The Peaceful Transfer of Power

I love the pomp and ceremony of an inauguration.  Still, happy to be watching from my warm living room.

Obama's main theme - togetherness.  We accomplish great things, together.  Not exactly riveting.

Themes for his second term:
* Clean energy - well, this doesn't exactly jive with reality, with our becoming energy independent, based on natural gas and petroleum reserves
* Immigration reform
* Middle class - same old campaign stuff

When all is said and done, I suppose it is the speech for today.  The call for togetherness is essential.  Maybe it will become a rallying cry, though it doesn't speak to me today.

The most moving thing about the inauguration ceremony was the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir singing "Battle Hymn of the Republic", reminding us that we are forged from war, that we are a republic, and that our glory is both individual and collective, based on being God's creations.

Nearly the Eve of Inauguration

Cspan has been playing the 2nd inauguration addresses of past presidents, and they are interestingly alike.

All call for the US to be universally part of the world, fighting for democracy.  All call for us as a people to be One people, a unifying message.  I'm sure Obama's speechwriters want the legacy, so that when this speech is replayed by cspan-of-the-future it will again bring a tear to our eyes in its universal appeal to the human condition, need to be part of a country we can be proud of, need to be part of the world order and creating order out of entropy in the world.

Reagan spoke about all of us.  Even Clinton spoke about individual responsibility.

At one time I thought Obama was inspiring, maybe Monday he will suddenly realize a legacy is not founded on championing class warfare, but on unity.  Not founded on berating your enemies, but in doing the biblical thing and meeting them.  We shall see.

It has got be beyond optics.

11.. 10.. 9.. 8..

My new house is filled with appliances that beep.  Sometimes it is impossible to know which one it is (usually something in the kitchen).  There is a nifty timer feature on the microwave that I use often, to time cooking things.  Since, after all, everything can be scheduled.  And its better than the oven timer which doesn't use "real time", but only time after it gets up to temperature.  Who has time for that?

But the microwave timer thing has no way of shutting it off.  I have tried pause (only a temporary thing, the countdown clock is still there), clear/off (nothing happens).  The only recourse is to watch it time down.  Kind of like those nuclear launch codes, once two people have triggered them it is unstoppable nuclear war.

I used to worry (seriously) about nuclear war back in the 80s.  But we survived.  Maybe even Reagan, enemy of the left, had a part in this.  But Russia doesn't really want to move on, though all those satellite countries are now EU or EU wanna bes.

Today the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, I suppose this is the most prestigious ballet on the planet, out of Russia, was brutally attacked.  He was a visionary who was not so content with doing Russian ballet the same way as it has always been done, but willing to be modern.  This was not the way to win friends and influence people.

So in the 80s we counted down the minutes to nuclear armageddon, with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.  Today my microwave counts down unconsolably to zero.  The nuclear clock isn't even in the news anymore.  So apparently some countdowns are stoppable.

What is the green wire we can cut to stop our country from sinking into depair and recession?  I do not think it will be found by our Pres and his only style, which is community activism.  I do not thinkg it will be found by the opposing party on its own, since the Dems will never let it come to that, never willingly acquiesce to cuts in bloated social programs that keep many feeding at the trough.

Maybe this is one countdown that has to run to completion.  No easy way out, just a pause.  11.. 10.. 9.. 8..

I will not report, speculate, or ponder..

If I captured one quote a day from Mr Jay Carney, the President's press secretary, it would provide a compilation of Big Government statements devoid of content.

Pressed today by the press (hey!), he did not reply to their questions about the President's gun policies.  29 executive orders tomorrow on gun control.

Now wait, can he do that?  Well, I suppose our legislative process is broken.  And power loves a vacuum..