Today is the inauguration of Obama as the 44th president of the U.S.

I was having some discussions about the job that he’s undertaking, and wanted to put some things down.

The job is not easy, does not pay an amazing salary, and changes the life of the job holder for life.

The primary focus of today’s happenings in Washington D.C. is the transfer of office from GWB to Obama, and the main moment is when he is “sworn in”. The oath of office is really rather short:

“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

That sounds very simple and easy. It sounds like what military personnel, peace officers, and any public servant of any level would be striving to do. The second half, anyway.

The “office of the president” in basic, explicit terms is this:

“The power of the executive branch is vested in the President, who also serves as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. The President appoints the Cabinet and oversees the various agencies and departments of the federal government.”

This job is the embodiment of one-third of the government of the U.S. It’s the public vision of leadership and influence of a nation. It’s very different from similar posts found in other governments, with all the facets and responsibilities.

How does daily work of the US President affect your daily life? The policy he writes, the decisions made as far as the use of the armed forces, the diplomatic agreements made… It might not be immediate, but every president has made an impact in shaping things here in our melting pot.

what’s his daily life going to look like? Here is Time Magazine’s take.

The day after the general presidential election, I saw two articles that sort of fragmented a lot of the feelings about the day’s events.
I was reading this article about the new hope, the new era, the transformation in the daily lives of everyone, everywhere. This grand news showing that people really are people, that americans are finally showing signs that racism is dying off, and that anyone from anywhere can truly contribute, make a difference, and succeed in this world….
And then I read
this article about a surprising, brutal murder of an interracial newlywed couple, about how nice they were, how hardworking, what team-players they were, and that the suspects were all part of his daily team.

Of course, these are anecdotes, but it seems that americans still have a long way to tread. Looking at Prop 8 in California, and a whole year’s worth of headlines about homosexual unions and the discussion, oh, the roundabouts about legalities and rights. There are a lot of times in these discussions where I feel like the battle is truly lost. Not the debate, mind you: once a line (or any other geometrical shape) is drawn in the sand, everyone starts working up their arguments for their “side”, which is a great exercise. Then when the debates start happening, everyone gets bogged down in sound bites (misappropriated quotations), and the brewing of more acerbic arguments, and *that* is when the battle is lost. That’s the point when I start feeling like the discussion stalls, and no-one involved has a clear view of the facts anymore. The focus becomes the fight, rather than on perspective. The whole issue then boils bown to simple, constant, refutiation of the “other side”, which never settles anything except each side claiming that they are right, and there isn’t any progress anymore.

I think that I’ve mentioned here and in a few other “spaces” that I’ve been following closely the BBC show “Skins”. The other night, I went to see Danny Boyle’s latest movie, “Slumdog Millionaire”. Danny Boyle was the director of “Trainspotting” and “28 Days Later”, and has a knack for the hard part of storytelling; making it all hit home. Slumdog is a dynamite film, and I feel that I did a disservice to myself in not seeing it the day it was released. It has all the classic elements of a fairytale plot, including lost love, the underdog, rags to riches, lucid moral dilemmas, and good-guys-versus-bad-guys. The veil of the fairytale is not lily-white, however. The attention to detail in the story, the endless squalor, fleeting moments of elation, the brutal situations we are faces with along the journey make the whole story pop and crackle with reality. I haven’t seen a film in years that had its hand on my pulse like this, giving equal treatment to a whole range of emotion and thought. Dev Patel (who plays the part of Anwar in Skins) takes the lead in Slumdog, a story of a kid who made his own way from a blighted area of Mumbai, and in a plucky turn has ended up as a contestant in the Indian version of ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’. As the quiz show breaks for the night, he is arrested under suspicion of cheating because he was doing “too well” on the quiz. I will stop here so that I don’t drop any spoilers.
You should not miss this movie. I found it showing at a theater locally that is known to show mainly “art house” and foreign films. It will definitely go on the want list when it’s out on DVD…. I’ll also be looking for the soundtrack by AR Rahman, and featuring a couple of tracks by M.I.A.