*doot doo-doo doot doot doot dooooot!"   
Jan. 20th, 2009 | 04:15 pm 
 


Condition [mood icon] hopeful
Analgesic Hillary Clinton's joyful screaming. =|
Hey, y'all. Welcome to the new world. Happy New President Day. :3

Future's bright, motherfuckers.
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Thoughts on the Inauguration   
Jan. 20th, 2009 | 08:32 pm 
 


Condition [mood icon] content
Analgesic QI. Alan is losing, predictably.
So, today I really feel like I witnessed something...quite remarkable. Something perhaps comparable to the Moon Landing - a defining moment of our generation, something that in the future, people will ask "Where were you, at that time?" Perhaps I'm being hyperbolic. We'll see, I suppose.

So, initial thoughts on the ceremony:

1. How much goddamn prayer do you NEED at a government ceremony? Seriously. I started feeling like I was at church about a quarter of the way in. I know Obama has his beliefs, and he has a right to them, but doesn't America have something called the separation of Church and State? Yes? Thought so. I'm not sure it's appropriate, frankly, for a President in the modern age to put such an emphasis on Christianity in a power-exchange ceremony that has nothing to do with anything but civil government.

2. On that note. Rick. Fucking. Warren. I know he's trying to include everyone, and the spirit of bipartisanship is a lovely thing, but...Rick Warren is a monster. He's an evil man with evil, evil views that would see me and mine consigned to eternal torment. Barack Obama should be ashamed to be associated with him in any way, and should be unreserved in his condemnation of the man.

3. Joseph Lowery, on the other hand, is amazing. What a man! He was a joy to listen to, and that's a very rare thing for me to say about a godbotherer. The full text of his speech doesn't seem to be on the internet yet - which is a shame =| - but the ending was...quite frankly, legendary. Take a gander:

"We have in this campaign and this election an opportunity in this election to move America from the dark valley of doubt to the mountaintop of hope. To those days when black will not be asked to get back; when brown can stick around; when yellow can be mellow; when the red man can get ahead; and when white will see the light.”

That's sentiment with style.

4. Obama's speech - see that segue? - was...well, quite. We all knew it'd be good, because it's Barack fucking Obama. He's a great orator - although, frankly, anyone who could string three words together without a flaming malapropism would sound good after what we've been hearing for the past eight years. You can find the full text of the speech over here, on WikiSource (a great resource, I must add, and more people should use its services). My favourite phrase, I think:

"To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy."

That last phrase should probably have been tattooed on the inside of the Bush administration's eyelids.
Other highlights - "and non-believers". HE KNOWS WE EXIST, PEOPLE! That's so encouraging.

5. Thanks to MSNBC by way of Wikipedia, I now know why Obama fumbled the Oath, and it's not his fault - this article explains that in fact Chief Justice John Roberts, who administered the Oath, decided not to use notes and flubbed his lines, misplacing the world "faithfully". Obama - who, as is the norm, with incoming Presidents, learnt it by rote beforehand - was in fact prompting Roberts to re-state his lines the right order. Well then.
Though, to be honest, the idea that he did flub his lines...is somehow endearing. It gives him a humanity, an immediacy, that can be missing when he's playing the Great Orator. Nevertheless, it's possibly the least important thing he'll ever do, in a sense - I'd much rather he flubs the Oath and fixes the world than the other way round, haha.

6. The BBC commentators talked through most of the rather wonderful quartet with Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Gabriela Montero, and Anthony McGill. Bastards. :c

7. (Last point, I promise) The BBC got Christopher Hitchens in to talk about the Inauguration. I have absolutely no idea why they felt the need to do this, but I'm rather glad. He's my least favourite of the Four Horsemen, but he's still a good bloke, Iraq War views aside.
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