Advertisement 1

Two Cents Worth

Article content

The first month of 2013 has been an interesting one.

Lance Armstrong finally comes clean, sort of. Interesting, yes, but…

For many, one exciting and highly anticipated event was the beginning, finally, of the National Hockey League season. Let’s all hope we don’t have a repeat of this for some time.

Didn’t get to watch the game last Saturday night because I was sitting in a cold arena watching the Norwich Knighthawks Midget LL2 doing drills during a two-hour practice session. I had to settle for knowing my beloved Leafs beat those insufferable Canadiens for their first game of the shortened season. Whatever else happens doesn’t matter, that was enough.

Also a highlight of January was the re-election of Barack Obama.

I watched as much of the campaign and debates as I could and the election was riveting. I find it all fascinating. And I got to watch all the inauguration festivities on Monday as they unfolded, snuggled up in a blanket in front of the fireplace while I nursed a very sick stomach. I should have been at my usual Monday volunteer post, but decided it was better to not share my malady with my friends at the Seniors Centre.

When you think about it, having a Black man, a man of Colour, an African-American,  installed as the 44th President of the United States for a second term on Martin Luther King Day and the 50th anniversary of his March on Washington is quite historic.

It was a moving and touching production filled with meaning and message in which all were swept up. It surely was the hope of all that the unity and promise can sustain itself within the hearts of the politicians past this day. Can they get over themselves long enough to do something productive for their country?

Well, not very likely.

Before the end of the parade the “other side” was already tearing up his speech, criticizing words and phrases, passing judgment on his meaning. By the time we saw which designer the First Lady chose to wear to the Inaugural Balls (and even that has been condemned), the Kumbaya moment was over. So, I assume, the whole we-can-do-it-together and it’s-our-time was lost on the opposition. The term opposition seems to give them the right to oppose everything regardless of whether it is good, right or appropriate.

But President Obama was given, by a majority of the citizenship of the United States of America, another four years to make his vision happen.

Although they have shown the president’s daughter yawning during the inauguration over and over again, I must commend the pundits for not pointing out, endlessly, how the wife of the slain civil rights activist, Medgar Evers, Myrlie Evers-Williams, misspoke during the invocation and announced Obama as the 45th President.

Do you suppose it was design or coincidence that the Turner Classic Movie channel (which I just realized I had) was playing a series of early Sidney Poitier movies? I watched A Raisin in the Sun (1961) and A Patch of Blue (1965) and wondered at the irony of it all.

twocentsworth40@hotmail.com

Article content
Advertisement 2
Advertisement
Article content
Article content
Latest National Stories
    News Near Tillsonburg
      This Week in Flyers