Every Picture Tells a Story

Here's some interesting stories in pictures, starting with a phenomenal satellite view of the Inauguration here. You can see the crowds gathering by the Capitol and more of the ant-like collections around the various Jumbotron stations. Extraordinary.

And here's a collection of clickable newspaper covers from around the world.

Wow!

And as for governing, check out the man on the job in shirtsleeves. Getting it done.

Preparing to close down Gitmo.

At Last

This was certainly the day to get choked up. I was flying to Washington, D.C., watching the Inaugural ceremonies on the satellite TV, with lots of annoying freeze-frames due to Rocky Mountain signal interference. At the same time my kids were watching it on TV in their classrooms, with my 9-year-old seeing the whole speech by PRESIDENT Obama.

Tonight I enjoyed a drink on my new friends from South Carolina, Dale and Tom, drove up suddenly when Tom called Dale yesterday after lunch and said, "I'm going," and extended the invitation. Tom said he hadn't slept int 48 hours. Dale says he had waterworks when Obama spoke. They were in the white minority in their pocket of the crowd on The Mall and their first drink was from an African-American gentleman at the other end of the bar bought their drinks, a guy they had stood in line with to enjoy being a part of history along with 1,999,998 of their other attending fellow Americans.

There is a unity in this country that may not last forever, but I'd sure be pleased to see eight years or so. It should have been ours after 9/11/2001 but was squandered by the opportunists -- Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove. But it was slightly over a year ago, January 2, 2008, when I became a supporter of Barack Obama, the night of the Iowa caucuses, when he earned his first extraordinary victory on a chain of extraordinary victories, leading to the historical victory on November 4, 2008.

The electoral process produced the individual American most suited to the job of President at this particular time of crisis, a cool, calm, collected, strategic, book-smart and people-smart man who synthesizes ideas, nationalities and cultures in a uniquely American way. America's traditional friends and all those around the world who want to believe in the power of our American Dream seem to be celebrating as hardily as we are, and per the new PRESIDENT's very sober speech today, let our enemies be put on notice. Come to us in peace and we're all (big) ears.

Otherwise, I expect they will learn who they are up against now that the feeble ones are swept away.

God bless America.

Countdown to Ecstasy

The hour draws nigh. Tuesday, January 20, 2009, 12:00 noon EST.

Yes he will.

Some interesting items in the shuffle between yesterday's Lincoln Memorial celebration, today's MLK Day commemoration, and tomorrow's restoration of democracy jubilation:

• Many supporters of both John McCain and Hillary Clinton are getting Obamafied, at least willing to give him a solid chance, heartened by his transition and appointments.

• Obama held a bipartisan dinner with John McCain as guest of honor, calls to make such a pre-Inauguration dinner a tradition going forward.
  

• Vice President (the last time I'll write that w/out "Former") Richard Bruce Cheney injured his back during his move out of the VP residence and will show up for the Inauguration in a wheelchair. I don't quite have the perfect metaphor, but how about, "Don't let the door snap your back on the way out?"

• Final Bush protest: shoes thrown onto the White House lawn. Will this be his greeting wherever he goes -- any speech, public appearance, even if by infiltration?

• Obama Lego Inauguration:

• And finally, at the official Bush farewell party, El Presidente speaks to his peeps and gives a closing address, which closes with:

"It has been an awesome eight years," he went on. "The days are long, but the years are short. … If you ever want a nice meal, come and knock on our door in Dallas, Texas." He waved goodbye over the opening chords of "Don't Stop Believin'."

That's right, Bush goes out with the very same song made famous again by the closing moments of The Sopranos. This leaped out at me for two reasons.

For one, unauthorized Bush Family biographer Kitty Kelley compared El Presidente's family to that fictional organized crime clan.

And then there's the whole ending of The Sopranos thing, the blackout that by now is pretty much considered to be Tony's POV as his lights go out, offed by the man in the Members Only jacket.

Back in Semiotics class in college we used to discuss overdetermination in movies, books, other works of art. Overdetermination might be best translated as obviousness, when the metaphor is all too apt, as in all too pat. But the counterargument to this was also real-world examples where life itself, by coincidence or grand design, is itself overdetermined. You know, those "if they put it in a movie you'd never believe it" moments we've all read about or experienced ourselves on occasion.

Has there ever been a Presidency as overdetermined as the Bush/Cheney Administration?

Don't. Stop. Believin'.

George.

Big Sunday

Not just the games sending Arizona and Pittsburgh to the Super Bowl, but a remarkable collection of actors and musicians saluting the upcoming Inauguration, with Abraham Lincoln gazing down upon the proceedings, the incoming President and his family, the half million people gathered there.

Here's the end of what he said when he spoke at the end:

That is the belief with which we began this campaign, and that is how we will overcome what ails us now. There is no doubt that our road will be long. That our climb will be steep. But never forget that the true character of our nation is revealed not during times of comfort and ease, but by the right we do when the moment is hard. I ask you to help me reveal that character once more, and together, we can carry forward as one nation, and one people, the legacy of our forefathers that we celebrate today.

Here's how Pete Seeger and Bruce Springstein closed it out, with 500,000 singing along:



Hell, yes he can.

Conversation

I just finished reading our President-Elect's autobiography, Dreams from My Father, his first and least political book, and it's an extremely engaging story of a young man's search for his identity, compounded not only by being of mixed race but of mixed nationality.

The book begins in New York, his walk-up in Spanish Harlem, a key moment in his life, and then the first of three major sections, his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia, adolescence in Hawaii, Occidental College in SoCal, transfer to Columbia. The second section is Chicago, his start and growth as an organizer in pretty tough conditions. The third is his first visit to Kenya where he meets his whole family, including his step-grandmother, grand uncle, half-sibling. His father's absence informs the book, but it never kills his spirit.

What I find most interesting today about how frankly Obama speaks about the challenges facing our country is how natural it is, not just in style, but in substance. He's not giving speeches, he's in a steady conversation with us. He's been part of the conversation ever since he connected with his African sister, Auma. He's been part of the conversation ever since he went to college and made his first public political speech, against apartheid in South Africa. He's been part of the conversation ever since he tried to process the way his black friend on the high school basketball team referred to white as well as other black people. It's a conversation his/my generation has been having ever since we got deep into our teens in the 1970's and now, thirty years later, it's the mainstream conversation.

Barack then per the friend who named him.

Barack now:



Eleven more days.

Hail

The prodigal son returns, and ma is very, very happy:



Meanwhile Obama makes the brilliant choice of Leon Panetta, not a career intelligence guy, to head the CIA, is adding an almost Jacksonian, affordable Neighborhood Ball to the Inaugural festivities, makes cool unannounced appearances...and he's sending Joe Biden on a mission to Southwest Asia.

It's already a relief.