I wanted to watch the inauguration. Whether you like it or not, it’s a fairly historic moment for us as a country. It’s the first time someone other than a white, Anglo Saxon male took the oath and office of the President of the United States of America. Black people in particular should be proud. We’ve come a long way from when we treated black people as property and sub-human. Not that we don’t have a long way to go, but it’s a step in the right direction.
I had told several people the day before that I wanted to watch the inauguration. For some odd reason people kept trying to schedule stuff for me to do during the inauguration. I was getting upset and started telling them “no.”
Schools apparently were having a big problem with it. Why it couldn’t be considered a great opportunity to experience history and be utilized as a learning experience is beyond me. I don’t know why schools had such a problem with it. If I had a kid, they would have stayed home that day.
But I did have to work and unlike a lot of people I only have one TV and it’s not in my office. So I took a little time off to go watch it. I only got to see part of it. From about the time that Bush and Obama left the limos at the Capitol Building until just after Obama’s speech is what I saw.
It looked like it was pretty chilly and the reporters said it was 27f. Nice. I was entirely surprised at the number of people that turned out, but it was still a little shocking to see. I don’t know what the final counts were but the people were packed in like sardines for about a mile back. Who the hell could see anything from that far back? I guess that the point was that they were there. Umm….OK, I had a much nicer view on my big screen and I wasn’t freezing my balls off or unable to get to a beverage or the bathroom for two hours.
I was surprised so many important figureheads and members of the government were all in one place. Yes, it was historic but one good bomb and it would have wiped out a huge chunk of our government leaders in one fell swoop. Aside from the obvious human tragedy maybe this would have been a good thing? Everyone keeps talking about change and hope, that certainly would have been a lot of change and you’d be hoping that someone figures out what to do.
In any event it was nicely coordinated and everyone seemed to be very civil to one another. I thought Aretha Franklin was a nice touch even though she completely butchered My Country Tis of Thee. Why do really incredible vocalists feel the need to over dramatize everything?
I also thought the first priest / preacher was extremely dramatic. I think he practiced his deliverance while watching William Shatner.
Obama and the Justice fudged the oath a tad. I would have been nervous, too. Not an easy thing to make history and bear the responsibility.
And then Obama gave his speech. I’ve only seen him speak a few times and one of those was a non-political speech. He is a very eloquent and articulate speaker. He gives great speeches. But his speech bothered me. It bothered me because in his speech he reinforced several beliefs and doctrines that he is going to embrace that I feel are wrong.
I’m not convinced. I don’t believe he is “The One.” It certainly seems that the attitude of some peoples are that he is going to fly in and save the country and hand them whatever they need on a silver platter. I have hope, but my hope is that he simply does a good job and doesn’t undermine some of the basic and founding principles that our country was founded on. That he isn’t a chicken shit and will fight our enemies. That his plan to spend a trillion dollars works far better than I think it will. That he will figure out that crippling people with high gas and energy costs is not the way to solve our growing need for energy.
Only time will tell. We’ll have to be patient and see what happens.
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