An “Historic” Day

I watched the inauguration stuff today because I needed to analyze the speech in terms of motivation for a class.

I have to admit, I didn’t feel the overwhelming sense of history about this day. Part of that is that I really don’t remember any other inauguration in the past. We’ve had other presidents before this one. We’ll have other ones after this one. The economy is going to suck for a long time still. Half the world will probably hate us till the world ends.

As long as this country continues to make such a big deal about a person’s race, race will be an issue and problem in this country. Making such a big deal about race does not solve the problem. When the story is about a person being elected rather than a black person being elected, then race won’t be an issue. Our country still has long way to go.

It was highly irreverant of me, but both the invocation and benediction made me laugh and go “huh?” Those were some slightly odd “speeches.” And the last one just emphasized how deeply race issues are still a problem in this country.

The arrangement by John Williams was amazing, but then it’s really hard to go wrong with him. It was a fun complicated arrangement of “Simple Gifts.”

And the poetry reading! It’s poetry readings like that one that make people think poetry is boring. I’ll have to read the poem elsewhere to decide if it is a good poem or not, but the reading was BAD.

I think maybe they should have rehearsed the oath a bit more.

The speech. It was, interesting. It did not move me to tears. It didn’t pull on my heart strings. It was an interesting speech. And it will be interesting to see just what exactly happens in the next four years.