Speak for yourself, Jack.

There is still serious racial inequality in America, as African Americans still make less money, have less education and are more likely to be the victims of crime and poor health. But racism was dealt a serious blow today, and it's harder to be an open racist in the 21st century.

Really...what specifically did he say that gave you this impression? I don't recall him talking about automobiles or shopping or anything like that, but I don't remember everything he said.

Materialism and resource hogging are not at all the messages that I'm getting from Obama. He's talked more about service and sacrifice than any American leader since the days of King and Kennedy. The day before the Inauguration, he and his wife spent the day participating in service projects. In the speech today, when he talked about the American Dream, he was clearly referring to ideals of freedom, personal responsibility, and social justice. He mentioned global warming, alternative energy and environmentalism early in the speech, emphasizing that we need to tackle these issues right away.

Barack "Fred" Obama on bicycle.

At one point, I saw a small peloton(6-8) of armed security officers in blue pacing the President's car but behind the crowd of people watching the parade. It would have been nice to see him on bicycle, but as it was said several times, the parade proceeded at the speed of a heavily armed man walking. Security!

I thought it was a good speech. I was disappointed that he didn't mention bicycles in his list of infrastructure projects, travel by rail wasn't mentioned either. But I was also disappointed that he didn't mention Buddhists, when he was listing important religions. I guess that's because they don't cause trouble in general.

I think that my expectations are lower than many. McCain swept Arkansas. Obama didn't even try here. So I was free to vote my concience and go for a 3rd party candidate. I think his ideals are good, but he's still got to contend with spineless Democrats and active conservatives. Conservatives who after rushing to support Bush's stimulus package, are now holding Obama's feet to the fire for the cost of it.

I'm just hoping that we can walk away from this era of insane politics. But it would be faster of course if we could pedal away from them.

All in all, this is the first time since Jimmy Carter was President that I wasn't completely appalled by our choice of leader. So there is hope.

Mr. President could stand to raise his saddle a bit,

He needs a little air in his tires also, but at least he representing. And he looks great in jeans, unlike most politicians.

Obama, in his inaugural address, briefly mentioned that, 50 years ago, he would not have been able to eat a meal in most restaurants in DC, and here he was, on the steps of a building built by slaves, speaking to the people as their new president. This is a tidy summation of the progress we've made, and that progress is very real. It's quite true that a good number of Americans are still as racist as ever, but they are a distinct minority, as the elections results show, and their numbers are rapidly shrinking. The majority of people on the Mall today were Caucasian, and they looked very happy to see an African American take the oath of office. (OK, it was probably mingled with joy that the new president was actually capable of speaking in coherent, grammatically correct sentences.) The glimpses of African Americans on the screen were little tableaus of relief and joy. I can imagine that, after centuries of brutal slavery, and another century and a half of continued disenfranchisement, this must feel like a transcendent moment of final acceptance to many Americans. Don't ruin this moment for yourself by being more cynical than the situation calls for.

It went off as well as I could expect. Herding a couple million people around isn't easy, especially when nearly half of the streets branching off the Mall are blocked by the parade route and staging areas. The people who had problems were the impatiently *****y types who'd normally complain about anything that didn't go their way.

I didn't ride, because I didn't want to create a hassle if I got in shoulder-to-shoulder crowds (which I did). I also didn't need to bother with the valet parking (sorry, gwd) because I just live too close already. So, I stopped by my favorite sandwich shop for a breakfast croissant, walked down from the Hill, looped around the White House, and ended up on the far side of the WWII Memorial for the oaths. I took my time and walked back up the Mall as the crowds dispersed, and returned home after about 7-8 hours. A little under 8 miles of walking total -- which, honestly, still isn't far enough to make me wish I had biked instead.

Agreed. The majority of white Americans voted for McCain/Palin, so if the election had only counted the votes of whites (as the founding fathers intended), they would have won by a landslide. It took a massive turnout by blacks and Hispanics to get Obama and Biden elected. Still, we've come a long way.

Who is Jack? I was not "speaking" for anyone but myself and my own observations. The subtle clue was that I wrote it.... please do not lecture me about my observations.

I read an analysis of the election that said Obama would have won even if there had been only a normal or average turnout of African Americans and Hispanics.

Another thing I was thinking is that McCain himself is not a racist. Neither were most of the people who voted for him. (Neither is Bush, for that matter.) It looks like McCain will be Obama's "go to guy" for communicating with the Republicans in the Senate, according to pundits.

