Alaska’s largest newspaper backs Obama. Alaska’s largest newspaper, The Anchorage Daily News, has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president, saying the Democrat “brings far more promise to the office. In a time of grave economic crisis, he displays thoughtful analysis, enlists wise counsel and operates with a cool, steady hand.” In a rebuke of the Republic ticket, The Daily News said since the economy has turned sour, Republican presidential candidate John McCain has “stumbled and fumbled badly” in dealing with it. “Of the two candidates, Sen. Obama better understands the mortgage meltdown’s root causes and has the judgment and intelligence to shape a solution, as well as the leadership to rally the country behind it,” the paper said. As for Palin, who governs the state where the paper is based, The Daily News said she has shown the country why she is a successful state leader. However, the paper said few would say Palin is truly ready to step into the job of being president, despite her passion, charisma and strong work ethic. “Gov. Palin’s nomination clearly alters the landscape for Alaskans as we survey this race for the presidency - but it does not overwhelm all other judgment. The election, after all, is not about Sarah Palin, and our sober view is that her running mate, Sen. John McCain, is the wrong choice for president at this critical time for our nation,” the paper said. “Like picking Sen. McCain for president, putting her one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world is just too risky at this time,” the paper concluded.

Ailing Kennedy “secretly” working on health care plan.

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) has “secretly been orchestrating” and overseeing meetings with members of both parties to draft health care legislation to present to the new president and Congress next year that would extend health insurance to all U.S. residents, The Washington Times reports. The “wide-ranging talks,” which Kennedy has monitored through telephone updates from his staff, have included 14 roundtable meetings attended by Kennedy aides and staffers for both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate Budget Committee, Senate Finance Committee and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, chaired by Kennedy. The talks also were attended by representatives from a “panoply of interests groups with stakes in the cost and availability of health coverage,” including the AFL-CIO, Business Roundtable, National Federation of Independent Business, the National Retail Federation, Federation of American Hospitals, the American Medical Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans, Families USA, AARP and Consumers Union, according to the Times. Kennedy aides have also started meeting regularly with consumers and small groups of people representing each area of the health care industry. The conversations, which started in June, are “extraordinary” because they are bipartisan and have “managed to put in the same room interests that rarely meet - let alone agree with one another,” Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said. “There is a serious process moving forward and that augurs well. There really is a sea change that should not be underestimated in terms of attitude.” A spokesman for Sen. Michael Enzi (R-Wyo.), ranking member of the Senate HELP Committee and a participant in the meetings, said the discussions “are a testament to how people feel about [Kennedy].” Kennedy is “really seizing the moment,” Adrienne Hahn of Consumers Union said. “He’s a real bridge-builder. He can bring strange bedfellows together.” The Times reports that participants believe Kennedy’s active role in the talks has “increased the likelihood of a breakthrough.”

Kids and coffee voters give Obama the edge. While early voting is taking place in important swing states like Ohio, Florida and Virginia, the votes are in and the results are final from the children’s television network Nickelodeon.  And the winner is…. Sen. Barack Obama.

