With yesterday’s inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America we’ve witnessed the dawn of a new American era.
Barack Obama being sworn in as 44th President of the United States of America
The United States, like my homeland and most New World nations, is a country racked by a dubious history of abuse, murder and rape of its indigenous people; racial, ethnic and religious institutionalised discrimination as well as widespread segregation; and in the case of the United States and many other New World nations such as Brazil, Government sanctioned slavery.
Large crowd already present on the Mall at 7:15am
A great man, Abraham Lincoln, took the first step in righting the wrongs of the past when 146 years ago he set about a proclamation to emancipate slaves in the United States. What followed was a lot of hate, discrimination, pain, agony but, also hope – which leads us to today with the inauguration of the first African-American to the most crucial position on Earth, commander-in-chief of the United States of America.
Old first couple and New first couple gather for a photo
Race relations are still far from perfect in the United States, as they are in all New World nations, including my home Australia – but, today has gone a hell of a long way to fulfillment of the great Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream.
First Lady Michelle Obama holds Abraham Lincoln's inauguration Bible whilst Barack Obama is sworn in as President
American citizens have a right to feel proud today as you judged beyond colour and looked at the content of character and accordingly chose Barack Obama as your President. Things are not going to be easy and the world is at a particularly difficult juncture at this point in time. But, if this meteoric rise of Barack Obama to the most important position on Earth has shown anything, it’s shown that hope is an immensely powerful thing and hope can unite disparate people like little else.
View of the record 1.8 million people on the Mall to witness the inauguration
Congratulations America. The road ahead will be difficult and there no doubt will be a lot of hardships, heartaches and pain. But, whatever happens from this point on, you can hold your heads high as you’ve made an accomplishment few other nations can claim.
Most likely, yes. If last weekend’s shenanigans are anything to go by.
It seems that North has got twitchy again, and what perfect timing just as Obama’s about to take office!
North Korea’s a lingering, festering thorn in the world’s side that Obama’s Administration is going to have to find a way to deal with. It’s not going to be easy, it never is with North Korea.
Former Geelong AFL star and namesake to yours truly, Ben Graham, has made it to next Sunday’s Superbowl XLIII in Tampa courtesy of his Arizona Cardinals’ 32-25 victory over fellow Australian punter, Sav Rocca‘s Philadelphia Eagles in yesterday’s NFC final. The two Australian punters were competing for the opportunity to be the first Australian to ever make it to a Superbowl, with the Cardinals’ victory that honour goes to Ben Graham. Next week’s Superbowl will see the Cardinals battle against another Pennsylvannian side, the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers’ will be firm favourites going into the match, but the Cardinals were not favoured to win yesterday and did so, so anything’s possible. Just remember last year’s superbowl! I wish Ben all the best for the match, I’ll be watching and cheering him on.
Well, the Lunar New Year or Seollal as it’s called here, is just around the corner and as usual I’m trying to cash in on it using my superior language skills! 헉 This design is one of many Asian kitsch and other items of inferior quality at my online design store. Now that I’ve got my shameless blogging out of the way, let’s talk about my Friday night here goes …
Well, Friday night was my latest stupid drunken adventure in the Land of the Morning Calm. As a result of that night, I’m now the owner of a non-functioning cell phone, a depleted wallet, an unexplained knock on my head and am a somewhat remorseful fool who finally admits he has a binge drinking problem at times.
The night was jovial and well-spirited, I met some of my soccer friends at the regular bar and began drinking the night away, chatting with each other and the barmaids and having a good time. I started chatting with my friend’s Korean buddy, who I’ve met several times and we ended staying till closing time when we then ventured of for some food.
After which, he gave me a lift home or somewhere in the vicinity – which was stupid as we both were dead drunk. I have very little recollection of just what happened afterwards and I just remember coming to it freezing cold in the early morning with the sun out about 15 minutes walk from home. I trudged home, bitterly frozen and proceeded to crash not before accidentally dropping my cell phone into the toilet, stupidly checking it whilst peeing. D’oh! Dumbarse!
Now, most of you must be thinking why on Earth would I be writing this and shaming myself by doing so. Well, I’ve got to an age now where I like to be true to myself and others and readily admit when I make a mistake or have a problem. And evidently, this is one area in which I have a problem as this has been the third time in six months where I’ve either been stupid or obnoxious whilst drunk and put myself and/or others in danger. I don’t drink very often and usually when I do, I drink moderately but, occasionally I go overboard such as last Friday and that’s when problems occur.
I have no idea what happened for the last hour of my night and have no idea how, when and why I got the bump on my head. All I know is that I lost control and am lucky I wasn’t bashed, injured and/or arrested. From now on, I think I’m going to have to either stop drinking or enforce strict cut off limits for my drinking as I clearly can’t control myself when I drink too much. For those affected by my drinking shenanigans I genuinely apologize for my stupid actions.
With that out of the way, why can’t bloody cell phone companies produce more water resistant phones, my phone was only momentarily in the can but it now doesn’t work at all. I’m going to have to go phone shopping in the near future. Sigh.
I’ve finally finished uploading my photos from my trip back to Australia. I use Facebook for storing my photos and their photo storage widget is particularly finicky and frustrating – so it’s taken me all this time to get ‘em all up! I also managed to finally upload pics from my trip to Australia in early 2008. Enjoy! To view the whole albums, click on the photos.
Sydney/Port Stephens and the Gong : 2008
Summer livin' on Coogee Beach
Up in the Mountains
The beautiful Blue Mountains, west of Sydney
Sydney : January : 2009
Drinks at the bar : Half empty or Half full? - I'll let you decide
Posted by elcanguro76 
