This is chess, not checkers

Who pulls the puppet's strings?

Today is Halloween. Four days until an Election Day of astronomical significance. Three days after a Massachusetts State Senator was arrested and publicly shamed for a bribery scandal. Which was the same day a former Detroit mayor was sentenced to 120 days in jail.

They say a mind is a terrible thing to waste.

But a mind divided against itself is in fact a crime against humanity.

To be in Boston this week, it's hard not to have politics on the brain. Barack Obama is on the verge of winning the hearts of the world if he wins next Tuesday. Anyways, what I do know is that we have to resume our focus and re-commit even more. The integrity and moral fabric of black leaders is being challenged across the country as we have seen plenty of failures of the public trust. Dianne Wilkerson has let her folks down and has unanimously been asked to resign by her peers; yet she refuses despite originally indicating she'd accept their decision. Kwame Kilpatrick has gone from being a shooting star to a plummeting pile of poop. There are plenty of folks who were already working towards a goal of really shaking things up next year. It is time for us to really put that into high gear. We are the change we've been waiting for, right?

The say absolute power corrupts absolutely.

How do you deal with the mixture of emotions and all of the clashing ideologies that rise to the surface when you juxtapose the good and the bad? Is it the power that goes to our head?

The world will continue to orbit the sun next Wednesday, yet all of our heads will be spinning. If Obama wins, the rush of emotion is sure to be monumental, all-consuming, and worrisome. There have always been folks skeptical that there will be assassination attempts. Or that he won't be able to bring about all of this change in which he so often asks you to believe. Or maybe he is really pro-Black and Jeremiah Wright will be tapped as the next Secretary of State and George Clinton will perform "Paint The White House Black" at the inauguration.

Who knows? Is he a Manchurian candidate or not? Time will only tell. And the clock is ticking. My Boston folks know this all too well. A lack of civic engagement will corrode the continuity of progress in our communities if all these young urban professionals don't start really rolling up the sleeves and move beyond meetings to take action. Strategic planning is a helluva drug indeed.