Automatic Fun of Inauguration Day 2009!

Eight years ago in my silly little diaryland diary I wrote: "I need to start an island like Leonardo DiCaprio in The Beach." I believe I'd just seen the film. Luckily for y'all readers and for The Macaroni Grill (they had the pleasure of employing me later that year), I stayed right here in America and did not "start" my own wild island of peace and savagery. Now I can never leave the country, 'cause I've lost two passports in two years, but this isn't about me, this is about TODAY! How does anyone "start" an island, anyhow. I am an island!

Seriously from now on this is about everyone else, for example:

1. Barack Obama
This is super awesome, today is gonna be sweet, and I look forward to talking about it on the interwebs with y'all. NYTimes has some cool features, check it out.

Related:
- Poll says most black say MLK's vision fulfilled (CNN)
- Bush-Era Abortion Rules Face Possible Reversal by Obama (WSJ)
- MSNBC Inauguration Day Coverage (MSNBC)
- Israel pulling out of Gaza before inauguration (CBC)
- Will Obama get rid of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"? (@san francisco chronicle)

This site, WebTV Hub, features a comprehensive list of where you can catch the inauguration online. Here's a few:

• CNN - Streaming the Inauguration in partnership with facebook where you can see the status of your friends update as you watch the live event.
• BBC - Live coverage of the event & other stories from around the globe as the Inauguration takes place. (BBC)
• MSNBC - Broadcasting the event from its website.
• PBS- PBS will offer coverage of the event and also has a brilliant library of videos and dialogue of Inaugurations speeches from past presidents. (PBS)
• Current TV - Live coverage integrated with Twitter for live online discussion of the event.
• New York Times - Streaming Inauguration coverage from its homepage.

I was raised by politically active idealistic parents determined to enforce a gender-free race-free hopeful mentality. I was sheltered, in some ways, by a community safe enough to be so progressively idealistic. I believed back then that our country was on the inevitable verge of potential blossom -- counterculture and dominant culture could come together and better yet was about to, and then we'd all evolve -- and then I grew up and for the past eight years have witnessed the obscene opposite of that, something quite dangerously different.

I'm glad that we are finally here. I believe this is a new place from which change can begin. Not because Obama is a "celebrity president"/hopey mchoperson, but 'cause he's just cool. He's cool. We'd like to have several beers with him.

2. Crystal's Birthday - January 20th. She's in Australia. You can wish her happy birthday at her blog, right here. I love her.

3. Haviland's Birthday was January 19th. I hope that you have already wished her a happy birthday. I love her.

4. Natalie's birthday was January 16th. I believe there was sheet cake, I have strong memories of vodka. I love her.

5. More Auto-Fun
- Iceland Melting - poems by Eileen Myles (@vice magazine)
- Another Nation: Only One Mexico (@chronicle of higher ed)
- FourFour Recaps gay Real World Brooklyn: "I'm not saying that I'm going to recap The Real World every week. I'm not not saying that I'm going to recap it either. Right now, all I'm saying is that I can't very well be expected to hold my tongue when I see something like this..." (@fourfour).
- Our Chart: Officially Over. I did that save-webpages-as-PDFs thing I should be an expert at by now, it's what a writer must do to save one's portfolio when the site goes under. Sigh sigh. You have 'til January 26th to gather ye rosebuds before the OC ghost town shuts off.

6. Quote(s)
"Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love." (Martin Luther King, Jr., "Where Do We Go From Here?" 1967)

"Now there are some things we all know, but we don't take 'em out and look at 'em very often. We all know that something is eternal. And it ain't houses and it ain't names, and it ain't earth, and it ain't even the stars ... everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings ... you'd be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There's something wa down deep that's eternal about every human being." (Thornton Wilder, Our Town, 1938)

"Old" and "new" are the perennial poles of all feeling and sense of orientation in the world. We cannot do without the old, because in what is old is invested all our past, our wisdom, our memories, our sadness, our sense of realism. We cannot do without faith in the new, because in what is new is invested all our energy, our capacity for optimism, our blind biological yearning, our ability to forget — the healing ability that makes reconciliation possible." (Susan Sontag, Frankfurt Book Fair Speech 2003)