Obamania

Hi guys,

We lived history today. Just saying. I was at work when the inaugural address was playing, and I turned on the radio in the preschool classroom where I was working hoping I could catch a little of it. Three-year-olds, of course, don't miss a trick, so when I turned it on, a few of them asked "Is this a book on tape?!" "No," I said, "This is Barack Obama! Who loves Barack Obama?!" Almost all of them chorused, "Meeeeee!!!" Haha, gotta love Seattle children. What was cool was that they actually listened to the speech, to the best of their ability. I started thinking about how, decades from now, when they're grown up and understand what an epic day this was, they may have some vague memory of hearing the speech in their preschool class. After all, I remember being about their age and standing in line with my mom and dad waiting to go into the polls for the 1992 election. I was cold, and I pointed this out in a somewhat whiny tone, and my mom told me that the soldiers in the Revolutionary War who had marched in the snow so that we could all have the right to vote for a president had been a lot colder. A pretty heavy-duty speech to give your three-year-old, but hey, maybe that's why I'm politically aware now. :)

Anyway, here are my two favorite quotes from the address today:

"They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction."

"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all the other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more."

YEAH, OBAMA!!!