(no subject)

YouTube is failing me. Where can I get video of the inaugural address that doesn't just constantly pause and eventually stop downloading?

edited to add
I listened to audio from The Guardian.

He started not with "My fellow Americans" but "My fellow citizens." That set the tone of responsibility.

We don't need big or small government, but government that works.

He included nonbelievers in the list of united factions. That is consistent with someone who believes if we face reality with courage and imagination, living in denial of reality is not required in order to sustain hope. His message is everything I like about being nonreligious.

"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." He pointed out that the founders were in dire peril when they signed the Declaration of Independence. They were willing to sacrifice safety to give us a Constitution with a Bill of Rights. I am thinking of certain people we know who I'm sure are smarting right now, having been identified as cowards beneath the macho exteriors.

And finally, there was more than one rebuke to me in the speech. It was far from preaching to the choir, and I'm not used to that in speeches from politicians.

The Inaugural Address and Star Trek: Insurrection

After listening to the Obama inauguration speech, I rewatched Star Trek: Insurrection and noticed a serendipitous resonance of themes.

The most powerful political entity fears decline, so its leaders violate its founding principles in secret. Individuals take personal responsibility to sacrifice in support of ideals which, while undisputed, had been compromised for expedience.

One scene depicts a band of figures, very different from each other, standing shoulder to shoulder on a hilltop in defense of a weak nation not their own. It worked very well with some of the heroic imagery I was reading in the speech transcript. I don't really have a point, I just liked how it worked out.

There is an episode of The West Wing in which Josh tells a staffer not to wear a Star Trek pin at work, and she says "Starfleet and the whole Star Trek series is about honor and loyalty and civic duty." He tells her it's fine to be a fan, but don't make it a fetish. Of course he's right, and I don't make it a fetish, but on the other hand, this sort of thing is the reason that maybe it makes sense that Josh also says in the episode that he watches Star Trek.

By the way, if you're interested, here is an article about Obama's Sam Seaborn, Jon "Favs" Favreau.