Congressman says McCain sowed seeds of hate. Like segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace did in the 1960s, presidential candidate Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, are “sowing the seeds of hatred” in the way he is going about trying to discredit his rival, Sen. Barack Obama. The civil rights veteran leader and Democratic Georgia congressman said on Saturday that McCain’s increasingly negative campaign tactics were reminiscent of the segregationist era of Wallace, a divisive political figure in his day, who, Lewis said, “created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. … What I am seeing today reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.” Even as McCain, who is trailing Obama in the polls, was running ads calling his opponent a liar and questioning whether Obama can be trusted, McCain was quick to labeling Lewis’ remark as “shocking and beyond the pale.” He called for Obama to repudiate Lewis’ remarks. The Obama campaign also said that while Lewis was right to condemn “hateful rhetoric,” the Illinois senator did not believe McCain or his policy criticisms were comparable to Wallace or his segregationist policies as governor of Alabama in the 1960s. Meanwhile, both McCain and Palin, during campaign stops on Monday, seemed to change the tone and dial back their attacks against Obama, pointing up differences between the presidential rivals instead of launching more character attacks. 
U. of Wisconsin apologizes for “Blazing Saddles” clip. The University of Wisconsin-Madison has apologized to a Black student who during a class last year was shown a clip of the movie “Blazing Saddles” that features racial epithets, The Associated Press said. During a seminar for working professionals, an instructor showed a scene of the 1974 comedy in which Blacks are shown working on a railroad, according to a complaint filed by the student. Whites call the workers racial epithets and an overseer orders them to sing like slaves. The student complained and the school’s Office of Equity and Diversity, which investigates racial discrimination, got involved. Other students reportedly were offended by the clip and discussed their concerns verbally. The university would not release the name of the instructor or precisely why the clip was shown, other than to “help make points in the curriculum.” The workshop dealt with mental health assessment and diagnosis.  The student’s complaint said two of the 40 students in the class were African-American. “I did not attend the training to hear this type of derogatory, inflammatory, humiliating, painful and non-educating language,” the student wrote in the complaint. “This was a pointless and racist act on the part of your instructor.” The complaint prompted an apology in March from the Department of Professional Development and Applied Studies, which offered the course. “It was an insensitive error to use a video clip that included inflammatory and offensive language, and it will not happen again,” department official James Campbell wrote. “We strive to plan and offer quality programming that meets the needs of an array of professionals and are sorry we fell short of that goal in this instance.” Campbell said the student’s employer received a refund of the $230 cost of the training workshop, which the department decided not to offer again after “closely reviewing the evaluation comments.”
Former Atlanta cop is featured in Oprah’s “O” magazine. A former Atlanta police major who was fired last summer and got her job back last week is featured in the November issue of Oprah Winfrey’s “O” magazine. Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis, 48, of Douglasville was one of 80 women selected for a leadership training contest, “Women Rule!” The contest was for women involved in a project, such as a nonprofit organization or public policy initiative, who “wanted to take it to the next level,” according to the story. It drew 3,000 applicants. Davis’ project is listed as “Sisters-in-Law,” described as “a support network for women in law enforcement that also encourages girls to consider the profession by offering real-life role models,” the article states. The contest winners’ reward was three days of leadership training in New York in June.” Before the trip, Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington demoted Davis and then fired her a week later in connection with a botched sex crimes investigation involving the husband of an Atlanta police sergeant. “I wasn’t going to go,” Davis said in a phone interview Monday with The Atlanta Journal Consitution. “I said, ‘They’re talking about disciplining me.’ I was more sick about it than anything.”  Family and friends convinced her to take the New York trip, and she’s glad she did. The feedback and camaraderie at the conference was exactly what she needed, she said. “The people at O magazine were so receptive to women’s issues.” Davis appealed her firing to the city’s Civil Service Board, which last week reversed her firing. It’s unclear whether Davis will return to the department at the rank of major, which was her position before she was demoted shortly before her firing.

Court refuses to call a mistrial in Palin case. In Alaska, the state Supreme Court refused Thursday to halt an ethics investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee. The ruling clears the way for Alaska lawmakers to release a report today on their investigation into whether Palin abused her power to settle a family dispute in firing her public safety commissioner, The Associated Press reports. The report could prove to be an embarrassment for Palin and a distraction for John McCain’s presidential campaign. Palin’s former public safety commissioner says he was dismissed after resisting pressure to fire a state trooper who had gone through a nasty divorce from the governor’s sister. Republican lawmakers had sued to block the report, saying it had become politicized. Palin did not join the lawsuit. Her husband, Todd, and some of her top aides are cooperating in the inquiry. In affidavits submitted Wednesday, Todd Palin and two top aides for his wife’s administration portrayed the firing as the result of continued wrangling between the governor and her public safety commissioner over control of the agency. The affidavits also portray Gov. Palin as uninvolved, while her husband repeatedly tried to spread the word that their former brother-in-law was unfit to remain a state trooper. In its ruling, the Supreme Court refused to block the legislative investigation but did not immediately explain why.

