Exciting Times

Well I am here and have done my first day at the office, my second day I am ILL!!!!!!!!! How bad does that look ? How much I must be impressing my new colleagues

I begun to have the sniffles on the plane over, and felt ill yesterday evening , and last night was hideous. O well can't be helped, I have stayed away from the office today as the guys will have no immunity to my English cold!

What a great time though to be here, due to the fact I was awake most of the night I watched the US election results, the amount of coverage is huge, which is understandable in any election in any Western democracy, but the emotion here is incredible. Idaho is a Republican state, and the guys I spoke to yesterday regarded Obama as a "socialist" which from a UK perspective is bizzarre, but McCain was OK, which is quite scarey.

I get the feeling that the US media and many many people feel quite pleased with themselves that they have at elected a Black president, it's almost a feeling to say to themselves and the rest of the world "see, we are not racist." I am amazed to see (some) Black commentators saying racism was now defeated, that seems a dangerous assumption.

I have not heard anyone say that the best orator, with a message of change, who could verbally inspire huge crowds and had an extrodainary TV media presence won the election.
Set this against a Republican who came across as more of the same type policies, and an incredibly poor speaker, who could not function without cue cards and hinting at further millitary action everywhere, and whose VP was more than a little suspect. It just so happened that the winner happened to be black.

I get the impression the Republicans will have to rebuild, much the same as the UK Conservative party have had to do, so the US may have to accept that the Democrats may be here for some time. Great to watch from an outsiders view, I hope the comparrisons to Kennedy are from an inspirational view and some nutter does not try to make the whole thing even more comparable.