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Obama's Speech/Thoughts on Crazy Hats
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I am, RA. If that's what Obama wanted to say. I would hate to get a watered down version of his thoughts on this occasion just to be politically correct. We elected a human, not a robot. Religion is a part of a great many humans' daily lives, including our new president.


http://cdn.necn.com/files/2009/01/20/...
I liked that hat. I wish we all wore crazy hats on fancy occasions like the Brits do. They get everything cool.

KD, perhaps we should both try fruit hats.

I thought his speech was very good, the right tone & much that needed to be said...and it was said so well.
What about Elizabeth Alexander's poem?
I didn't think it soared...it was good, adequate for the occasion, but not tremendous, not great.
And Pastor Warren? bleeech.

... we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around -- (laughter) -- when yellow will be mellow -- (laughter) -- when the red man can get ahead, man -- (laughter) -- and when white will embrace what is right.
Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen.
Amen!
AMEN!
My students liked him. I thought that it was great how they sat and listened to him so quietly when they'd already been watching the inauguration for so long.
Okay, I don't want to get overly sentimental, but DAMN it was cute when my students would clap when Obama would pause.
My students liked him. I thought that it was great how they sat and listened to him so quietly when they'd already been watching the inauguration for so long.
Okay, I don't want to get overly sentimental, but DAMN it was cute when my students would clap when Obama would pause.



david:
I'm sure the Right is more sensitive than the Left on this, but I heard some
magnitude of *slap* in almost every sentence of O's speech. Then Lowery
stepped up (in every sense). Yeoww - did anyone read his stuff before they
let him loose? I was waiting for someone to cut his mic. Loved his style,
he got up there and showed people how this thing is DONE.
Thanks for the transcript.
jude:
yup. i like to think of the slaps as clips from W's exit interview.
and Lowery has been speaking truth to power for quite the long while now.
I heard him interviewed earlier in the week and knew that no matter
what anyone lese did, we was gonna finish it RIGHT.
if you haven't seen this already, do it now - and understand that
choosing HIM was every bit as deliberate and full of speaking to those
with ears to hear as the choice to begin with that sanctimonious
huckster:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3j9lt...
jo:
I heard the slap, and I was really glad it was there. It gave
necessary weight to the fact that all the rhetoric was about joining
together, moving forward. It was the lancing of a boil, letting out
bitterness, but in a way that made clear that grudges are not
appropriate motivation for any of the work that needs to be done.
And I, too, loved the closing prayer. I do not, in general, appreciate
being prayed at, or being an assumed participant in prayer, and de
facto state religiosity chafes me, as I inevitably hark back to
grade-school lessons, which told me the Church should keep its fingers
out of state pies, for everyone's benefit. I can appreciate that
prayer, though--how inclusive it is, how simultaneously grand and
forthright, how humble. I, like Ma, have come to a metaphoric
understanding with religious demonstrations, and that was one of the
best and most effective of such demonstrations that I've ever seen. I
appreciate its beauty and respect its importance, and I am profoundly
comforted by the wide reach of Lowry's closing call:
"Let all those who do justice and love mercy say amen."
I hope I can count myself as one of all those, and I'm glad he
presented us all with that chance to be counted.
(Mercy most of all...)

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.
To say that with George W. Bush sitting just mere feet away was simply classic.
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That's the link to the text. What do you think?
I'm esp. curious as to what people think of the "god" reference. Are you ok with the spiritual reference in the speech? I am.