Jan 20, 2009 Milestone of a day

Never ceasing expectations is something Barack has to cope with. When I was in Japan in the 90s, this old priest who was in a Shinto-Xian group I had made friends with, would go on and on about "being there" for MLK's speech - he was 29 then and on a 2 months trip to the US. He'd talk about witnessing history. The sad thing about the group was most of them had deformities that they could all somehow link upto Enola Gay and Little Boy. I wish I had been at the National Mall to experience the emotions first hand. Go Barack! Go America!

But the speech didn't do it for me. Despite the oath's fumbling start and whatever it did to break the rehearsed spontaneity of a delivery, the substance that would make it worthy of a Lincoln heir was just not there. No worries - I suspect for all our sakes he'll deliver, making Lincoln proud.

I was mentally prepared for a prose of a poem and that came close to being an accessible, everyman's poem of sorts.