The Inauguration

Back to Obama, particularly his inauguration. I did not get to see very much of this (damn school!), but I have some thought on what little I did see.

First of all I have to say that Barack is one cool guy. When the chief justice screws up the oath and you don’t let it affect you, especially in front of that many people, you have some nerves of steal. I admire that greatly.

Second, what was with the weekly TV test? After the first sentence of Obama’s speech the screen all of a sudden goes black. Wow, great, our president just got assassinated, was my reaction. But eventually it kicked back in and we got to see the speech. But couldn’t the TV stations have some foresight and delay this test for an hour? Was it really worth interrupting one of the most historic events in our nations history to do some unworthy weekly test? I doubt it.

Lastly I want to talk about the pray that was given by Rev. Dr. Rick Warren before Obama was sworn in. This was the one thing that I had a problem with. When everybody was seated on the platform and Dr. Warren came up and started talking about God and African Americans and other things, I was thrown off. I know that religion plays a big role in these sorts of things, but I feel this was wrong. A small, simple prayer lasting no more than 30 seconds would have been fine, but this 5-minute rant was over-the-top. I don’t agree with all of the things he said, and I do not feel he should have had that kind of time to say all that. I thought this was supposed to be an inauguration, not a prayer service. Church and state should be kept separate, this kind of thing should not happen. It seemed obnoxious and un-American in the sense that it felt like he was telling us what to believe. This prayer put a damper on the morning festivities for me. I was not pleased.