Wherein you, the readers, talk amongst yourselves.

If you could be anywhere in the world but where you are right now, where would you be?

Name any brand name media personality, and he or she will be tagging along with Barack Obama's convoy to the Middle East. Supposedly, the clamoring for a seat on Obama’s plane by the nation’s top political reporters is a foil to the virtual ambivalence about John McCain’s own trip to the Middle East last spring, where his stop garnered barely a mention on the evening news broadcasts. So how come Obama’s visit is being treated like the second coming of the messiah? Because dude is a rock star, y’all!

CONTINUED »

Wherein you, the readers, talk amongst yourselves.

What country or region of the world have you always wanted to visit and why? Do you have plans to make it there anytime soon?

Wherein you, the readers, talk amongst yourselves.

Many of you will be boarding airplanes over the next couple of days to take advantage of the three-day weekend — I'll be headed to Natchitoches, Louisiana, the hometown of my grandparents, for a family reunion — and I'm curious. Do you ever feel like you get "special" attention from airport security based on your name or the color of your skin?

Wherein you, the readers, talk amongst themselves.

Any vacation plans this summer? Tell me, so that I might live vicariously through you.

As the air in New York quickly turns humid, oppressive, stinky, and unbearably hot, and as my electric bill skyrockets thanks to my energy-guzzling (but oh-so-necessary) air conditioner, I usually start dreaming of breezy beaches and azure water. It's not looking like I'll be bumming around the beach this summer, but according to the Travel Channel, here are some of the best beaches in June, July, and August. Above is Kuta Bali, Indonesia. Uh, call the state department before you go.

• The bigger the brain, the longer you live.

• How do you feel about a anonymous TSA worker in a little box looking at your body with X-ray vision when you're going through security at the airport?

• Heisman Trophy-winner Hershel Walker comes clean about his battle with Multiple Personality Disorder.

• Researchers say that socio-economic and environmental inequalities aren't the only things that account for the higher mortality rate of black prostate and breast cancer sufferers than their white counterparts. It's also biological.

• Why (and how) we should all go green.

After allegedly calling her arresting officers "fucking white honkeys" during a dust-up at Heathrow airport last week, Naomi Campbell is now playing the race card.

CONTINUED »

Search engines and travel agencies? Kanye West's marketing team members have one-track minds.

Mr. West just launched www.kanyetravel.com, which might as well be called Cheaptickets.com, Expedia.com, Orbitz.com, or Travelocity.com. According to the press release, "Kanye and his management team have partnered with travel experts to negotiate high volume discounts on air, lodging and car rental providers in order to provide their customers with the best value for their dollar. Prospective travelers will also be able to create custom travel packages through the site and will have access to artist related products such as concert tickets and related merchandise." Do they throw in some Louis Vuitton luggage with your tickets? Otherwise, I'm not seeing the big draw. [XXL]

• Tourists are spending lots of dough to travel across the world and snap pictures of destitute people of color up close. [NYT]

• Juelz Santana is in a bit of a legal mess. [NYDN]

• The NAACP has fast-tracked its federal suit against subprime mortgage lenders. [ET]

• Chinese Americans, African immigrants, and Vietnamese Americans are most likely than others to rate their health as poor. [AP]

"Someone, I think it was Jesse Jackson, in the days when he had that kind of clout, managed to convince America that I preferred being African-American. I don’t," writes black journalist KA Dilday in today's New York Times. Dilday, whose writing lets us know is American but whom we had to google to discover was female, says that, regardless of where she has gone in the world, she's been cottoned to by people of color. And not just those with recent ties to Africa. "Everywhere I travel," she says, "from North Africa to Europe to Asia, dark-skinned people approach me and, usually gently but sometimes aggressively, establish a bond."

CONTINUED »

The NYC Tourism Board put together this commercial to lure people to this fine city I call home — where everything is super-clean and the Blacks, Latinos, and Asians all live underground (or are invisible!). What a city.

Forget about the violent mayhem and mass pandemonium that's going on in Kenya right now as a result of a disputed election — don't you really feel bad for those rich Westerners who had to cancel their safaris? Luckily, some of them are braver than others.

"We were really hoping our safari would not be cancelled," says Canadian tourist Debbie Shillitto, stretching back on her sun lounger at the Samburu game reserve, some 250 kilometres (155 miles) north of the capital Nairobi.

She is one of the rare tourists who did not cancel her high-season holiday to Kenya…

"I don't feel I am in any danger at all," says Briton Steve Burgin, on the tail end of a two-week vacation with his wife in the Masaai Mara.

"We can't think of any view other than that," he adds, gazing across expansive savannah from the hotel lobby.

Back in Samburu, Shilito agrees.

"We get all the attention," she says. "It makes me feel special."

Thank goodness for that!

Not everyone was so willing to risk life and limb for a vacation. The Kenyan Tourism Federation estimates that hotels have already lost about $60 million this month from cancellations. If things don't pick up soon, wherever will the rich white ladies go to have sex?

• Bobby Brown's wanted for cocaine possession. Also, the sky is blue and grass is green. [EUR]

• Great moments in air-travel discrimination. [MSNBC]

• Want a free ticket to Africa? Try listening to this guy's music. [CL]

• Six DC social services employees are out of a job after numerous calls to the office concerning four children with a mentally-ill mother were ignored. When someone finally entered the house, the four girls were found dead and had been for at least 15 days. Ah, the system. [CNN]

• Michigan's disaster of a primary is tomorrow. [J&JP]

• Sherri Shepherd never disappoints. [Jossip]

• This is for the next time you're in Paris, if you should be so lucky… [USAT]

• "We don't need no stupid global UN Racism conference" — The U.S. [UNW]

• Did Will Smith get the Farrakhan treatment for daring to (innocuously) speak about Hitler? [HP]

• Lupe Fiasco's track about violence in video games is annoying the people at Wired. [Wired]

• Twenty-three percent of inner city black children are infected with roundworm. Very sad and very gross. [FOX]