I am breaking a few self-enforced "work rules" this morning, and I feel no shame or guilt about it. I have
the television in my office turned on to watch the inaugural proceedings, sound turned down, but a distraction
anyway. I should be preparing for an upcoming conference call, but I'm blogging because I'm captivated by what's
happening in Washington. Thoughts in no particular order:
Listening to the screams - not just cheers, but screams - of the crowd as the motorcade progresses, it's
audibly clear that Obama is bigger than the Beatles.
NBC commentators mis-identify Michelle Obama's brother Craig in the crowd. The black and orange scarf gets
a locomotive cheer.
Long-lived institutions - governments, universities, religions - change in time scales relative to their own
existence. They
remain immune to change as long as their constituents refuse to repair pre-conceived notions of
leadership or longevity; you have to embrace the diversity of a larger whole to benefit from it. As I
frequently tell prospective students during interviews, Princeton didn't admit women as undergraduates
until 1969, and it was nearly another 30 years until incoming classes reflected the gender demographics
of the larger body of global university students. But Princeton is a decidedly better place having
made the change. What tenets of "Washington as usual" will the Obama administration challenge?
I'm eagerly anticipating an administration that embraces science, that encourages innovation,
that names a national CTO, that used modern grass roots support mechanisms to
truly grasp the spirit of the American people.
Despite parallels drawn to JFK (age and appeal) and Lincoln, the better Presidential model is
Andrew
Jackson. His inaugural party was the subject of high school history classes; an open party
in the White House then is a multi-million strong crowd on the Mall today.
Obama is truly a President reflective of the larger whole of the American people. To be fair,
he's not going to single-handedly going to fix the financial environment, the global
ecological environment, or the economic situation. But if we're encouraged, empowered, and
enabled to create change, the fixes can emerge. Obama's inauguration is an historic day,
and I'm hoping it's only a leading indicator of the history to be written.