Now that we have Super Bowl out of the way, as well as the Chinese New Year (or more politically correct speaking, the Lunar New Year) recess ends, we are finally ready for work for year 2009 :-) Happy New Year again guys!
And we also have a new President in the White House, by the way. He's been there just a tad less than two weeks, so I think I can still slip in the following article I wrote the day after his inauguration without sounding trite:
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I must confess I didn't vote for Obama last November (though my wife did so under my auspice), but I also must admit once he got elected, I got affected by the jubilant atmosphere that culminated at the inauguration ceremony yesterday. So what's so special about this person who is now the 44th president of ours, besides the obvious (first black President, youth, inspiring speaker, etc.)?
First, how did he get his name, Barack Hussein Obama? (One common joke during his campaign is his parents probably wouldn't have given him that middle name Hussein if they knew he would be one day running for the US president.) It is exactly the same name as his father's--Barack Hussein Obama Sr. The name Barack is Arabic, meaning "blessed." As for the middle name Hussein, he got it from his grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, who converted from Christianity to Islam after having fought for the British in World War I and having traveled to Islamic Zanzibar (an island off east Africa). After this, he added Hussein to his name. As a consequence, Obama's father was raised a Muslim, but he became an atheist long before he met Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, who was not religious as well. The same goes for his mother's second husband – Obama's step father, Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian oil manager.
Barack Obama himself became a Christian, as well as his wife Michelle. He joined the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago in 1988. In his inauguration speech yesterday, he paraphrased some verse from the Bible (1 Corinthians 13:11), saying "The time has come to set aside childish things.." By the way, though Obama didn't do it at his inauguration, some presidents had the Bible opened to a certain chapter and verse they favored during the oath taking, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the longest (4-term) president in US history, had it opened to the same 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 all four times during his swearing in, with emphasis on verse 13: "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
One interesting verse in the Old Testament, Judges 5:12: "Awake, awake, Deborah; Awake, awake, sing a song! Arise, Barak, and take away your captives, O son of Abinoam." regards a story of a woman prophet Deborah and a young man Barak together successfully fought the Canaanites who had been suppressing the Jews at that time. Notice the name "Barak" is almost the same as "Barack", hence some deeply religious black people believe this is the verse that foretells Barack Obama's rise and becoming the US president today--kind of like a "black Moses" that leads his people out of misery.
For all that much talk about the "blackness" of Obama, let's not forget biologically Obama is really half-white too, due to his white Caucasian mother from Kansas. You might be surprised, but through thorough research of his mother's ancestral tree, genealogists have determined that Winston Churchill, the World War II Prime Minister of Britain, and Obama are ninth cousins, three times removed; Lyndon Johnson, the US President during the Vietnam War, and Obama are fourth cousins, three times removed. And if this was not enough, ex-President Bush, the one Obama just took job from, is his cousin too, sharing with him the same great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents in 17th century Massachusetts.
Back to Kenya, the country where Obama's father came from: The government there has been dominated by a major tribe Kikuyu, while Obama's father was born Luo, a minor tribe whose people don't practice male circumcision. Since the Kikuyu and several other tribes believe that any real man must be circumcised, a Luo cannot be a real man and therefore cannot be President. The joke now running around Kenya, then, is that it's easier for a Luo to become President in the United States than in Kenya.
Isn't America the greatest country in the world?
"Help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right." -- This is the show stealer of Rev. Joseph Lowery's benediction speech at the end of the inauguration ceremony. It's about racial harmony but it rhymes so well it sounds so fun.
And we also have a new President in the White House, by the way. He's been there just a tad less than two weeks, so I think I can still slip in the following article I wrote the day after his inauguration without sounding trite:
***************************************************************************************************
I must confess I didn't vote for Obama last November (though my wife did so under my auspice), but I also must admit once he got elected, I got affected by the jubilant atmosphere that culminated at the inauguration ceremony yesterday. So what's so special about this person who is now the 44th president of ours, besides the obvious (first black President, youth, inspiring speaker, etc.)?
First, how did he get his name, Barack Hussein Obama? (One common joke during his campaign is his parents probably wouldn't have given him that middle name Hussein if they knew he would be one day running for the US president.) It is exactly the same name as his father's--Barack Hussein Obama Sr. The name Barack is Arabic, meaning "blessed." As for the middle name Hussein, he got it from his grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, who converted from Christianity to Islam after having fought for the British in World War I and having traveled to Islamic Zanzibar (an island off east Africa). After this, he added Hussein to his name. As a consequence, Obama's father was raised a Muslim, but he became an atheist long before he met Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, who was not religious as well. The same goes for his mother's second husband – Obama's step father, Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian oil manager.
Barack Obama himself became a Christian, as well as his wife Michelle. He joined the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago in 1988. In his inauguration speech yesterday, he paraphrased some verse from the Bible (1 Corinthians 13:11), saying "The time has come to set aside childish things.." By the way, though Obama didn't do it at his inauguration, some presidents had the Bible opened to a certain chapter and verse they favored during the oath taking, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the longest (4-term) president in US history, had it opened to the same 1 Corinthians Chapter 13 all four times during his swearing in, with emphasis on verse 13: "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
One interesting verse in the Old Testament, Judges 5:12: "Awake, awake, Deborah; Awake, awake, sing a song! Arise, Barak, and take away your captives, O son of Abinoam." regards a story of a woman prophet Deborah and a young man Barak together successfully fought the Canaanites who had been suppressing the Jews at that time. Notice the name "Barak" is almost the same as "Barack", hence some deeply religious black people believe this is the verse that foretells Barack Obama's rise and becoming the US president today--kind of like a "black Moses" that leads his people out of misery.
For all that much talk about the "blackness" of Obama, let's not forget biologically Obama is really half-white too, due to his white Caucasian mother from Kansas. You might be surprised, but through thorough research of his mother's ancestral tree, genealogists have determined that Winston Churchill, the World War II Prime Minister of Britain, and Obama are ninth cousins, three times removed; Lyndon Johnson, the US President during the Vietnam War, and Obama are fourth cousins, three times removed. And if this was not enough, ex-President Bush, the one Obama just took job from, is his cousin too, sharing with him the same great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents in 17th century Massachusetts.
Back to Kenya, the country where Obama's father came from: The government there has been dominated by a major tribe Kikuyu, while Obama's father was born Luo, a minor tribe whose people don't practice male circumcision. Since the Kikuyu and several other tribes believe that any real man must be circumcised, a Luo cannot be a real man and therefore cannot be President. The joke now running around Kenya, then, is that it's easier for a Luo to become President in the United States than in Kenya.
Isn't America the greatest country in the world?
"Help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right." -- This is the show stealer of Rev. Joseph Lowery's benediction speech at the end of the inauguration ceremony. It's about racial harmony but it rhymes so well it sounds so fun.
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