Shortly after taking the oath of office at his inauguration today, Barack Obama delivered his highly anticipated inauguration address. In the speech, Obama pointed out the problems with our country that he now must face as President, focusing mostly on the “badly weakened” economy. President Obama told the people of America:

“Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America – they will be met.”

As usual, Obama was inspiring and eloquent. I thought the speech really set the mood for the next 4 years to come, and the mood of “change” was definitely in the air. I’m excited to watch Obama fulfill his goals and bring about the change everyone is hoping for.

What about you? What did you think of Obama’s speech?

(And if you missed the speech, you can read the transcript here.)

It marks the end of an era when American politics were plagued with apathetic citizens, who found nothing in the candidates inspiring enough to take a passionate interest in.

It marks the end of an era when race was an invisible barrier over politics, the end of affirmative action being a weapon against the status quo, and the end of divisions in America over race. Barack Obama has attained the highest office of the American political system, and to some people, the free world. There is no reason anymore why any good citizen of America should not be able to succeed in their goals and dreams through diligence and perseverance, because it has been proven that the highest goal can be accomplished by normal people.

Finally, it marks the end of an era when the media was an impartial observer in the American Political system, and when committed voters were educated properly about their candidates. During the 2008 election, there was an enthusiasm towards our democracy that has not been seen in years. There was also, however, a vast prevalence of ignorance on both sides, and it was spurred by a media that displayed ruthless bias not seen in years. Mainstream news magazine Newsweek published six issues with covers devoted exclusively to Barack Obama, five of them issues in this year alone. 2008 was a year in which public opinion was ruled by media portrayal of political affairs.

The wedding is overshadowing the marriage. The Inauguration has magnified into something bordering on a spectacle, with commemorative trinkets being hawked in every possible commercial medium, and huge celebrations being planned across the country. Happiness and joy at an inauguration are not bad things. Blind euphoria and an unwillingness to accept shortcomings in the president-elect are.

As a conservative and a Republican, I don’t have high expectations for the next four, and possibly the next eight, years. Seeing Obama’s face doesn’t fill me with pride and hope, but a nervous concern for our country’s well-being with an untested president. I could be wrong. With Hillary Clinton as his very intelligent, very acquainted with international diplomacy Secretary of State, we could finally help the world see us as more than a distant and isolated giant. Hillary’s participation in his cabinet gives me hope that America will at least remain stable in international affairs, if not find diplomatic success.

I don’t believe Obama is a terrorist foreigner, but I don’t have much faith in the presiding ability of a man whose career rises from the infamous political machines of Chicago, Illinois. He remains untested, having been nearly completely cushioned from criticism by a media that remains vastly doting upon him. Without having faced adversity against his policies from a large portion of America, I believe he lacks the realistic gravity taken on by politicians who must fiercely defend their policies from a critical media.

I’m happy that a majority of American citizens are bonding together in what must be a very happy time. I’m glad that patriotism is at a recent-years high, as well as pride in our country. But at the same time, I wonder in the back of my mind if such limitless support will blind Americans to the shortcomings of their chosen leader, and draw them heedlessly into the cult of personality maintained by the media and faithful supporters. I take the optimism and euphoria of the inauguration with a grain of salt, because such unified support and utter faith in national leaders has taken a very grim turn in several times in history. If we are going to serve a president with whom we are not well acquainted, we must be willing to call him on the mistakes he makes, and not cushion his errors to maintain high approval.

I applaud America for a historic decision in the elections, but I caution America against turning a blind eye towards the new President’s novice mistakes.

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The Inauguration of our 44th president is on tomorrow, and frankly I can’t remember anyone ever really caring about this ceremonial aspect of an election. Until this year.

And, wow, do they care.

D.C is “poppin’ off,” as the kids say. People have been partying all week, and will continue all week. What seems like the entire world is flocking to DC and my campus is on security lock-down, since GW is only 4 blocks from the White House. A huge, free concert with everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Beyonce to Bono was held on the National Mall on yesterday to celebrate. There are legit balls, as in Cinderella balls, to honor this man. Even the Metro tickets have Obama on them. Signs, posters, and more port-o-potties than you can fathom are popping up all over the city. This is big.

It is all strangely reminiscent of the scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy accidentally crushes the Wicked Witch with her house, and all the little munchkins are crazy happy. Ding, Dong, the witch is dead Bush is gone!

As much as I like partying (and Bruce Springsteen!), as much as I want to see Bush retreat to Crawford and stay there forever, this event is really about Obama. Not too long ago, only about 40 years back, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to a sea of people (down the street from my dorm building!) about a dream he had, in which his children would be judged “not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” This was a time, as we all know, when a black person was given less rights than a white person. A black person would not be allowed to eat in certain segregated restaurants, let alone become the leader of the free world. And just one hundred years before that, that same person would not have even had freedom. I know these are heavy issues, but it is so amazing that Dr. King’s prophecy has literally fulfilled itself in the same city of his famous dream’s inception.

