So let me get this straight: the head of Augusta National, a golf club that won’t accept women as members, that for ever and ever, would not accept black members, is now lecturing Tiger Woods about his behavior.

So let me get this straight, thanks to old-Southern-white-guy Billy Payne, chairman at Augusta, we are able to reflect back to the days when white men denigrated black men for supposedly out-of-control sexuality.

I’m glad the Masters golf tournament is keeping tradition alive.
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I’m finding it fun to call business establishments that do something well and tell them I appreciate them doing something well. Invariably, whoever answers the phone doesn’t know what to do with a compliment — they are too used to only hearing from customers who have complaints.

Andy Pollin is a sports talk radio guy here in Washington, DC. On his show yesterday they were talking about McDonald’s All-Americans — high school basketball. Pollin said that a couple years ago he walked into the room where his son was watching the game on TV. Pollin noted that there was white guy on the court. His son simply said, “Duke.”

There’s a joke going around in certain circles as Duke heads to the final four in men’s college basketball: “The state’s attorney in North Carolina has opened an investigation into Duke basketball. Seems that coach Mike Krzyzewski actually put two black guys on the court at the same time.”

And this one: “The national weather service thought they had detected a sudden hurricane in North Carolina this past Sunday. Turns out it was just every resident of the state gasping when they saw that Coach K had put two black guys on the court at the same time.”

The story has it that, a few years ago at a basketball camp here in Washington, DC, a local high school player asked Coach K the media darling why he doesn’t recruit “urban kids.” What I was told by somebody who witnessed the encounter is that Krzyewski gave a mealy-mouthed non-answer.

Mike Greenberg, a national radio figure at ESPN, was kind of talking about this Monday, except he used code. He commented that Baylor, the team Duke played on Sunday, looked so much “more athletic.”

Andy Pollin appears to be the only honest guy on sports talk radio.

This past weekend, I hated clients. I refused to do any work. I refused to worry about what Monday was going to bring. I refused to go over in my head how we were going to meet all of the deadlines in front of us. I refused to spend any time with budgets or spreadsheets. As a result, Monday was awful, Tuesday was as bad as Monday, and Wednesday, well it’s just starting.

The lesson? Love your clients 24/7, no matter what it does to your weekend.

(Note to any clients who may read this post: The “hating clients” is simply a metaphor. I love you deeply.)

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Here’s a Blogen-bonus question to ponder: Can anybody tell me what the President, the Harvard professor, and the Cambridge policeman drinking a beer at a picnic table on the White House lawn is going to do for race relations in America? Will this be the official post-racial beer that so many delusional pundits have been thirsting for?

I once stood on the steps of Dr. King’s first church. It’s in Chester, PA. He was there while attending seminary. When I was there, just a few years ago, the street was crumbling. Looking off those steps, you saw nothing but overgrown parcels of industrial land. It was a lonely feeling.

That’s how I feel this Martin Luther King Day. My wife is out of the country. This day, especially, I’m reminded that it wasn’t all that long ago — during my lifetime — that it was illegal in many states for my wife and I to be married. (And not just in the South.) So I feel lonely today.

It’s not that I miss having my black wife to go with me to an inauguration eve party so I will look more “in.” (I mean, come on, I’m a white guy who doesn’t bite his lower lip when he dances — how could I get cooler?) But without her around the whole day feels like those steps on Dr. King’s first church. A bit barren.

Blogenberg had nothing to say yesterday and last night, the regular Blogenberg posting time. Blogenberg voted (no lines at 7 pm), sat in the front of the TV to watch the results, and could think of nothing to say. What happened — a landslide for a black man — is so distant from the country I grew up in, that I didn’t know what to say.

I grew up when the “n” word was common lingo. Race fights were the norm in my schools. One student was arrested with a gun in his locker. Getting older, dating my now wife, a West Indian woman, we would get stared at on occasion. Just 15 years ago, the KKK had a car in the city fair just 20 minutes up the road.

All I can say is that I was speechless at the revolution.

From a policy perspective, I’m not sure what I think of an Obama presidency. But watching and listening to two of my kids, both 14, one of whom identifies himself as black, the other who identifies herself as bi-racial, I can tell that the impact is significant. The fact that a black man is on the verge of becoming president is speaking to them. It’s expanding what the future looks like in a country I’ve always loved. It’s talking to them about their place in the United States — their place in what came before them, their place in what is before them.

Though they are young, they understand the movement of time, from a country that once bred and tolerated evil in its race relations, to today, when a black man will, barring an electoral earthquake, become president. (If you think I am too loosely using the word evil, read Diane McWhorter’s Carry Me Home – mandatory reading for all Americans.)

As a father, whatever an Obama presidency may or may not do to my taxes, may or may not do to healthcare, I can say this: it will change how at least two of my children view where and how they fit in this country.

My teen daughter is bi-racial. (That’s how she identifies herself. Her twin brother identifies himself as black.)

She’s a big supporter of Barack Obama. She asked if I thought Obama could win, to actually become president. I said yes, that’s a real possibility.

She was excited.

And then she paused.

“Is he going to get assassinated?” she asked.

Still today, teens of color view America in that light.

Katie Couric just proved it — there is no limit to how far a pretty face can go without much thought. (I can’t wait to rush home and give my daughter the news that she doesn’t have to study any more!)

Katie decided to share her ridiculous idea that sexism is a more ingrained problem in the American culture than racism. Sorry, Katie, but I’m trying to recall the last time somebody burned a bra in the middle of the night on the front yard of a woman-headed family.

As a public service, Blogenberg is launching The AEWP (Another Enlightened White Person) alert. One was spotted on Fox News Channel. Bob Beckel, ubiquitous Democratic strategist, was asked why it is, seemingly, that comedians, satirists, etc. are hesitant to make jokes about Barack Obama. “One, he’s black and I can say that as a liberal,” was Beckel’s response.

On the Blogenberg AEWP meter this rates a double wow, as in Wow, I didn’t realize that liberals are issued a “Free to talk about black people” card and Wow, since I tend to lean conservative on a lot of issues — and I don’t have one of those cards — I must now refer to my wife and children as, I don’t know, I guess by saying, “They are my family but I am white and they are not, and I can say that because I’m not a liberal.”

National Public Radio — which I listen to religiously — needs a rating system. Perhaps an audible buzz followed by an earnest voice stating, “Warning: the following has been rated HTTWP.”

Because this morning, driving home from church, I nearly puked in my car.

“Weekend essayist” Diane Roberts was droning on about why we are afraid of Michelle Obama. Apparently, Michelle Obama represents a terrifying archetype: an angry black woman.

(A Blogenberg digression: First of all, Michelle Obama doesn’t seem angry to me. She’s kind of hot, if you ask me. Second of all, I’ve seen an angry black woman up close. It’s my wife about twice a week — much scarier than anything Diane Roberts thinks we think we see in Michelle Obama.)

According to Roberts, to the rest of us white people Michelle Obama seems downright terrifying and threatening. Michelle Obama even does a “terrorist fist jab.” No kidding, that’s what Roberts said — a “terrorist fist jab.”

But what made me nearly throw up just thirty minutes after taking the Lord’s blood and body into mine, was the holier than thou drip, drip of Roberts’ “essay.” It’s the very nauseating enlightened white person making sure we all know he or she isn’t like those other white people. You know what, Ms. Roberts, I’m thrilled you’re a “good” white person, not an “uppity” white person.

Just warn us next time, so I don’t puke in my car.

And by the way, it’s a fist bump, not a “fist jab.” And even old white guys like me do it on occasion.