The big picture

With so much drama being generated in the Primary Wars, I've found myself getting burned out on blogging. I told the other front-pagers on Friday that I was slipping into an obsessive-compulsive spiral and needed a break for a week or so. That was before I got another email yesterday from my friend Alex, in Kenya.

Good morning James and family,

It has been hectic for the last few days, most of the things went to a halt, it was tension all over the country as ethnicity played major amongst the people who have been living together for many years, it is a great shame as tribe turns to one another and killings become the order of the day.

There are some leaflets going round warning other members of community to leave certain areas by a given time, enmity is as a result of the ended election which many believe were stolen. I tried to drive out with my family to our ancestral home but were blocked by marauding youth, today things look normal but none is sure of what comes up next.

The leaflets are scary as we see how others get treated in default, so at the moment we pray hard that these situation improves and people would be able to go on with there life,I am waiting to see if it gets better I will relocate my family to the western part of the country where my forefathers came from next week latest before the expiry of the give deadline.

There is much which is being done by the international mediators but still we see things getting out of hand, especially the lose of life and displacements, I am not even sure what next if the talks fail.

Regards to all and God bless,

Alex called this morning and the situation is worse today. He cannot travel and he has no money. He is a tour guide and no one is visiting Kenya now.

When I think about the violence and injustice that hundreds of millions of people are facing all over in the world, I am embarrassed by my petty concerns about blog wars here in my virtual life, embarrassed that I can find thousands of dollars to give to rich politicians even as I turn a deaf ear to the never-ending stories of strife in places like Kenya and Darfur, and yes, even Iraq.

I rationalize things by believing that the right leadership here in North Carolina and in Washington can make a difference. In the face of that belief, I have to write, whether I want to or not.

We have enviable choices for that right leadership here in North Carolina. Richard Moore would be a good governor. So would Bev Perdue. I look forward to them visiting us. We cannot go wrong with any of the lieutenant governor candidates either.

The next President should be Barack Obama. Our world is in desperate need of racial and ethnic healing, as is our country. He is the right person to deal with that. Beyond Obama, I am now proudly and officially undecided in every primary race in which I will vote.

But I have added a new criteria to my candidate wish-list. Does the candidate see the bigger picture? Does he or she have the intellect and the commitment to think through the impact of everything we do everywhere in the world? Can the candidate connect the dots between downtown Chapel Hill and downtown Nairobi?