Category Archives: Obama

So the President of the United States, speaking to schoolchildren, might say something many parents consider inappropriate for students to hear – – and American public schools twist themselves into knots to accommodate their concern. Racism in America is a far more profound and complex psychosis than we shall perhaps ever imagine, let alone fathom.

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I don’t recall seeing an example of Obama’s handwriting before, it’s quite distinctive.  Steady, controlled, inexorable; nice open loop in the L in “please”, downstrokes on “y”s head down and don’t come back. No breaks within words, but each compartmentalized. Signature is ego, id, superego contained within a considered design.

. . . so some of us thought a black man would get to be President when pigs fly – – and ‘lo and behold, swine flu (!)

The Obamas walk along Pennsylvania Avenue following the inauguration. Almost 2 million people braved hours walking and standing in the cold with comments such as “after waiting 400 years, a few hours of cold don’t matter at all.” Others described passing through pedestrian tunnels and long underpasses on their way to the Mall. In those covered passages with great acoustics the crowds would start up a chant of O-BA-MA which echoed and reverberated wonderfully. Another person told of being on a subway car when the passengers spontaneously began singing Amazing Grace. What a day!

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Aretha

Muhammad Ali

So glad they were there . . .

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At L-a-a-a-ast. . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-pzlZPRvx8

So many moments have marked the beginning of this new era. We have laughed and wept with joy at so many steps along the way; the long, hopeful campaign trail, the night in Grant Park, standing in the voting booth surrounded by the spirits of our ancestors and friends who did not see that day in the flesh.

 But there is something about the Sunday concert, about standing up and dancing, about singing at the top of our lungs, about the fabulous mix of performers, about the sheer, pure joy – – and even more the depth of the liberation, as song followed song – – until Stevie Wonder had the Obama family on their feet and dancing, something that let us understand just how far we had been pressed down, just how hardened we had become during eight years of a culture of death.

 And then, as musician after musician came onstage singing and playing their hearts out, the layers of psychic oppression began to fall away. We did not know how bent and hunched over we were until we jumped up waving our arms in the air, and shouting and singing and crying took back our own country, took back the power to change.

 We are liberated by the music and words that gave us back our own heartbeat. And oh my God Pete Seeger there at 89 channeling all of our parents and grand-parents; It was all breathtaking – – and breathgiving.