Monday, January 26, 2009

Superlatives Part 3

Cause I'm still flying high from a lovely birthday and the happy coincidence that I share 44 with the man who has been busy with so much good work in his first few days.

Most thrilling moments from a thrilling week:

During the We Are One concert, Bono taking a seat on the stage to sing, "Blessings not just for the ones who kneel..."

Bruce Springsteen and that old commie Pete Seeger leading everyone in the full version of "This Land is Your Land."

The little angel in pink sleeping behind Obama.

The first glimpse of Michelle in beautiful yellow on a brilliant Tuesday morning.

Aretha's hat, perfectly proportioned for the majesty of her song, who she is, and what this day means.

"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake."

"Our patchwork heritance is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and non-believers..."

"To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds."

"Those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiousity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true."

"What is required now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task."

Garrison Keillor describes the thrill of watching Bush's helicoptor take to the skies.

Joel Stein gives a shout out to Partners in Health.

1 comment:

Susan Bearman said...

It was a glorious day. And we just loved Aretha's hat. My daughter (17 and a skinny as your little finger with a peanut-sized head) said: "I want that hat!" That hat would it her whole, but it's a great hat.