Inauguration

Overall pretty nice.

I liked that Obama was nervous enough to stop in the middle of his oath and wait for Roberts to help him out. It was kind of a sweet moment of humanity.

And it’s the last time that the Chief Justice will lift a finger to help out Obama.

Update: Ok, so Roberts screwed up the oath. But seriously, Obama stopped dead in his tracks. Without the nerves, I’m sure he would have just powered on through.

Obama’s speech was well-done, as are all his speeches. Some interesting imagery there, “we’ll reach out a hand if you’ll unclench your fist”. That’s not a direct quote, but it’s something like that.

And he mentioned putting science back to an appropriately high level of influence on the government. Thank you. Evidence-based policy? Dare we hope?

I didn’t like the poem that the poet read. This fits a larger discussion about what poetry is. What she read didn’t seem to have any kind of rhythm or interesting cadence, and the words weren’t particularly evocative (with a couple of exceptions).

All in all, I’d say that Obama’s prose speech was by far more poetic than the poet’s poem.

I did enjoy most of Reverend Lowery’s benediction (leaving aside the question of whether a US presidential inauguration needs a benediction). But the very last line sort of soured it for me.

He said something along the lines of hoping for a future when:

black will not be asked to get back,
brown can stick around,
yellow will be mellow,
the red man can get ahead, man,

and…

white will embrace what is right.

The implication, of course, is that white people currently do NOT embrace what is right. When he said that, I went, “hey!”

Why couldn’t he say, “white will feel all right,” or “white will enjoy the sight,” or “dance all night, sing a fright, eat more light, rhyme like shite, fight or flight, take a bite”?

Ok, some people will say that white people already feel all right (which is far from universally true, of course). But what’s wrong with saying that in the future we hope that EVERYONE feels all right and has opportunities? Everyone. Red, yellow, black, and even white.

It was just a dumb rhyme, I guess, and I shouldn’t take it personally. At least he didn’t say white men would be mellow. I don’t know what I’d do about that.