Barak Obama Announces He's Going to Announce

I don't get it, why does somebody have to announce that they are going to announce something. (Today Senator Obama announced that he was going to announce his run for the Presidency in a few weeks. Read the article.) It seems a bit silly, especially when today's advanced technology allows important messages to be spread so quickly. Wait a minute, soon people are going to announce that they are going to announce that they are going to announce. Should I keep going?

(By the way, I'll use this forum as an official announcement that I'm running for the MI State Board of Education, for which the election will be in November 2008. See, I didn't have to announce that I was going to announce.)

Here's a couple of possible lesson suggestions:
1. Ask students to draw a diagram of the process that a candidate goes through in announcing that he/she's going to run for the Presidency.
2. Do your students think that the Presidential campaign is too long? Why/why not? What might the public do to shorten the campaign?
3. Considering that yesterday, was Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, you might ask students to prepare a dialogue between King and Barak O'bama. (It is pretty incredible that just 40 years ago, African-American's were fighting for equality. Today an African American is a serious contendor for the Presidency.)
4. Yet, have African Americans attained equality in our society? What does it mean to be equal? What's the difference between equality and equity?

Just some thoughts.