Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Obama Mentions Non-believers

In his inauguration speech yesterday Obama mentioned us:
We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers.Barack Obama and Michelle ObamaImage via Wikipedia
Not a big mention but I did point it out when I reviewed his speech. I liked it but didn't think it was any big deal. IsThatLatin over on Wrong In Their Mind Tanks has a very different take on it:
Obama listed the big religions, and ones emerging, in our country, and then, after the briefest of pauses, he added us. I prefer not to read that pause as a hesitation. That pause seemed added so as to prepare the nation for what he was about to add--that he knew it was the first time, that it meant a lot. To my ear, it read like poety--not in some deep, sentimental way, but in it's construct. We were at the end, and maybe some cynics would prefer we were at the start, or mixed in the middle. But that pause, and that final word--"non-believers"--acted as punctuation. To my ear, that word became bigger and louder than the others. Maybe Muslims and Hindus feel the same way, but, as polls show, America hates us most.
I'm not really sure it's that big a deal but I got a real kick out of how excited she was over it, had me smiling for over an hour. And that is something that is always good for me these days.

Now, maybe she will pop over here and explain the name of her blog.

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