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Day 717: Hate Us and Need Us
Jan. 20th, 2009 06:38 pmAnother day, another palindrome.
So many interesting things happened today. While everyone else was watching our new president's inauguration, I was huddled alone, on the couch in the commons, doing homework. All day I felt uneasy for not having watched history, but the moments in history I remember all seem to revolve around me sitting in a corner, doing homework.
I was sitting in a corner and doing homework when Squeaks came to tell me that someone had blown up the twin towers. I was sitting in a corner and doing homework when someone left a message on my phone down the hall to tell me he loved me and goodbye.
I didn't watch the speech with the others because I wanted to savor it on my own. I love language, and I will give our new president ten points on a scale of one to ten for making an absolutely beautiful speech. I couldn't have written a better one, and I'd like to believe he wrote it himself. Unfortunately, it wasn't easy, not to let my cynicism bleed into what I heard while I watched. I thought what he said was beautiful and moving and I believed every word of it. I believe in hard work, in our nation, in God and absolute truth. But I wondered, as I watched, who was silently cursing their television screen whenever he invoked God, who laughed and thought him naive when he spoke of that which was old and True. I wonder what it means, that for all our intellectual and political posturing, when someone speaks as he did, we can let those old grievances go. I don't think his invocation of God or Truth detracted from his speech in any way, but then I believe in both of them. I wondered who, in their spiny little hearts, would ruin a lovely moment by reminding themselves of their moral superiority for disbelieving in absolute Truth. I wondered who had paused in their day to hear his resounding words (I tried not to think about people who didn't bother to listen at all) and clapped, cheered, exulted when he spoke, and who will go about their daily lives pursuing their narrow interests, their own greed and glory and fame and chasing it all with as little work as possible. I might not have voted for him, and I might not agree with all his politics, but heavens to betsy, I believed every word he said.
And I'm going to do my best to be part of it.
I listened to Elizabeth Alexander's poem. I found someone's unofficial transcript of the thing (because line breaks are tricky to figure out just from someone's reading aloud), but it was difficult to read along. It looked like cobbled-together fridge-magnet poetry (which I love and am terrible at) but it sounded absolutely beautiful. Ms. Alexander is someone who remembers that poetry was first an oral tradition, for some people only an oral tradition, and if it looks good on paper but sounds awful aloud then what is the point of it. The way she read reminded me of my friend Ericka, whom I love to hear read poetry aloud. She read wistfully, solemnly, breathlessly, as if she were about to sing or pray, and I like to hear poetry read that way. My inner English major was overjoyed to hear poetry on such a momentous occasion.
Today at school someone said that, while we will remember Mr. Obama as the first black president, we should hope our children simply remember him as the 44th president. It's a nice hope. We'll see how that goes. Me, I think if we're going to be all anxious about having a PoC as president, it would be interesting to see a Native in office.
Just saying.
I had PR for the first time today - Tuesdays, after Sundays, are now officially my favorite day of the week - and Professor Strand is my law school equivalent of Dr. Calland. My friends from my days at SUU will understand what I mean. Her big exultation on this day of our new president was that he was, before in office, a lawyer. And people hate lawyers. Tell awful jokes about lawyers. But they forget that, for all that they hate us, they need us. Maybe we are a hateful necessity, but they need us more than they can imagine. How many people remember that our beloved Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer? That he was one of those corporate lawyers who did law for the railroads? I maintain my unvoiced belief that people wouldn't need lawyers if they learned for themselves. So often we in America are so desperate to claim heritage from that great Athenian democracy (nevermind that it was the Romans, not the Greeks, who had a sentate). One of the marks of Athenian democracy was that people represented themselves in court because they knew the law. People can learn the law just like I learn it in school every day, by hitting a few books now and again and figuring things out for themselves, because Abraham Lincoln was largely self-taught, and oftentimes the law back then was even more convoluted than it is now, what with our uniform codes and lovely printed digests and codifications. People hate us, but until they learn what their own laws our, what their own country stands for (hello, Constitution!) then they will continue to need us.
On a side note, some courts are now allowing alternate service of process via facebook. So, if you go on the lam from debts or anything and make sure no one knows your physical address, well, dump your facebook, myspace, and other social networking accounts.
