President Obama, Hillary and the Macman's blog

Today is the first day of the next four years under our first biracial President. While everyone talks up the fact that he is African-American, what seems to get lost in the shuffle is the fact that he is half white and was raised by a white mother who came from the Midwest. To me that makes who he is and what he has achieved even more remarkable. The races have come together within his own DNA. I wish him the very best in helping our country to heal to be all of us rather than some of us and THEM ( whomever THEM might be ). We certainly need to heal after the last 8 years. Two wars and the economy in shambles. I personally wish that there were no bailouts for all these rich banks and Wall Street. Is that helping the average American? I think not. But what happens in the future is now on the shoulders of a man who today took the oath of office. I would not want to run for President in the very best of times. It would be an incredible burden. But for those children to aspire to dream those dreams, having a biracial president has made that dream even more possible for ALL of us rather than just some of us. I am hoping and praying that Obama does a good job and that in 4 years we are on the road to recovery. 

In 8 years ( if he does a good job he will be re-elected unless Americans are unspeakably brain dead ) maybe we can break the glass ceiling and put a woman in the White House. Of course, being a Democrat, I would say that would probably be Hillary Clinton though who knows what female would come up through the ranks to challenge the status quo. After all, who was Barack Obama 8 years ago? And while I am certainly not "for" a Republican president, even if it were to be a woman. I want the best person for the office of President and it would not matter their gender, the color of their skin, superficial things such as that. 

So for now we have a biracial President, and we are hanging our hopes on him to make things right after so much wrong. It will not be easy and one hopes that we can do this together, Democrats and Republicans, Greens and Independents, as much as possible. I hope that we can put America back to work and I hope that we can return to strong unions with in shop training and a decent wage, pensions and health benefits that won't bankrupt a family. Hope, hope and more hope and yes we can! But we need to all roll up our shirt sleeves and get to work to make this country great again.

 I am an American and love this country. I do not  love her blindly, right or wrong, as I will speak up when it is wrong ---but that is part of the beauty of being an American, knowing that I CAN speak up when I might disagree with the majority on any given issue. Right now the majority is in a warm fuzzy afterglow concerning our new president. I will praise him when he does good and criticize when he screws up. And he will and already has his naysayers and they have the right to criticize him. That is the beauty of living in a country with  a first amendment that protects our free speech. I might not agree with you but will defend your right to disagree with me when it comes to the Constitution of my country. Considering that there are countries where you could be shot for criticizing a ruler that is a big thing.

Now on to another subject. This little blog came into being with the help of my brother Hal aka the Macman. He is also the hiking man and has climbed some pretty high mountains. Right now he is working on his New Years' resolution to hike every day this year. Check him out! He is listed in my blogs that I watch. But you can also get there :http://hikeeveryday.blogspot.com/ He has some witty little comments and some beautiful photos of the Coachella Valley (Palm Springs is what outsiders call it but folks who live here refer to the area as the Coachella Valley or the Valley as Palm Springs is only one small city in the Valley ). And you can tell him his sister, the Snooty Aunt Cynthia, sent you for a peek. :-) 

SAC