Women and children are killed during a U.S. raid. Eleven people - mostly women and children - were killed Sunday during a U.S. raid on a house in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul, The Associated Press reports. The deaths, which U.S. military officials blamed on al-Qaeda forces who used innocents as human shields, included five “terrorists,” three women and three children, AP reported. “This is just another tragic example of how al-Qaeda in Iraq hides behind innocent Iraqis,” U.S. military spokesman Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll said. U.S. troops were blasted as they went into a house searching for a suspected insurgent, U.S. officials said in a statement. Once inside the home, the officials said, a man exploded his suicide vest, killing the 11 people, including a 7-year-old boy. No American lives were lost in the incident. But locals blamed the tragedy on U.S. troops disregard for Iraqi lives. “Most of the Mosul residents live in fear because of such raids conducted by U.S. forces, and even sometimes the Iraqi forces,” Thaier Ahmed, a 32-year-old teacher, told AP. “It is a horrible incident that has led to the killing of innocent people, including children.” Another Iraqi, 35-year-old Abu Tiba, told AP that “the blood of Iraqis is worth nothing to the U.S. Army.” The deaths could not have come at a worse time for the Bush administration, which has been pointing out that violence in Iraq is 80 percent lower than it was a year ago.

Palin is smearing his name, Obama argues. Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah is merely trying to distract voters from the real issues confronting Americans by stating that he “pals around with terrorists,” Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said Sunday. He called her comments “smears” and said that the economy and its effect on struggling workers are the issues that are paramount during this election season. But Palin wasn’t backing down. Throughout the weekend she repeated her charges, saying that Obama is buddies with Bill Ayers, a former member of the radical Weather Underground who acknowledged a role in several bombings, including one that killed a San Francisco policeman more than three decades ago. He and Obama have served on the same charity and live near each other in Chicago. Obama was 8 years old when Ayers was rabblerousing. “The comments are about an association that has been known but hasn’t been talked about,” Palin said in Long Beach, Calif. “I think it’s fair to talk about where Barack Obama kicked off his political career, in the guy’s living room.” Hours later, while speaking to an exuberant crowd in Omaha, Neb., Palin took it a step further. “In fact, Obama held one of his first meetings hoping to kick off his political career in Bill Ayers’ living room,” she said. Obama adviser David Axelrod described Palin’s claims about the Obama-Ayers association as exaggerated. And Obama, speaking at a rally in North Carolina said that McCain and his campaign “are gambling that he can distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance.”

Noted Black chemist and educator dies. Dr. Joseph Gayles Jr., a noted chemist and mathematician who helped create the Morehouse School of Medicine, died of heart failure last week at his home in Atlanta. He was 71. “Dr. Gayles played a key role,” Dr. Louis Sullivan, the former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Sullivan, a founding dean and president of Morehouse School of Medicine, said that Gayles was a “great team player and very intense and committed” to the plan to start the new medical school for minorities, according to the newspaper. Raised in Birmingham, Ala., Gayles earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry and mathematics from Dillard University in New Orleans. He then earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from Brown University, the Journal-Constitution reports. Before going to Morehouse to teach, he worked at the IBM research lab for three years. Between 1977 and 1983, he served as president of Talladega College in Alabama. He returned to Morehouse School of Medicine, where he was the vice president of institutional development until 1996. He is survived by a daughter, Monica Dorsey of Fairburn; a son, Jonathan Gayles of Atlanta; and two grandchildren. Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Cascade United Methodist Church in Atlanta. Murray Brothers Funeral Home is handling arrangements.

Who do you like in the Biden-Palin battle tonight?

What can we expect tonight when the Republican and Democratic vice presidential candidates face off in the only debate before Election Day?  Will Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R ) reveal her “barracuda” tendencies?  Will Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) be able to remain gaffe free for the night? 

An elderly man and a woman head the GOP ticket

Republicans made history Wednesday night when they nominated the oldest first-time nominee in history, 72 year-old Sen. John McCain, and the first woman, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, ever to be the No. 2 on a GOP ticket.  Last night, Palin took the time to beat up on Obama - and to introduce the nation to a new, seemingly formidable candidate for the U.S. presidency. Did you watch the convention? What did you think? Read more about the convention at Pamela On Politics.

