Stateside: Did The Ground Shift For You?

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On the way to the Oracle Arena in Oakland, California, as the sun came up on January 20, 2009. The title of the community event at the Arena was “Unity for the Sake of Change: We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” Doors opened at 7, the program began at 8 with speechifying by local politicians, and then they took live CNN coverage of the swearing in through to the National Anthem that followed the Benediction.

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Sponsors had distributed 1,900 tickets to schools in the Bay Area, and students came by the busload and on BART. Like this contingent from the Oakland Military Institute, which has as its mission: To provide a structured and rigorous academic program where cadets develop as leaders, scholars, critical thinkers, and citizens. The OMI was established by former CA Governor, then Mayor of Oakland, and now CA Attorney-General Jerry Brown.

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A snapshot of some of the rest of the Arena audience—a racially and generationally diverse crowd, who paid $5 at the door or three times that much if they bought their tickets from the Arena’s online ticket vendors. Over in San Francisco, a local arts group sponsored a Jumbotron outside City Hall, asking as a donation to get a seat new underwear and socks for the city’s homeless.

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I was en route between Oakland and Berkeley while the actual swearing-in took place and listened to it first on an SF radio station called Alice, whose announcers made witty comments throughout—but then one was in tears after Obama had sworn his oath—and then on National Public Radio.

On Sproul Plaza at the UC Berkeley campus, the guy in the black T-shirt must’ve been bemused by Obama’s line: To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

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In a nearby pizza parlor the display case that always holds the most recent copy of Rolling Stone magazine holds these two stories from the January 22 issue. The top one is called “Bush apologizes,” by Mark Tianni, (no photo credit), and the bottom one is “What Obama must do,” by Paul Krugman, illustration by Mark Summers.

My favorite item of the day—or at least the one I could most relate to—was a comment posted on the live Twitter feed the Bay Area News Group’s website was posting from people in D.C.

librarian305: At a Starbucks on 15th & I. No line for coffee. Long line for bathroom.

This evening, over in San Francisco, the glitzy official West Coast inauguration celebration, Inauguration West, got under way at 6 p.m. It is sponsored in part by KBLX, the only remaining independently owned radio station in the Bay Area. The station is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year and is a reliable source for Seventies soul and r&b, along with the gospel countdown on Sundays.

And, of course, the television coverage this evening is still wall-to-wall. (Did that announcer say “ten balls” or “tin balls”?)

rosalea.barker@gmail.com

--PEACE—

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