A new era

Yesterday (for me!) an estimated 1.5 million people braved the cold, crowds and long lines to witness first hand a most historical event in USA's history - the swearing in of its first African American president. While it doesn't matter to me what race Obama is, I do recognize the significance it bears and how greatly this shows just how far my nation has come. What matters more to me though is the end of the Bush era, the end of a leadership that was the most tyrannical, blind, selfish, narrow-minded, elitist, and hateful that I have ever had the misfortune of witnessing in America. There is very little that Bush did right, and the wrongs that he committed will take far longer to repair than was taken to make. But I have hope that at least some of those wrongs will be righted, and that today starts a new era filled with hope, light, fairness, inclusiveness, diplomacy, civility, and intelligence. I am not naive, I know that things will not be made perfect nor will it or can it be done quickly, nor is Obama my perfect ideal of who a president would be, but I do have hope and I do believe that he will do a lot of good in the next 4-8 years. Mostly, I am so happy to feel hope and to be positive about the direction our country is now going, rather than the despair and anger and frustration I have felt for 8 years. 8 years!

I had high expectations of watching the inauguration on tv. However, being 12 hours ahead of Wa, DC, and feeling quite sick all day, I couldn't make it past 10 and didn't see anything other than the first crowds and the long lines for the metro (subway). I would have liked to be there in person, but even if we still lived in DC I don't know that we would have gone. I suppose it would have depended on daycare first of all... There were parties here in Jakarta as well. There was a gala event at the Ritz Carlton hotel that was to broadcast the swearing in, and there was also a free event at the J.W. Marriott that was also going to broadcast the proceedings. That would have been fun. Instead our evening transpired like most do, and there was no cheering or fanfare. But I was there in spirit.

Finally - Congratulations President Obama! We welcome you to the privileged office of being the president of the USA, and are thankful that you do indeed view it as a privilege and not your right. Good luck to you, as you have a very, very tough road in front of you.