Historic Day! Barack - the Blessed and the Good!

So many emotions fighting to take control of this page!

The first, that America, the country, the institutions, the people have come through and made good. It still will not compensate for the many lives that have been lost or marred forever, it will not bring back the vast sums of money and resources squandered in terms of arms and munitions equipment that were built to merely destroy life and property, it will not bring back the economy that was used to deficit-finance this paranoia-driven conflict. But America has brought itself back from the brink!

The second, that it was achieved by this brilliant talented young man so appropriately named Barack Hussein Obama, as Juan Cole so beautifully explained it:

"Barack is a Semitic word meaning "to bless" as a verb or "blessing" as a noun. In its Hebrew form, barak, it is found all through the Bible. It first occurs in Genesis 1:22: "And God blessed (ḇāreḵə ) them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth."

Here is a list of how many times barak appears in each book of the Bible.

Now let us take the name "Hussein." It is from the Semitic word, hasan, meaning "good" or "handsome." Husayn is the diminutive, affectionate form."

The graceful way he carried himself, conducted his campaign, politically and strategically challenged his opponents through the primaries and the general elections, are so completely in synch that there is not one discordant note. All this while attending to the needs of his young family and holding on as much as possible to their privacy, while at the same time drawing on their support where possible... I'm just blown away by it all. My younger son, so presciently remarked - and he's just a human being after all. Well, he's a human being "with a righteous wind at his back."

This is what originally drew me to America. This is why I thought it would be a good idea to become a citizen. Only to be ruing the thought for the past 8 years!

But I have come back, come back from the brink myself! And I'm ready to believe in it again.