It’s now official as President Barack Obama has been sworn in and gave his inauguration speech so America and the world is celebrating for real. I am feeling so many emotions right now…happiness, pride, relief, and angry. Yes, angry toward the now former administration which lasted to long as it appears they will get away with their crimes against America but enough on that since this is a positive post on our future.
As I watch the TV just can’t get over the record millions of people who went to Washington to see this historic inauguration and all with tears of joy. President Obama already has done a lot just in giving the American people hope again. Someone on CNN pointed out that Mr. Obama promised to uphold the Constitution and it originally decreed that black people counted only as 3/5 of a person. Any doubt we have come a long way?
It will be so nice to have a President who knows how to speak the English language correctly and will not promote ideology based on fear over solutions. I like to wish President Obama much success in the coming years for our sake.
Mr. Obama will not be able to celebrate much himself since he will need to start working immediately on the many problems facing our nation. He realizes that the majority of the American people are behind him but he will have no illusions will have the traditional 100 day honeymoon for new Presidents. It’s certainly not the end of the road but the beginning it…
I do want to know if my readers are celebrating Obama’s inauguration today so please vote in my poll located in the upper left hand corner. Those that are celebrating please comment on this post and tell me how you are going about that today. Anyone who is/was in DC live for the inauguration I would like to hear about your experiences. I myself will just be hanging at home today watching TV and being on the Internet all day so while maybe boring for some I will never forget this day.
I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving today and eats well since know I will be this year. The girlfriend and I will be going to her brother’s and we are going all out this year since with the economy going the way it is next year we may only be able to afford to feast on cold cereal.
Now, most people will get up early tomorrow and try to take advantage of good deals and shop all day. I think people who get in line at 11 PM the day before stores open are not buying for other people but mostly for themselves. I have never felt the need to battle with the crowds on the day after Thanksgiving so would never buy anything myself. Little did I know what I did informally was being done by social activists for years in protest of our over consumption and called it Buy Nothing Day.
It’s now an international event but was founded by Vancouver artist Ted Dave in 1992 and subsequently promoted by the CanadianAdbusters magazine. The event is held in North America every year the day after Thanksgiving or Black Friday. The point is not that buying nothing on one day will make a difference but that we think about how our consumption effects everything everyday.
Last year Adbusters created a commercial to make the public aware of the cause and to buy nothing. Oddly in our free society of ideas the big corporations would not take their money to air the ad on any of their TV channels. Apparently the concept of taking a day to buy nothing and think about our consumption habits is controversial. CNN did end up airing the ad at the last minute which you can view in this video…
The latest edition of the Artvoice, the local Buffalo alternative newspaper had a interesting article by Michael I. Niman which I like to share and think is worth reading. The scenario outlined in the piece may be considered somewhat conspiratorial but you be the judge…
The scariest costume worn to my door this past Halloween was a tiny Sarah Palin outfit. This was a week after the real Palin went on record in an NBC interview arguing that those who would bomb healthcare facilities that provided abortions weren’t necessarily “terrorists.” No tykes ever showed up at our doors pining for Hershey bars dressed as “pro-life” doctor killer James Kopp. That would be in bad taste, even on Halloween. But Palin? Sure. Why not? Most folks were just not aware that the woman soon to be considered for the position of stand-in for the oldest incoming president in history had just went on record legitimizing the bullet or the bomb as a legit alternative to the democratic process. Or maybe she was just too much of a moron to know what she was saying. Either way, the real specter of a McCain/Palin administration made this the scariest Halloween of my life. As a nation, we were about to possibly fall, or get pushed, into an abyss.
A few days later, on Election Day, I finished teaching class, like I always do on Tuesdays, by bidding my students farewell and telling them I’d see them on Thursday. But as the words rolled off my tongue, I hesitated. I didn’t really know if indeed I would see them on Thursday, or if the nation would be locked down under martial law by then. It was a crap shoot. Would Election Day bring a sigh of relief or a curfew?
The article really caught my eye because when I seen the news video of all the people who gathered for Obama in Chicago and celebrated in the streets around the country wondered what would have happened if the election was close and they said Obama lost? There would have been riots in the streets and I would have been part of them. I do think the Bush Administration would have liked that since would have given him the excuse to label protesters as terrorists.
I was a little worried just before the election with all the media talk of the race tighten and even one poll showing McCain up sightly. Sounded almost like a setup since I knew six months ago the election would not be close. Obama was breaking records over money raised, attracting new voters, and active volunteers over a Presidential opponent (not to mention the Bush albatross hanging over McCain) so never understood why people were saying it would be close. Good thing you can only fix close elections and nothing happened but what was supposed to on Election Day.
I am going to roll with another Sarah Palin post since she seems to be able to extend her 15 minutes of fame unlike say “Joe the Plumber” (or more accurately Samuel not a plumber). Sarah Palin stayed in the news last week by giving interviews to anyone who would talk to her. Odd, given that Ms. Palin seems to hate the supposed “liberal” media.
I have been known to refer to her as Sarah “dumb dumb” Palin but you can be the judge. Take the quiz below which consists of questions that were asked of Palin during the Presidential campaign. After I will grade you based on how many able to answer and give you Sarah Palin’s score to compare.
All these questions were posed by either interviewers, McCain aides, and one by third graders…
1.) What is the Bush Doctrine?
2.) What magazines or newspapers do you read?
3.) What does the Vice-President do?
4.) What are the three countries that make up NAFTA?
5.) T or F South Africa is a country or a continent?
No answer key since assume you know which questions don’t know the answer to and if not sure can just Google it.
4-5 correct – Congratulations, you paid attention in government class in high school and read a newspaper semi-regularly (which means you were able to answer question #2).
1-3 correct – OK, politics and world affairs are not your strong suit and probably voted for John McCain.
0 correct – You would be a loser if appeared on the FOX game show “Are you smarter then a 5th grader?”. All is not lost since you would have scored the same as Sarah Palin! This means you would still be qualified and have a chance in running for the GOP Presidential nominee in 2012 just like Sarah (or as she seems to think).
I would have scored a perfect five myself. Do you think it is getting old making fun of Sarah Palin or it will never go out of style until she disappears from the headlines?
Sarah “dumb dumb” Palin just can’t stay out of the news even with the Presidential race over. This candid photo was taken poolside while she was breaking from the Republican Governor’s Conference in Miami as seen on many celebrity gossip sites. No pics of Ms. Palin only in her swimsuit have surfaced as of yet. I guess we are lucky she wasn’t in Britney Spears mode.
There is even a rumour now that she was offered a spot on the TV show Desperate Housewives but ABC executives denied it.
Sarah Palin has been celebrity tabloid material for me a number of times (I just can’t help myself)…
After careful consideration of voting patterns, exit polls, current projections and states won – collected from a variety of sources, the publishing staff at Ideas and Revolution is declaring Barack Obama the next President of the United States. Congratulations President-Elect Obama!
The inauguration cannot happen fast enough…
Editor’s Note – Matthew wanted to call it before the mainstream media and who am I to say no? Looks like Obama will be a big winner and I now can relax. This historic election is only a start and not the end…
Do you think it is getting old making fun of Sarah Palin or it will never go out of style until she disappears from the headlines?