Whether or not you voted for Obama (or own multiple Obama tees from Urban, like me), you can appreciate that this year America did something absolutely incredible. People with a belief, a cause and a whole lot of hope, rallied behind a single man and accomplished something I honestly did not think could happen.

During this Inauguration time, I encourage you to celebrate and party hard or whatever, because this is a great time to be an American, but also take this day to seriously reflect on the nation in which you live and what it is capable of. I am proud, and I think it is safe to assume Martin Luther King Junior would agree.

JC Penney is gettin’ cute!

Is Beyonce trying out for Divas on Ice?

Romance makes us barf (sometimes).

Justin Timberlake: Vote in a Box

7 fashion rules every lady should break.

Funny woman, Amy Sedaris, is getting her own show!

Salma Hayek’s baby will never go hungry.

Election rap battle.

Please God, let this end with Spencer’s head in that bucket.

Miley Cyrus finished her autobiography. Because 15 years takes so long to cover.

Don’t forget to watch the final presidential debate tonight!

The other thing that paralyzed me, and that made me think it wouldn’t matter if I voted even in the presidential election, was the electoral college. I’m from good old Massachusetts — you know, the first state to legalize gay marriage, the so-blue-we-don’t-even- see-the-color-red state, the most liberal state in the union. There is never a contest about who wins our state’s votes. In fact, the politicians don’t even try; in the last election, I didn’t see a single presidential campaign ad.

So why bother voting? My vote amounts to a spit in the wind, and as long as we’re not talking about national popular vote as an option, things are going to stay that way. Still, though, I felt a renewed urge to cast my vote this year, because more than ever it seems like a year when a tremendous amount is at stake. Like hundreds of millions of others, I’ve seen my country slowly going down the tubes in the past eight years. It’s gotten a lot harder to be proud of my country, and I see the ideals it stands for increasingly obscured by smoke.

That’s when I found out that several states — including my college’s state of New Jersey — have voted to pledge their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular election. Hot damn, my vote counts for one vote again! It’s a very exciting and rebellious move on the part of several states who are tired of only Ohio and Pennsylvania getting all the love.

So I registered!

And you should too. For all you college students out there, register for an absentee ballot the next time you’re in your hometown, or you can register to vote in your college’s state as long as you have a resident address there. College democratic and republican organizations are eager to register young voters, so they often have booths up in public spaces on campus to help you get registered (and are always giving away free stuff!). Go to that extra effort to be a first-timer and you’ll feel invested in your country’s politics and future to a whole new degree.

So for those of you who feel apathetic the way I did, I urge you to reconsider this year. There’s just too much at stake to sit idly by — and this time, your vote just might make a heck of a difference.

Lots of people were inspired and made hopeful by Hillary Clinton’s relative success as a candidate, which was undeniably historic; even if you preferred Obama’s policies (as I did), Hillary Clinton made it possible to believe that someday, some woman might be elected President of the United States. Many of the same people were disappointed when Obama picked Joe Biden, Long-Time White Dude, to be his running mate. He could have chosen Sebelius! Hell, maybe he could even have chosen Clinton! What is Grandpa doing at the party?

Then, John McCain picked Palin as his VP.

You see, the press has been operating, for many months, under the following three assumptions: 1) women supported Hillary because she was a lady, 2) women who supported Hillary hated Obama, 3) these women (who, one must assume, are Democrats) are so fuzzy on the whole “politics” thing that they will vote against Obama even if it means supporting a candidate who has basically nothing in common with HRC, because women always vote with our emotions and simple logic (as in, “if you can’t vote for HRC, vote for the most similar candidate”) is beyond us.

If you believe all this, then nominating a lady on the Republican ticket was a super-savvy move! Women, the theory ran, would be so blinded by vagina that we’d rush to vote for McCain and his Special Lady Friend, and we’d ignore the fact that, in his years as a senator, McCain has persistently voted against the rights and interests of women.

So yes, at first, I was insulted. (“Does McCain really think I’m going to vote against my own interests because he’s picked Token McLadypants?”) Then, I was despondent. (“Oh, my god, people are going to fall for this, my right to choose is DOOMED.”) Now, however, as more and more information about Sarah Palin surfaces, I am absolutely ecstatic. Because Sarah Palin is her own – and her party’s – worst enemy.

