Yesterday, I read an article about Obama's speech on the night of February 24 (link to the article by Jeff Zeleny). The article discussed the highlights of Obama's speech - some of his plans for the next four years: the $787 billion stimulus package, the bail out of US banks, a decrease in dependence on foreign oil and the reform of health care (among others). Zeleny does note, however, that Obama was rather vague in his speech. He said what he desires to do, but not how he intends to do it. As has been my tendency so far with our new President, I began to worry.
I began to worry that because of his vagueness, Obama will be criticized. I wondered how much I myself could trust someone who doesn't share how they plan on turning the country around with millions of viewers watching around the world.
And then I remembered...again...patience.
- Obama has been in office for barely over a month;
- A little under an hour (the length of Obama's speech) is nowhere near enough time to outline just how Obama plans to essentially undo all the Bush administration has done in eight long years;
- The day after Zeleny's article was published, today, there is an article by Jackie Calmes describing how Obama plans to lower tax cuts for the wealthy and to use the money gained to make health care more affordable in the future.
Of course, Calmes talks a lot about tax brackets and just how the new tax cuts will work, but no matter how long I stared at the words on my screen I couldn't quite make head nor tails of exactly what it all meant.
The bottom line is this: of course Obama has plans for what he intends to do during his term. Of course there will be opposition from people throughout the United States. And he's been in office for one month. One month isn't even enough time to grow a decent-looking beard (although...how would I know?), much less know how to pull one of the most powerful countries in the world out of an economic recession and change a great deal of what has been put in place in the last eight years.
I simply need to have confidence in Mr. Obama and have faith in the fact that he can lead us out of these dark(ish) times. I've no reason to doubt him.
Some quotes I liked from the speech:
"While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: we will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before."
"While the cost of action will be great, I assure you the cost of inaction will be far greater."
He also said (and I'm paraphrasing) that we need to sacrifice short term benefits and comforts for the long term ones.
I'm going to make "Patience" my personal word of the year.
-ZMG
A successful attempt at oatmeal this morning! No burnt oats, no lumps, no soapy dishwater - just oatmeal and milk. I ate while listening to a podcast of the New Yorker fiction section, a reading of John Updike's story, "Playing with Dynamite". A pretty good Saturday morning...uh...afternoon.
I ventured into Norwich today to find some reading material that I'd been craving (despite the fact that I have a ton to read already and told myself at the beginning of the semester that I was not allowed to buy any more books until I read the ones I already have...oh well), and found what I was looking for at Borders. I came across this ENORMOUS volume of short stories by John Updike, compiled by the author himself. I also found a copy of his novel, Rabbit, Run (Penguin) which was part of a 3-for-2 deal at Borders, so, naturally I had to find two other books bearing the same sticker so that my money would not go to waste. I decided on a collection of stories by Raymond Carver entitled, will you please be quiet, please? (Vintage) and The Collected Dorothy Parker (Penguin) by, of course Dorothy Parker. As I've ventured cautiously away from writing that first novel that will win me international glory and fame and have tiptoed towards writing more short stories to see if I can actually finish some of my writing, I've been reading more short stories than I ever have in my life. I've even considered the possibility that I never tend to finish writing stories because, until recently, I never really finished reading stories. I'll let you know how this experiment goes.