Last inauguration post

OK.  I listened to the speech at my desk today and was struck by the Shakespearean overtones.  The NY Times ran a piece a couple of days ago noting that the President's celebrated communication skills spring from a love of literature and reading.  Indeed.  The speech has been called prosaic by Obama standards.   Perhaps, but check out the closing paragraph.  He claims to be paraphrasing Washington,

in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents

but I thought I could hear in the tempo and the tone

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

BHO, the sun of York? Perhaps he's not the messiah but Ra the sun god?

There's also a hint of the old ``Once more unto the breach dear friends..." perhaps Barry channeling Harry? Hey, it's a bit bloodthirsty, but a great charging speech.

Also note the reference in the next line to ``what storms may come'' an echo from Hamlet's``what dreams may come.'' Hamlet was not having happy thoughts and the dreams were those of an imagined afterlife. Likewise, Richard's warm words for his brother, the ``sun of York'' were uttered while plotting his overthrow. Perhaps I'm overanalyzing a bit, but that's pretty dreary stuff. There is, I suppose, an enormous mess to clean up. It was fun to watch W sit there and listen to his administration being eviscerated in the inaugural address though.

I believe

I am pretty sure Ted Kennedy died yesterday and the new president called him back. That's what I'm telling them over here anyway.

Word of the day

Haag.  Woods, forest, or hunting grounds.  As in s'Graven Haag, the Duke's forest that became Den Haag, known in the english world as the Hague.  It was never incorporated as a city  and today the parliment meets in the old hunting lodge. 

Factoid

 I finally figured out why I can't hear the difference between g and ch: there is none.  Apparently though, the guttural  g, which is the most distintcive of sounds in Dutch and is easily apparent as a hacking, coughing sound, is sometimes simply made silent.  I gain new respect for the twisted world of english pronunciation everyday.

The big day

Put the weight down, see what it feels like to walk unburdened

Any strength athlete can tell you that the best part of the farmer's walk is the feeling of lightness for the first few steps after you put the weight down.  Eight years is a long time to carry such a heavy load of stupidity and craziness.  Tomorrow, I will be at least two centimeters taller.  

We had a nice small party at our house in Leiden, I'm glad we did something to commemorate the moment.  

BHO is the first openly intellectual president since Wilson

OK, he's African-American, and yes, it's a big first.  I think that it is at least as improbable and more important in the long run that he is an uncloseted, openly-practicing, proud intellectual.  I really don't think we've seen that since Wilson.  Even FDR was not much of an intellectual.  Clinton was, but he hid it (perhaps wisely) behind the veneer of the Bubba persona.  Hoover might have been, but he was such a failure, nobody really wants to think about him.  So, I too feel like at last I have somebody who represents me in my little subgroup.  He's one of us, one of the academy.  The promised land indeed.

I hope the American people are reconnecting with the idea that important leadership positions should be held by well-qualified people.  You know, people who know stuff and like to think and reason and learn new things.  The incurious guy down the street with drug and alcohol induced neurological disorders impeding his language faculties, his gait, and his facial expressions might not be the preferred choice anymore.  

Word of the day

Overmorgen.  The day after tomorrow.  Most things in Dutch are longer to write or say than their English counterparts.  This is a nice exception.  One word for four.  Ik ga berijden mijn fiets morgen en overmorgen.  I am going to ride my bike tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.  

I think we should invent a new english word, overmorrow, to mean this.  Ethan reinvented a new english word himself recently: yesternight.  It's a real word already and he uses it correctly, but I really don't think he heard it anywhere, he just constructed it on the false assumption that language is rational.  

 

Words and deeds

So I thought I would be more inclined to write political screeds than I have been. There are already so many loudly held opinions of every variety it doesn't seem worth it.

Except today. And tomorrow, I expect.


I have had the distinct pleasure of voting for Barack H Obama four times now. He's spoken at my university and represented me in the Senate. I am not immune to the messianic fervor that surrounds him. I actually believe it a little.

On this side of the world, and I expect just about every where outside the USA, there is a buzz in the air. Like standing next to a van de Graaff generator just before it arcs. You can feel a bit of a tingle and you know that something beautiful and brilliant and awesome is about to happen.

With this in mind, I bring you the following excerpt from a speech we should all know well:

We are caught in war, wanting peace. We are torn by division, wanting unity. We see around us empty lives, wanting fulfillment. We see tasks that need doing, waiting for hands to do them.

To a crisis of the spirit, we need an answer of the spirit.

To find that answer, we need only look within ourselves.

When we listen to "the better angels of our nature," we find that they celebrate the simple things, the basic things—such as goodness, decency, love, kindness.

Greatness comes in simple trappings.

The simple things are the ones most needed today if we are to surmount what divides us, and cement what unites us.

To lower our voices would be a simple thing.

In these difficult years, America has suffered from a fever of words; from inflated rhetoric that promises more than it can deliver; from angry rhetoric that fans discontents into hatreds; from bombastic rhetoric that postures instead of persuading.

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another—until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

For its part, government will listen. We will strive to listen in new ways—to the voices of quiet anguish, the voices that speak without words, the voices of the heart—to the injured voices, the anxious voices, the voices that have despaired of being heard.

Those who have been left out, we will try to bring in.

Those left behind, we will help to catch up.

For all of our people, we will set as our goal the decent order that makes progress possible and our lives secure.

As we reach toward our hopes, our task is to build on what has gone before—not turning away from the old, but turning toward the new.

In this past third of a century, government has passed more laws, spent more money, initiated more programs, than in all our previous history.

In pursuing our goals of full employment, better housing, excellence in education; in rebuilding our cities and improving our rural areas; in protecting our environment and enhancing the quality of life—in all these and more, we will and must press urgently forward.

We shall plan now for the day when our wealth can be transferred from the destruction of war abroad to the urgent needs of our people at home.

So, BHO? NO! Richard F**ing Nixon, first inaugural address. A man who ran TWICE on an antiwar platform and pledged openness and reform in government.  How in the name of all that is good and decent can a man run on an antiwar platform in a reelection campaign?  As we have again had demonstrated over the last eight shameful, torturous, cognitively-dissonant years, we get the government we deserve.

Let's give our new president time and leeway, but let's not forget to hold him to his promise and his promises. Let's not accept a Nixonian Janus.  Let's not be happy with Clintonian nonfailure.  Let's demand the greatness we see is possible.

Ok. I'm putting the soapbox away for a bit.

Word of the day

Blij.  Happy.  We would be happy to see you.  Wij zouden blij om u te zien.  I learned this word after being told that gelukkig was a bit archaic, a bit like merry in english.  You might say ``Merry Christmas" or ``Gelukkig nieuwjaar" but you wouldn't be merry to see someone.