Let’s pick an issue. A simple issue. Something like… oh, let’s say, birth control. Sarah Palin has stated publicly that she will not support education about birth control in public schools. Then, of course, her 17-year-old daughter got knocked up. Gosh, it sure seems like some education about birth control could have prevented that! Or perhaps, if her birth control failed, some EC – though it’s unlikely Palin would support that, since evangelical Christians (of which Palin is one) tend to believe that it constitutes abortion (which Sarah Palin is adamantly against) even though there’s no evidence that EC can terminate a pregnancy once it’s begun. Then again, by talking about “evidence,” we’re veering dangerously close to the realm of science, to which Sarah Palin is also opposed: she has supported teaching creationism (or, as it is also known, “Magic Jesus Studies”) in public schools, and doesn’t believe in global warming.

Let’s move on. Surely, since Sarah Palin is opposed to birth control and abortion, she’ll support teenage mothers who choose not to abort their unplanned pregnancies, right? I mean, they represent everything she’s working so hard to create! Wrong: Sarah Palin chose to cut funding to the Passage House center for teenage mothers. To be fair, she also cut funding to several other programs aimed at helping at-risk or troubled teenagers, and apparently did almost nothing to address the failing educational system of her state, so she seems to be against children in general – at least, once they’ve left the womb.

Voters will be glad to know that Palin isn’t wasting taxpayers’ money. Instead of spending it on things like education or support for people in need, she’s concentrating on the essentials, like shooting wolves from helicopters.

Yes.

That’s right.

Sarah Palin supported a government-funded program to SHOOT F–KING WOLVES FROM GODDAMN HELICOPTERS. You get in the helicopter, fly over some wolves, and shoot them. This is a favorite hobby of hers, apparently! She wants taxes to pay for it! You cannot make this up. This is one more step in Sarah Palin’s lifelong campaign against nature, which also includes a proposal to drill in wildlife reserves, and probably a “kicking baby squirrels to death” initiative we haven’t heard about yet.

So, yes: Sarah Palin hates children, animals, and knowledge, is wrong about pretty much everything, and is usually wrong in a spectacularly bizarre fashion. She’s probably her party’s greatest liability at the moment. However, even if she doesn’t become our next Vice President, there’s a chance that she could end up running a country. She has extended her support to the Alaskan Independence Party, which wants Alaska to secede from the United States, so she could very well wind up becoming the new Empress of Coldsvania. This, combined with drilling in wildlife reserves, means that in a few years, we may actually invade Alaska in order to get control of its oil.

We’ll have to watch out for the Alaskan army, though. They’ve got those wolf-shooting planes.

[IMAGE 1: The terrifying maw of Sarah Palin, taken from uberdesi.com]

[IMAGE 2: Sarah Palin wins yet another victory over the Godless caribou that plague our nation. Yes, it's really her. She's "pro-life," you see, which explains why she spends so much time killing things. Image from the Sydney Morning Herald, www.smh.com.au]

A growing sense of disdain for Dubya didn’t cut it. Being able to register at the DMV just didn’t do the trick either. P. Diddy couldn’t get us to do it, for Christ’s sake. So just what will it take to seriously win the youth vote? We are, after all, 20 million strong and dammit we deserve to be wooed!

I, for one, would like to see an increase in, shall we say, “game” from candidates both blue and red. McCain, obviously, has taken a step toward this lofty goal by recruiting the support of one of our high holy leaders. Sorry, Obama, that you have neglected to secure such a prestigious pledge of loyalty from the chosen generation (us, duh) but feel free to borrow any of these gems that I think would increase voter turnout for those of the youthful persuasion. You see gentlemen, the key to our hearts is to manipulate our basic dependence upon the following:

Natty Lite

Slap some platform positions on the back of those bad boys and cover up the saddening nutrition facts–we don’t need to see that anyways. I consider this a double-edged sword. Not only would the important issues be readily at hand (provided you go coozie-less), but additionally, voters can appreciate the conversational lubrication that is cheap beer. As inspiring as 4.2% alcohol can be to philosophical convos (if you drink, don’t EVEN pretend you’ve never been there post bar crawl!) that stuff takes a while to imbibe, making those discussions last just a wee bit longer. Now that a pseudo intellectual discush has gone down, both candidates have enjoyed spirited (literally) debate over their issues that should inspire sober consideration come November.

Facebook.

Okay so beyond groups, events, Flair, etc., Facebook remains a largely untapped renewable resource that neither of the candidates have considered drilling off the coast of. I, however, have pondered many a time just what my life would be like should bumper stickers ever be converted into useable currency. The first guy who figures out how to do this (come on Congress, I know you’ve thought about it too!) could easily channel the power of a demographic that has more disposable free time than disposable income. Split it down the middle of the “recently popular category”– McCain gets all proceeds from those vintagey pastel ones with witty quips and Obama nabs all those concerning Edward Cullen, whoever he is. Convert those bad boys to campaign donations and hot damn we might just end world hunger.

Pizza.

