Barack Obama was sworn in today as the USA’s 44th president, the first African-American (or any ethnic minority) president in their history, with the largest TV audience ever for a presidential inauguration.
I am a fan of Obama’s, i like his social healthcare plans and his views on America’s role in world politics. I even like some aspects of his economic plan, even though he is a lefty when it comes to government spending.
His inaugural address was a masterpiece in speech writing, which of course we should expect seeing as it his first global address and possibly his mosyt important. His rhetoric was sublime, he quoted just about every famous American leader to date and threw in a few bible quotes as well. When discussing the religious make up of America he even nodded in the vague direction of atheists and agnostics.
What disappointedme about the speech though, was his persistant references to his black history ad to god and faith. He must have mentioned god, faith, religion, spirit and every other Christian buzz word known to man at least once.
I realise that to be a US politcian means being Christian, but surely you do not have to make reference to it every 5 seconds or so.
I like Obama, I really do. He is a breath of fresh air in international poliics, and possibly one of the finest presidents I am likely to live through, but his religion is going to annoy me. At least Geroge W had the decency to let everyone know he was a stauch evangelical Christian who actively listened to God from the beginning – mainly by being a Texan Reublican! – Obamaq has snuck his evangelism under the radar.
Oh well. We are getting there at least.
It has been a while since my last post and usually I would offer some flimsy excuse, blaming work or revision or illness. This time, however, I don’t really have an excuse except a slight apathy towards blogging recently. I cannot explain why that would be except maybe that with the last few weeks the idea of sitting down and writing a few paragraphs more than I need to has turned me off somewhat. Anyway, here I am, blogging again!
First things first, I am now the president of A-Soc, which means you can rest assured that there will be a plethora of A-Soc related psots appearing here and I will be linking to far more over at our offical website (shameless plugging for the win) and the new national site currently based at SecularPortal.com. The A-Soc AGM went really well, we now have a good sized committee with hopefully enough enthusiastic members that we can really grow up this year and develop into the society that we should be. Our aim is to be the third biggest, by numbers and attendence, faith and cultiral society by the end of 2009/2010 which is quite ambitious, but achievable I think if we work hard and putt the effort in.
Next on the list is moving house. After three very good years here, we are looking to move onwards and upwards – mainly down to the fact that Chris, Sarann and Michelle are graduating and want a better house with more space and generally something more resembling a real life house. We have got as far as generating a shortlist and narrowing down our search criteria, but I think the bulk of the work will be carried out after this round of exams (the last round of exams for our graduates). Watch this space!
Talking of exams, I have a few this time round. I managed a lot of revision whilst at home this week, but I’m still only 80% confidant. It seems the older I get the less good at winging exams I get. This is a little bit of a worry as I have always relied on my adaptability and ability to get to the answer without necessarily knowing the answer. I suppose it just means that I will have to really knuckle down this time round.