Obama himself said that some people would vote against him because he's black, but others would vote for him for the same reason. He reckoned those two groups would more or less even out, and that's why an African American could become president. It sounds like a simple concept, but I don't think anybody ever thought of it before Obama.

+1 This is all I was trying to say. I am not cynical but all I see a bunch of red states and a bunch of blue states with a couple of swings. I am not saying that all red states are full of racists or that all blue states are not. We indeed have come a long way but that does not belittle the fact that there was a VERY VERY LONG WAY that we needed to go in the first place, we have a VERY LONG WAY to go.

I don't think many people would disagree with this formulation of your idea. It reads smoother than your earlier posts, while conveying the same concept.

I can agree with that.

We will not apologise for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defence

After math: After large events on the mall I look at the amount of litter left on the ground by the various groups. Its a concrete way to asses the type people who attended. The Obama crowd seems cleaner than the 4th of July crowd but not as clean as the people who come out for the National Symphony and way cleaner than the Christian groups. Of course if the security restrictions hadn't forbidden backpacks and coolers the litter level might have been much higher. For some reason on the multi use paths back to Virginia people dumped their little hand warmer packets. I don't get why people can't just carry those little things until they see a trash can. They aren't that heavy or messy. The bike paths and streets were pretty clear of debris this morning. When I was parking bikes, I saw that many people were stuffing drinks and food in their coat pockets so there was a huge potential for trashy streets, apparently most attendees used trash cans or had the pack-it-in, pack-it-out philosophy.

"To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect."

BTW, also a good discussion of the Inaugural speech on Climate Progress. That is, the article is good, the comments are weak compared to what you read in this thread.

I wish I could have been there, but at least I got to see much of it on TV here at work. Just as after election day, I got to hear all sorts of racist comments from my coworkers, though this time much of it was of a joking nature. (Not that that makes it okay, but it's less disturbing than the comments I heard on Nov. 5) So these people do still exist, though I'm hopeful that they are a dying breed. To be honest, lately I've kind of lost a lot of hope for America, but after yesterday I have a small bit a renewed optimism. America's kind of like a smart teenager who does some stupid things, but can also come up with brilliant ideas and is actually a pretty good kid.

Interesting.

I think the environment is a more important issue for Obama himself than it is for many of his supporters.

Right now, in the majority black HS where I teach, only 6 students have shown up to take their semester final exam. [sarcasm] I'm not sure that they've gotten the message about how everything is better for them now. [/sarcasm]

My point is, that the schools are still broken and there are miles to go before we can celebrate.

The problems of racism have ingrained themselves into communities like this. It will take a good deal of time to truly establish equality.

It's not entirely up to whites, either. Overcoming a little predjudice in the voting booth is one thing....

Racism and racial inequality are related, but they're not the same thing. Inequality is transgenerational, and it will outlive racism by 100 years, if we don't work hard to overcome it. Obama talks a lot about personal responsibility, and makes it clear that this applies to blacks as well as whites. Especially parents.

We also need a fairer distribution of wealth, seeing as African American incomes are much lower than the median figures. This means reform in education, the job market and entrepeneurial opportunities.

I have a couple guesses --

They just plain dropped them while taking off their gloves or moving things in their pockets. Or, their hands got warm enough, so they put them in a pocket -- then it got hotter there, so they ditched them in pain and exasperation.

There were a LOT of newspapers strewn about the north side of the Washington Monument. No idea why they were all there. Some girl was sitting on the edge of the walkway with her friends saying, "Leave no trace!"

I carried my breakfast with me and ate on the move, and held onto it until I could find a good place to dispose of it. It took about an hour of walking before I found a trash can that wasn't already overflowing (and, actually, it was because a worker was in the process of changing the bags, and I put mine in the nearly-full bag that he was about to close).

We need to get away from using so much disposal crap, especially plastic. This blog shows how it can be done.

*yawn* Okay, go and tell every single business here about it. Grocery store, deli, restaurant, dry cleaners, bookstore, etc.

I saw a headline today that said cleanup crews worked overnight so maybe they aren't as tidy as my morning impression. The Obama people weren't there to petition the government this weekend. The people who do come to petition the government seem clueless when they leave a bunch of trash in their wake. If you guys come here for a car free rally or something, remember the congressmen and senators and their staff, the people who make decisions will come to work past any litter and garbage you leave behind. If they see the Mall- a national park, all clean and green they won't think much of it. That is how it is supposed to look. If they see piles of garbage that you left behind, they'll remember you in a bad way as in "Those bicyclists don't care enough about our national parks to find a trash can or pack it out, why should we care about their bike lanes?"