Oh, if only.

I WANT THIS HAAAAAAAAAAT.

Sooo…

Obama, eh? I knew Chief Justice Roberts (boo, grr) would have to carry out some kind of sabotage in the oath, and I knew it would be overwhelmingly cheesy (especially the bit where Aretha Franklin warbled unintelligibly), but it went okay!

We’ll see what Obama does in the coming months. It was quite striking, as he was making his inaugural speech, the pin-drop silence that washed over the SOAS common room as he said his piece on terrorism. The crowds were cheering in Washington, but there was only what felt like disappointed silence amongst the couple of hundred SOAS students, punctuated only by one guy who started clapping then stopped after one or two claps, embarrassed to have been drawn in by the rhetoric.

I guess there’ll always be that certain something I’ll never understand about America and American politics, that ‘YEAH, AMERICA!’ sentiment. Or even just blind patriotism in general.

I have to say I was pleased to finally hear a mention of working with poorer countries. Perhaps America might shuffle closer to the UN target of 0.7% of GDP in aid to developing countries? We’ll see. I’m still skeptical. I’m glad the President of the United States even bothered to give it a mention, though. We’ll just see how far he gets before he’s bogged down by corporate interests that really represent US hegemony abroad.

Bleh, that’s enough avoidance of feminism readings. Eurgh, feminism.

Stop The Gaza Massacre!

I marched for the civilians being killed. I’m aware the political situation is very complicated (summed up rather well in The Economist), but sometimes signing online petitions and writing to your MP just isn’t enough.