre-tax income. The Grinnings move into their Toyota."

Back to the SOTU.  Greg Palast has a great take on that educational opportunity Bush is asking for the poor inner city kids. Check it out. 

Then there was this story about the idiosyncrasies of our government, as well as others.  The intro:  "