Benny's World

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Fearless

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Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Nice to See the First Couple(s) Dance Like the Rest of Us


The Obamas and Bidens dance a lot like the rest of us. I like waltzes, but it's nice to see real close, more intimate dancing. The Obamas danced to Etta James' "At Last", sung beautifully by Beyonce. Not a dry eye in the house. But I liked it as well on the second song by Stevie Wonder, "Signed Sealed Delivered", that Obama danced with different folks in his party and he did some "bumping" --not sexual in tone--but fun dancing.

Here's the YT:



The Bidens danced to a Van Morrison tune, "Have I told You Lately." Nice.

Here's One Pic of VP Biden and his beautiful bride of 30 plus years.



Update: The First Couple danced with a couple who are enlisted, and danced with them a few steps at the Commander-in-Chief Ball. I don't think I've seen that before. Nice way to connect with the troops.

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Reign of An Error Era Ends


Actually, I like Laura Bush and I appreciate what she did for libraries and promoting literacy more effectively than her mother-in-law did. But I have to say to her husband and his ilk, especially Dick Cheney and the neo-cons:

Goodbye and Good riddance.

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Higher Ground Mr. President Obama



This was my favorite song at the concert the other day--a Stevie Wonder tune. It represents I think what many of us feel--Keep on Trying Until We Reach the Highest Ground.


This is truly a remarkable day for a great celebration. Personally, I don't expect much out of Obama except to do the right things (meaning honor his commitment to Main Street--and do so in an ethical manner) He is likely to be a "down payment" administrator his first year, meaning he can throw only small pots of money at the different initatives since we in such a financial mess and the deficit is mounting each day.

What I do expect President Obama to do is to serve as a role model for the generation after me as they are our future. The greatest failure of George Bush's 8 years in the WH (and consequently the GOP), he did little to inspire the younger folks. Instead, he sent them needlessly into harm's way, without a clear strategy or vision. He did not take care of their parents when Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. What a disaster.

I do think more people will get involved in their communities, just JRE was able to recruit 700 students across the country to help clean up St. Bernard's Parish. I'm hoping JRE will rekindle that spirit, and also to work on issues of poverty, as I suspect that issue is too big for Obama to tackle at present.

My prayers go out to President Obama today as we begin the long and difficult road back to American renewal--and keep on reaching toward the highest ground.

AT LAST! Change in the White House!

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Monday, January 19, 2009

John Edwards' Civic Duties

From the snippets of news from the Triangle area, one sees that JRE and Elizabeth are getting out more in public, but selectively.

From the Herald-Sun:

It seems former presidential candidate John Edwards was called for jury duty last week in Orange County Court in Hillsborough, and the attorneys began questioning him to determine whether to seat him on the jury for an armed robbery case.

There are certain questions the judge asks each potential juror, including "What do you do for a living?"

Edwards replied: "I applied for a job, but I didn't get it."

Both the defense and prosecuting attorneys decided he would make a good juror, and they selected him for the jury panel.

After about a day of testimony, the defense attorney and prosecutor worked out a deal, and the defendant pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, thus ending the trial.

After the jury was dismissed, Edwards stuck around for a while talking to the attorneys about the case.

http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/orange/10-1073774.cfm

Nice to see JRE out and about, doing his civic duty...and his sense of humor is quite intact.

Elizabeth was in Florida yesterday and spoke about health care. If I can find a little better report of the speech, I'll post it here. Meantime, here's one for starters from the Palm Beach Daily News.

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Sunday, January 18, 2009

America, God Shed Its Grace on Thee


During the We are One Concert, two American Bald Eagles were brought out. I cannot locate a pic of Mr. Lincoln, but I did find one of Challenger. Tears rolled down my cheeks when I saw these magnificent creatures. They represent the majesty of our country, America.




Update: I finally found one of Mr. Lincoln.

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Heckajob on the We are One Concert



I missed the first 15 minutes of it, but it re-airs at 6:00 CT. Good show, highly recommend it.

All of the people's faces on the mall, simply amazing. HuffPo is calling it "Obamastock." Seems fitting.

Update: You can watch the replay here: http://www.hbo.com/weareone/webcast/index.html

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