Ashok Argent-Katwala

A penguin president

There's been some chatter recently about how Barack Obama isn't really black. The claim is that he's basically a privileged white guy.

I've a proper problem with that, and my basic difficulty is with a classification that is so damn crude.

Why try and jam Obama into one of the pigeon-holes of being exclusively white or black, but never both? I'm sure a large part rests with the media, in wanting a story that is simple to tell; I fear that a greater part is playing on America's more fragmented, near segregated culture when it comes to colour. Growing up as a kid with a mixed background made me feel no less British. I have a great love of Irish and Indian culture, but they aren't quite home to me. I'm not sure America, or perhaps just public identity there, allows such a tick-all-that-apply approach to cultural identity. I'm pretty sure living in London makes that much easier, which is why it is home now.

I hope people start the more nuanced conversation about Obama. He is black and white. He could be their first penguin president.

Words I use

I'm sure I'm fairly late to the party tinkering with Wordle, but I found running the text I've written here quite insightful:

Generated with Wordle (and a little bit of sed, naturally).

Nick rightly points out that the word BEER should appear in large letters somewhere. Unfortunately, I generated this just from these posts, not the entire site and crucially not these places.

Using secure Web sites more frequently

I've got a little more diligent recently about using encryption where I can. In particular, several sites allow you to use an encrypted connection, but don't force it:

• Google Reader
• Twitter – including for their fine API, so I no longer send my credentials in plain text every few minutes
• Newzleech – a handy index of downloadable content on Usenet
• The Pirate Bay – although these days I go there more often for the amusing legal threats than for anything else

More on Using secure Web sites more frequently…