Courtesy VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Image
If you can’t be in D.C. for Obama’s inauguration, Carlsbad, Ca. isn’t a bad option. At Legoland, they have recreated the inauguration in Legos. I wish I was this talented with Legos when I was 10. For more images of Legoland’s inauguration and general inauguration photos, check the Boston Globe’s excellent photo blog, The Big Picture.
Courtesy: www.jeremyinc.com/
(Via Salon) Just because you are not braving the DC cold to witness Obama’s historic inauguration doesn’t mean you can’t have the 44th president right in your home. He can be in your kitchen, playroom, bedroom, even your bathroom! That’s right, that’s a photo of Barack Obama on a roll of toilet paper.
You can read about all of the Obama paraphernalia–from the expected commemorative plates to the shocking–over at Salon:
OK, so, the Obama dildo looks about as titillating as stuffing a carved zucchini up your cha-cha (who knows? could be grand!). But I have a funny feeling that whoever is actually shelling out $34.95 for this bad boy isn’t investing in their sex life as much as their curio cabinet. It’s a measure of the richness of our great nation that we can memorialize the election of our 44th president in such a multiplicity of ways: For some, there is the Historic Victory plate (touting “his confident smile and kind eyes”); for others, there is a waterproof dildo that brags, “Make this an election erection to remember!”
Yikes.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is preparing an inauguration-day gift for President-elect Barack Obama. It’s called “49 Songs from North of the 49th Parallel.” The CBC has an extensive list of tracks for Canadians to vote on. The list includes the likes of the Band, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Ameri-Canadians Arcade Fire.
“One of the best way to know Canada is through the depth and breadth of our artistic expression,” says Denise Donlon, Executive Director, CBC Radio. “We’re excited about the new President and we want him to be excited about us, so we’re asking our audience to help compile the list of our most definitive Canadian songs!”
The 49 songs receiving the most votes will be played on Jan. 20 honoring Obama’s inauguration.
(Hat tip: BBC)
Politics turn people into idiots.
I wanted to make a quiet critique of blind liberalism that pervades our campus, but it turned into this. I stand behind the original argument, that most of us are so narrowly left-leaning that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy (Republicans dare not enter the Democratic gauntlet, we don’t learn about the Republicans, we become more liberal, and so on). The problem with my article is that given limited space, I had to engage in intellectual triage and attack the larger of several problems. Since there are more liberals on campus, I figured the correct route was to critique the liberals for their lack of knowledge beyond the presidential race. There’s much more that merits criticism. Here they are, in no particular order:
1) College Republicans. They are libertarians pretending to be Republicans for political expediency. The GOP is a big-tent party and has been for a long time. That was a good strategy and certainly one that garnered a lot of votes for Reagan and George W. Bush. A party that can simultaneously uphold the tenets of small government for taxes, big government for national defense, and huge government for social issues is sure to pull broad coalitions together. Here are some key baggage that College Republicans won’t remind you come with their party:
a) The Christian right, a core demographic of the big tent. This means the GOP is often in favor of the government stepping on your toes if you’re gay, a woman having an abortion, or a teacher who believes in evolution.
b) Massive defense projects. This, children, is called government spending. You normally don’t like that. Obviously, neither side can or will cut the defense budget substantially, but at least the Democrats pay for it (don’t fight it: the last three “fiscal conservatives” ran up massive debt, whereas the last “tax-and-spend” Democrat balanced the budget).
c) The GOP has been the vanguard of political scandal, rather than political integrity which they claim. Actions speak louder than words, and the party of Scooter Libby, Ted Stevens, Tom DeLay, Mark Foley, and Larry Craig should walk the walk if it’s going to talk the talk. (more…)
I jokingly articulated on Facebook that we will see a large spike in the number of births across the nation in about nine months. I coined the phenomenon “the Obama-Boomers,” or the Oboomers for succinctness. I did not initially mean to insinuate that President-elect Barack Obama’s ascension to the presidency is on par with the conclusion of World War II but the more I think about it, the more I realize there are some interesting, even striking parallels between the two events.
For starters, they are both globally and historically exciting. The amount of international faith Obama has inspired is actually kind of surprising. Also there are these notions of democracy which have been reaffirmed by these monumental events. Obama’s victory has been hailed as a testament to American democracy, the likes of which we haven’t seen in at least the last eight years.
But what exactly is so exciting about Obama becoming the president-elect? Yes, Obama’s tunneling through the political-racial barrier is a major historical phenomenon, but the common misconception was that this was inevitable.
Personally, I imagined it was going to be a piecemeal victory. I imagined a slow, but steady approach, with the American people favoring black candidates in Congress. Instead, the civil rights community has been wailing on the front door of democracy, and Obama has walked around and found the a side door unlocked. This definitely caught me by surprise. When I was in high school, I concluded I would not live to see the first black president, which is really kind of sad considering that I should be too young to be so cynical.
It’s fantastic to be in college experiencing this monumental event. It truly feels like we are “living history” both in the personal and historical sense. I can already imagine what it will be like for future generations to read about this moment in textbooks, and I pity them for not having gone through it themselves.
Jesse Hilaire
Trinity ’09