A dietary need for everyone from Rhodes Scholars to Stoners, and all of us in between. If only the powers that be had thought to harness this essence of cheesy, carby goodness. So it may seem a little unorthodox, but hey, this is def a ground breaking race. So to demonstrate just how far you would go to serve your people (sit down McCain) I’m almost positive that door to door delivery of pies is the way to go. It proves you’re omnipresent (watch out terror!), punctual (30 minutes or it’s free!) and dedicated to the needs of your public (fatty deliciousness.)

Thirsty Thursdays.

A hallowed staple of coeds across the nation, Thursday nights are a beacon of hope throughout a heavy week of exams, papers, and lectures that make it seem like Friday will never come. So we said f*ck it, started the weekend early and vowed to slog through hungover Friday classes. I think this kind of pluck and determination should be recognized by the men fighting for our loyalty. Personally, I feel that there’s a lot to be said for the ability of wasted people to recall song lyrics– attend any AYCD with a Dave Matthews Cover Band and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Boys, I’m thinking you should use the power of blind conformity to your advantage and have O.A.R. write your campaign songs from now on; let the sound of your manufactured ideals pour into your ears from the mouths of random drunks of our great country. Conversely, I am a staunch adversary of drinking and driving, and I’m sure you both are too. To reinforce your standpoint, I suggest you put your money where your billion dollar defense budget is: pay our cab fare for the ride home!

So there you have it: our necessities. And unless you can find a way to guarantee state sponsored booty calls (this would be a good time to consider Spitzer for a running mate) you just won’t get any closer to secure the “youth vote.” Of course I realize that these are highly generalized (some might even suggest degrading) paths to our vote, but so far the best anyone’s come up with is MTV cramming their airtime with veejays and celebrities urging us to “rock the vote.” So, ya know, until the grown ups figure out we’re capable of intelligent thought and all, any more brilliant ploys our future president can use to earn our vote?

His popularity is high among America’s youth, as he promotes their culture and holds many of the same liberal views stereotypically attributed to this age group.

Another group Obama scores big with? The hip hop community.

Obama has appeared on the cover of this month’s Vibe Magazine and is nicknamed “B-Rock” within its pages, according to a recent report by CNN. Although, in the past, Barack Obama has been accused of criticizing rap music, his recent meeting with esteemed (and unforgivably raunchy) rapper Ludacris is said to have been focused upon “empowering the youth” and promoting AIDS awareness, according to the Chicago Sun Times.

Rappers seem to forgive Obama for his lack of musical support, as his name has been mentioned in a variety of rap songs such as “The People” by Common and Talib Kweli’s “Say Something”. In these songs, the rappers aquaint Obama with positive change and the empowerment of African Americans.

All of this free publicity contributes to Obama’s alternate style of approaching the election. Obama Girl unintentionally stirred up the public when she appeared in a video unsponsered by the candidate’s campaign. Now, a slew of rap songs (again, obviously not sponsered by a man who has apprehended the lewdness of rap and its disrespect against women) are cropping up left and right.

While it seems paradoxical for rappers to support a man who has insulted their art and avoids discussing rap music in order to avoid being pegged as a “rap hater”, it also shows that rappers care about the government as much they care about Bentley’s and half naked women…thank God.

Don’t get me wrong, I care. I am informed. But I’m easily distracted by less abstract issues, like what kind of conditioner to buy, or whether my cubicle mate meant to rub my shoulder like that. And after eight years with this current buffoon in office, it’s easy to become disillusioned and look the other way.

Sad, right? Abstract is the last thing the political system should be. But face it, American politicians act more like self – interested, fame – starved celebrities than advocates for the progression of mankind. Paris Hilton for president, anyone? With the Terminator holding down California, it’s not such a far – out prospect.

That’s why I’m grateful for Michael Moore, with his nosy, annoying, righteous knee – jerk liberal fastidiousness. I’m not one to base my vote on a film, but “Fahrenheit 911,” “Bowling for Columbine” and “Roger and Me” were jarring works of cinema. Despite how many “inaccuracies” people claimed they contained, their messages rang true and clear: America’s got problems.

So I wasted no time sticking it to the government last night and got to watch half of a pirated version of Moore’s forthcoming film, “Sicko.” “Sicko” examines America’s less – than – ideal private health care system and the political goons that fuel it (namely, a one Hillary Clinton). With the ’08 election gaining momentum so early, this film couldn’t come at a better time. Every day someone new is entering the presidential race, but there’s no clear frontrunner. “Sicko” is gonna make it even harder for the current talking heads to prove themselves against Moore’s whistleblowing.

I’ll tell you this much: before watching the first half of “Sicko,” my apathetic vote was leaning in quiet submission towards Hillary, so I could think about other things until 2008. But now I’m not so sure. I’m more confused than anything — I guess this means I’m really starting to care.

Apparently, the bosses at Miramax were furious over the internet leakage of the movie and they’ve been trying to extract all remnants of it from the Net, but my sources tell me it’s still available on piratebay.net.