Despite my being sick the past the past few days and having a rough call night on Monday where I got very little sleep, and despite Gwen being on call all weekend, the past few days have been pretty good for the household.
The Steelers won, The Eagles lost, Bush is out, and Obama's in. Not too shabby from our perspective.
Yesterday was pretty cool. Gwen and I huddled around a laptop watching live streaming coverage of the inauguration while toasting champagne. I've honestly never been even close to as fired up for any political event as I have been for the Obama election win and yesterday's inauguration day. Just thinking about it still give me chills.
From the throngs of people on the Mall to the worldwide euphoria, it's just been a really cool thing to witness from a global perspective. I imagine for many it evoked memories of the JFK days, a time it seemed when many people were equally galvanized. Accoring to some poll, apparently 75% of the American population is "more optimistic about the nation's future" because of Obama, a record response to that inquiry on inauguration day. Pretty cool.
The only thing I remember about the last two inaugurations were rampant protesters - especially in 2005 when people were just sick at the sight of Bush. There was nothing there worth watching.
Speaking of ex-President Bush, there is an unfortunate-at-times rule which exists in the military, a rule stating something along the lines of "A Military Officer cannot criticize the President, who is Commander-in-Chief". It's no stretch to say that I've struggled with this rule over the past several years, and often when writing here actually, and I must admit I spent a part of the day today snidely querying my NCO's if it was "legal" to talk trash on Bush now that he's officially out. I've been told that it is.
To which I say only this before moving on: Good ****ing Riddance.
Watching him board that helicopter yesterday, leaving forever, was just another great sight to add to the day's memories. Surprisingly, footage of Dick Cheney in his TIE Fighter on his way back to the Death Star has not yet been released.
And so a new day begins.
There is a main hallway in Landstuhl, which has 8.5 x 11 framed portraits of the chain of command for the Army Medical Core, that Gwen and I walk by every day to get lunch. The pictures begin at the company command level, and next comes the hospital command. Then there's the leader of US Army Europe (medical), the Surgeon General of the Army, The Chief of Staff, the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of Defense, and finally the President. For three and a half years Gwen and I have walked by this hall, and put up with the unfortunate picture of President Bush, sitting atop all the others, looking emptily out at us as we walked by. Well today when we walked by, there was a different picture on that wall. A far better picture.
Fired up.
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Barack Obama is My Hero
Ugh, when I restarted this blog after the summer vacation my intent was to post roughly twice a week. I haven't quite met that goal, and frankly I blame the football season. Every Sunday I stay up until 2 am to finish watching all the "afternoon" games and then Monday I'm a train wreck having to go to work on about 5 hours of sleep. After Tuesday it's time to start my weekly fantasy football notes for my "main" league; those suck up two solid days of writing effort and can wear me out. After that, I'm spent on writing, and so this place remains empty. (Oh, also on a side note, I'm looking for a job - but that's much less important than weekly fantasy football notes.) So that's the quick synopsis.
Today is Monday, and again I'm tired, this time after watching the Steelers stave off the Chargers late last night, but I'm also determined to slap out a freaking post. I've been wanting to post about the election results ever since the magical day itself but haven't found the time. Now we're two weeks status post election and it already seems like ancient history, which is too bad in some ways. I wish I'd touched on it back during the actual week of the election, but oh well. I'm posting some quick thoughts now just so I can look back in a few years and remember how damn fired up I was.
Barack Obama won the election two Tuesdays ago and it's by far the most fired up I've ever been after any election. For a week straight, I watched as the world celebrated his win. What a telling thing, to watch the entire world go absolutely apeshit for his victory. Think that happened in 2004? Think everyone's had enough of Bush? (Frankly, the whole scene reminded me of the end of Return of the Jedi, when the Emperor's just been defeated and the second Death Star destroyed, and everyone around the universe is celebrating. There's happy music playing, people are dancing, and some Ewoks are playing drums on neo-con skulls.)
It was Wednesday morning here when the results were in. Gwen had woken up in the middle of the night to check the results so she had already told me in some sleep-addled fog. But after waking up officially and looking at the screens, and then hearing it on the radio while I drove in, it became real - and awesome. I had to get up at the crack of dawn that Wednesday to do an Army weigh-in. After the weigh in at 6 am, I killed time in the darkened internal medicine waiting room watching the TV normally seen by our patients as they wait for appointments. I just flipped around the channels watching result after result and I just had a huge grin on my face.
The results were pouring in and there were cutaways to scenes around the country, and the world for that matter, of people just going nuts. I wanted to be out there with them. I was totally fired up. And I don't normally care too much about politics. But suddenly I just was like Stan's dad on South Park in their post-election show (those guys schooled me good with that one).
That whole day and the rest of the week I was just beaming. It was like the Giants had just won that amazing Super Bowl again - that's how I felt. (Though not quite THAT good. Come on, this is the fate of the free world - but that's football. Actually, the parallel there is eerie. I watched that Giants Super Bowl hoping for a win, desperately hoping, but bracing for the loss. Same thing with the election. I was ready to be let down - again. And then - I wasn't. And I went nuts.) Driving in my car the whole next week, I'd just think about the election result and pump my fist in celebration. I loved it. I must have listened to "You Got the Touch" on my Transformers Soundtrack twenty times, making up mental montages of Barack Obama smiling and waving. For a few days I'm pretty sure I became an Obama groupie.
On Saturday after the election I was at work and took a break to wolf down a salad. I sat at my work computer and watched his full acceptance speech and I was downright emotional, nodding silently (salad spilling down my white coat), bordering on tearful. Actually, in retrospect, it was a little ridiculous. But that's how much it affected me. Craziness.
The guy came out, calm and collected, stammer-free and delivered a knockout speech. Best of all, his thoughts were coherent, his sentence structure solid, and he even used some compound words! Mostly, I just thought he sounded very presidential. Man it will be nice to have that back, I thought. I pumped my fist a few more times.
Now a few weeks later things have started to settle down again. All eyes are on Obama and he has a huge task facing him. I have no idea how things will turn out, no idea how effective a president he'll be, and over time now my euphoria is fading back into reality and I'm slowly reverting back to my politically apathetic self. I have other things on my mind. But that week was pretty cool, in retrospect. Hopefully my excitement will be justified and my hopes will ring true and it'll carry over for four years of generalized improvement in America. Regardless, at the very worst, it was nice to have some hope forcefully rekindled in our great nation.
Quick, somebody hand me a flag. After the last eight years, I finally feel like waving it again.
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