Eight Days a Week

All we need is Love Babe - The Beatles sang.

All WE need is TIME Guys
Just you wait and see
Eight Days a Week? "Get up dust yourselves and lets Get America working again" - Obama appeals to the American people in his National address.

All He needs is Time to get the turn around done. He now has the power, the money, the support, the ratings of the US People, the Veto and everything else that 'desire' could name on Mother Earth. Everything - except the one thing that his predeccesor, George W Bush was able to take away from Obama and the American people - TIME. Time wasted for 8 years. Time is overtaking the Americans.

For those who haven't read Ryszard Kapuscinski's 'Shadow of the Sun' - he has a wonderful bit on Time and Africa. He implies that Westerners are slaves of Time while Africans have conquered Time. A European would run to the Bus station because the Bus leaves at 10.32 or for a meeting that would start on time (even if the passengers or people were not there, he implies) - thus becoming slaves of the clock and not of the purpose. Time in Africa is a slave of the People and thus is 'people centric' - Get into a bus and ask the driver when the bus would leave - the obvious answer (after your silly question has been ridiculed) would be 'When the Bus is Full'!!!. When does the meeting Start? Of course stupid! When the people are all there!!!

President Obama! The bus is full and the people are all here too! But do you have enough TIME???

On what's special about Obama's Election

I don't think that the euphoria over Obama's election should be about an African American making it to the Citadel of American Power and thus exhibiting the triumph of Civil Rights. America in my opinion overcame those barriers quite some time ago. The African American community have had several members rising to high offices in American politics and governance - Senators, Governers, Secretaries of State as well - exhibiting that African-Americans who had it in them, could make it. Obama had it in him. He became President. Of course an African American becoming President makes excellent story and nostalgia material - a story of triumph of the Blacks - from abject Slavery to ultimate Power - but this could have happened many many years ago too. They just didn't have the right candidate.

Why I think Obamas election is special - is because he did it with backing from the people. It was his ability to get the 50 cents and the 5US$ contributions to count that makes it truly amazing. The parody is that small things like chads (dimpled and hanging ones equallly) brought George Bush into power. Small things magnified a million times, brought Obama and a new era in. Arundhati's 'God of Small Things' has a new significance here.