Why do Blacks have kidney-rejection issues? A Johns Hopkins research team reports it may have an explanation for at least some of the higher organ-rejection rates seen among Black kidney transplant recipients. In a small study of 50 healthy adult men, half of whom were Black and half of whom were White, researchers found significantly different amounts of certain immune system cells that are associated with kidney rejection, reports Medical News Today. The cells, known as human leukocyte antigen-specific, or HLA-specific B cells, when “sensitized” produce antibodies that have long been thought to be a factor in transplanted kidney rejection, says Andrea Zachary, professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins and lead researcher of the study. Patients become sensitized when exposed to HLA in blood or tissue that is not their own, Zachary says. Sensitized HLA-specific B cells then produce antibodies that attack transplanted organs containing foreign HLA. “Now that we have an accurate way to count these cells, we are able to confirm what we long suspected, that Blacks might have a bigger army of HLA-specific B cells,” says Zachary, who presented her findings at the Congress of the International Transplant Society in Sydney, Australia on Aug. 12. “Knowing that Blacks have an increased number of HLA-specific B cells - which increases their opportunity for antibody-mediated rejection - we may be able to customize treatments for Black recipients to account for these differences and lessen the likelihood that the organ will be rejected,” says Zachary.
Leave that ear wax alone. O.K., those who have a high-gross meter can skip this one, but you might want to pay attention for your ears’ sake. While many people feel they need to remove ear wax - technically a mixture of secretion, hair and dead skin called cerumen - don’t. It is actually protective since it has lubricating and antibacterial properties, said Dr. Peter Roland, an ear specialist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. He chaired a panel that released new guidelines Friday from the American Academy of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery Foundation. The guidelines are the first comprehensive clinical recommendations meant to help health-care professionals identify patients with impacted wax and treat them properly. “The conclusion is that the mere presence of ear wax does not require anything,” Roland said. If the ears are functioning, and there is no problem, most people should do nothing. And that includes resisting the urge to use a cotton-tipped swab to clean out the ear, he said. Using a swab can actually drive excess wax in further, he said, and then medical attention is often needed to remove it.

Vital Signs: The Republican VP pick’s teen daughter’s pregnancy is her business, but what does it say about “abstinence-only” sex education that conservatives like Sarah Palin are so fond of? Read more at Vital Signs.

His fellow Democrats and the news media wasted no time pouncing

With many die-hard Democrats poised to pounce on Sen. John McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, because her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, Sen. Barack Obama reminded that he was born to an 18-year-old mother.  ”Let me be as clear as possible,” Obama said. “I think people’s families are off-limits, and people’s children are especially off-limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin’s performance as governor or her potential performance as a vice president. How a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn’t be the topic of our politics, and I hope that anybody who is supporting me understands that’s off-limits.” The news broke Monday that Bristol Palin, a high school senior, is about five-months pregnant, and immediately the anti-McCain forces were making sure the public knew about inherent hypocrisy given Palin’s stance against contraceptives, school-based sex-education programs and abortion. CNN reported Monday that an aide to the 44-year-old Alaska governor said that she decided to reveal the pregnancy to quell Internet rumors that her 4-month-old baby, who has Down syndrome, was actually Bristol’s child. Some had reported that the Obama camp was responsible for the leaked information, but Obama denounced the charge. “We don’t go after people’s families; we don’t get them involved in the politics. It’s not appropriate, and it’s not relevant,” Obama told a Reuters News reporter, who had suggested Obama’s campaign was tied to the report. “Our people were not involved in any way in this, and they will not be. And if I ever thought that there was somebody in my campaign that was involved in something like that, they’d be fired.”

A Baby on Board the Republican Ticket?

So what’s up with John McCain’s running mate?  Is there anything else she would like to share with the American people before she accepts the nomination at the Republican National Convention? Get more at Pamela On Politics.