A warning.
So many interesting things happened today. While everyone else was watching our new president's inauguration, I was huddled alone, on the couch in the commons, doing homework. All day I felt uneasy for not having watched history, but the moments in history I remember all seem to revolve around me sitting in a corner, doing homework.
I was sitting in a corner and doing homework when Squeaks came to tell me that someone had blown up the twin towers. I was sitting in a corner and doing homework when someone left a message on my phone down the hall to tell me he loved me and goodbye.
I didn't watch the speech with the others because I wanted to savor it on my own. I love language, and I will give our new president ten points on a scale of one to ten for making an absolutely beautiful speech. I couldn't have written a better one, and I'd like to believe he wrote it himself. Unfortunately, it wasn't easy, not to let my cynicism bleed into what I heard while I watched. I thought what he said was beautiful and moving and I believed every word of it. I believe in hard work, in our nation, in God and absolute truth. But I wondered, as I watched, who was silently cursing their television screen whenever he invoked God, who laughed and thought him naive when he spoke of that which was old and True. I wonder what it means, that for all our intellectual and political posturing, when someone speaks as he did, we can let those old grievances go. I don't think his invocation of God or Truth detracted from his speech in any way, but then I believe in both of them. I wondered who, in their spiny little hearts, would ruin a lovely moment by reminding themselves of their moral superiority for disbelieving in absolute Truth. I wondered who had paused in their day to hear his resounding words (I tried not to think about people who didn't bother to listen at all) and clapped, cheered, exulted when he spoke, and who will go about their daily lives pursuing their narrow interests, their own greed and glory and fame and chasing it all with as little work as possible. I might not have voted for him, and I might not agree with all his politics, but heavens to betsy, I believed every word he said.
And I'm going to do my best to be part of it.
I listened to Elizabeth Alexander's poem. I found someone's unofficial transcript of the thing (because line breaks are tricky to figure out just from someone's reading aloud), but it was difficult to read along. It looked like cobbled-together fridge-magnet poetry (which I love and am terrible at) but it sounded absolutely beautiful. Ms. Alexander is someone who remembers that poetry was first an oral tradition, for some people only an oral tradition, and if it looks good on paper but sounds awful aloud then what is the point of it. The way she read reminded me of my friend Ericka, whom I love to hear read poetry aloud. She read wistfully, solemnly, breathlessly, as if she were about to sing or pray, and I like to hear poetry read that way. My inner English major was overjoyed to hear poetry on such a momentous occasion.
Today at school someone said that, while we will remember Mr. Obama as the first black president, we should hope our children simply remember him as the 44th president. It's a nice hope. We'll see how that goes. Me, I think if we're going to be all anxious about having a PoC as president, it would be interesting to see a Native in office.
Just saying.
I had PR for the first time today - Tuesdays, after Sundays, are now officially my favorite day of the week - and Professor Strand is my law school equivalent of Dr. Calland. My friends from my days at SUU will understand what I mean. Her big exultation on this day of our new president was that he was, before in office, a lawyer. And people hate lawyers. Tell awful jokes about lawyers. But they forget that, for all that they hate us, they need us. Maybe we are a hateful necessity, but they need us more than they can imagine. How many people remember that our beloved Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer? That he was one of those corporate lawyers who did law for the railroads? I maintain my unvoiced belief that people wouldn't need lawyers if they learned for themselves. So often we in America are so desperate to claim heritage from that great Athenian democracy (nevermind that it was the Romans, not the Greeks, who had a sentate). One of the marks of Athenian democracy was that people represented themselves in court because they knew the law. People can learn the law just like I learn it in school every day, by hitting a few books now and again and figuring things out for themselves, because Abraham Lincoln was largely self-taught, and oftentimes the law back then was even more convoluted than it is now, what with our uniform codes and lovely printed digests and codifications. People hate us, but until they learn what their own laws our, what their own country stands for (hello, Constitution!) then they will continue to need us.
On a side note, some courts are now allowing alternate service of process via facebook. So, if you go on the lam from debts or anything and make sure no one knows your physical address, well, dump your facebook, myspace, and other social networking accounts.
A warning.
