A New Year, A New Start

With it already being most of the way through January, one wonders where the time has gone. Three weeks have past since New Years Eve, where a spectacular fireworks display lit up Sydney Harbour from all directions, but I'd be darned if I knew what happened in between. I think that is, however, a good thing.

2009 is a new start for me, with life having a radical change of direction, or at very least a refocus. But, bigger than that, it feels like a new starts for many of us. I'm referring to of course, about the election of Obama to presidency of the United States. Nothing has quite captured the imagination of the world - or at least the developed world's media -for some time. And it is indeed momentus. With the inauguration ceremony just over 24 hours away, it will shortly be upon us that that most ridiculed and inattely hilarious of public spekers, our friend Dubya, will no longer be in charge of the most powerful armed forces of the world, that torched being passed to someone who is hopefully more sensible and intelligent. Or at least someone who can form a coherent sentence. That we already know.

What remains to be seen is if he can bring about this change that he claims to be able to bring. I think he will be able to, and the reason I think that is because he has done something very clever. By not talking down to his audience, but including them, by engaging with them, he has created a great sense that we are all in this together. That the challenges we face as a human race at the point - the famine, hunger, wars, the dwindling economy, climate change and dwindling resources - are something that we can deal with and can overcome. We have hope again.

So let's hope he can come through with his ambitious plans, and that everybody does their small part to get ourselves out of this mess we're in.

Unless of course he gets assassinated at the inauguration.

That would suck.