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.

The "Holiday Season"

The “holiday season” is about 3 weeks too long. The first time I saw a Christmas commercial advertising a sale on TV was before Halloween. BEFORE HALLOWEEN!!!!!! That is just wrong. I thought that Christmas was supposed to be a holiday where good values and the birth of Christ were to be celebrated. Not some money making machine. Everything is always about money. We have to suck every cent out of Christmas that we can. We can’t let an old traditional holiday go unscarred.

For me, the “holiday season” should start on Thanksgiving and end a day or two after Christmas. It shouldn’t start before Halloween and end after New Years. That is just ridiculous. Companies are sucking every penny that they can out of this, and ruining a perfectly good holiday. The other thing about extending the time Christmas is acceptable is that radio stations and stores feel the need to play Christmas music. I can only stand so much of Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I heard reports of Christmas music being played before Thanksgiving, thankfully I wasn’t there, but I’m sure it was torture for the people who were present. My thanks for Thanksgiving- not being a victim of premature Christmas music playing. I think that a human only has a certain capacity to withstand Christmas music, and if stores and radio stations are playing it too long, than by the time Christmas actually arrives, people will be so sick of Christmas music that there will be no joy. I know that, as of December 17, I am already tired of these rudimentary jingles. But I see people still withstanding, I guess some people have a higher threshold with the power to endure Christmas music.

One thing that got on my nerves this “holiday season” was the atheist sign controversy. I’m not 100% informed on this because I do not live in Washington and I was not involved in anyway with this story. But I have my opinions too. I believe that there should have been no controversy at all. None. I do not understand the viewpoint of the people who were opposed to this sign. These people are hypocritical saying that the sign should be taken down. But I don’t see the atheist group complaining about the Christmas tree (they can call it a “Holiday” tree all they want but we all know that it is meant to be a “Christmas” tree) and nativity scene. It just bothers me that the majority religious group can do whatever they want, but the minority religious group has to be quiet and abide by the rules. I know that this is not a well constructed argument right now, but I will come back to this subject in a more thoughtful manor in a later post.