Raining on Obama's parade

The photoshopped picture here was taken by Roberto Schmidt of Agence France-Presse through Getty Images and with a story by Jeffery Gettleman of the New York Times. It's an amazing photo of a boy running down the street carrying a bucket with burning shacks behind him.

I have been to this part of Kenya. I was there two years ago, almost to the day. In the rift valley, at Lake Naivasha, looking at pink flamingoes and hippos. It is a beautiful part of the world. Naivasha is where the peace agreement between North and South Sudan was signed after two decades of civil war. Its Hell's Gate National Park was the inspiration for the drawing's of the Lion King.

Up the road yesterday, at a larger lake famous for flamingos, it was just hell.

"Hundreds of men prowled a section of the city with six-foot iron bars, poisoned swords, clubs, knives and crude circumcision tools. Boys carried gladiator-style shields and women strutted around with sharpened sticks," Gettleman wrote.

It's an ironic day for such a tragedy. Barack Obama won the South Carolina primary. I posted the video of his speech below. The New York Observer posted the entire speech, as prepared.

"This is a battle in our own hearts and minds about what kind of country we want and how hard we’re willing to work for it," Obama said.

I believe Obama thinks he can fight the politicians in Washington. But before he knows it, he will not just have slander from the lips of Hillary Clinton, but the dirty tricks of every interest group, lobbyist, politician and anyone else who are protecting someone's interests. Obama will wake up, and have to face that not only is America crumbling, but the world is in shambles.

At this lake where thugs stroll with poisoned swords, men from the same tribe as Obama's father, the Luo, are fleeing West, and have been accused of helping slaughter a rival tribe that is of the ruling president. Kenya is a country at the brink of collapse. Most people who were in America on this same night, most of the people who attended Obama's speech, have no idea that across the world, nightmares are reality.

So I wonder if Mr. Obama is truly happy in his heart for this victory. I wonder if as he turns on the television to watch the news of his victory speech, that he also watches what is happening to his people who never got the chance to go to America, to feel that anything is possible. We believe as Americans, that by the nature of being born in a place, that we are all destined for great things. Maybe Obama is what we all hope for inside, that anyone can run for president. But few of us know what it is like with no hope.

I hope that in some way Obama is linked to this day, that when he is asked many years from now if he dreams of January 27 as the day that he won South Carolina, or the day that his father's country was in shambles.