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Wednesday, January ai, 2009 | The Red & Black
Carolyn Crist | Editor in Chief editor@randb.com i
Chelsea Cook | Managing Editor me@randb.com ’
Shannon Otto | Opinions Editor opinions@randb.com '
Our Take
Majority opinions of The Red & Black’s editorial board
Great expectations?
We should take care not to expect too
much, too quickly from our new leader
The oaths have been sworn. Now, the real
work begins.
At noon Tuesday, Barack Obama became
president and shouldered the collective burden
of a struggling economy, a floundering educa
tion system and the, most unpopular war since
Vietnam.
When we stop to consider these dire circum
stances in conjunction with a campaign that
emphasized buzz words such as “hope” and
“change” it becomes clear that nothing short of
a Messianic feat will allow Obama to live up to
the high expectations of his supporters.
Yet as his stutter-ridden oath proved,
Obama is a mere mortal our newly sworn-in
president is no more likely to multiply bread
and fish than to triple the GDP overnight.
Change, much like driving down 316 on a
gameday, takes time and can be more than a
little frustrating.
Conversely, there are the 59,934,786 people
who voted for McCain, some of whom view
Obama as the first horseman of the apocalypse.
These cynics cite his lack of experience, lib
eral policies and even his middle name as evi
dence of his diabolical plots for this country.
From Facebook to Fox News, there is
no shortage of Americans who bemoaned
Tuesday’s ceremony and the potentially cata
strophic effects it will have on us all.
We at The Red & Black urge those who are
either building shrines to Obama or threaten
ing to flee to Canada to cease and desist.
Moderation isn’t just a key principle upon
which our beloved University was founded
it’s an invaluable asset in today’s polarized and
partisan political landscape.
We should aspire to do what seems to be
almost impossible for the aforementioned dis
ciples and critics to accomplish.
We must steer clear of both deification and
demonizing in order to better focus on solu
tions for the bevy of problems we face as a
nation.
Marcus Crawford and Megan Otto for the
editorial board
Bipartisan liaison
No matter your political persuasion,
we need to come together as one nation
“Starting today, we must pick ourselves up,
dust ourselves off, and begin again the work
of remaking America,” the 44th president of
America said during his inaugural address.
Whether you voted for President Barack
Obama or not, it was difficult not to get swept
up in the emotions of Tuesday’s fanfare.
Not everyone chose to travel to Washington,
D.C., to brave the cold. Those who stayed in
Athens watched on campus, downtown or at
home.
And we watched together.
Students, faculty and staff of all races, all
religious backgrounds and all political persua
sions took a break if only for a half hour to
witness the first black man take our nation’s
presidential oath of office.
As Obama said during his speech, “What the
cynics fail to understand is that the ground has
shifted beneath them that the stale political
arguments that have consumed us for so long
no longer apply.”
Now is the time to put aside our political dif
ferences and support our elected leader.
The U.S. is facing issues much greater than
Republican vs. Democrat, and Obama under
stands this.
He ran his campaign promising bipartisan
ship, and now that he’s in office, we hope
more than anything he practices what he
preached.
We all should strive to be bipartisan every
day.
Tuesday, our nation’s new president encour
aged us all to choose “hope over fear, unity of
purpose over conflict and discord.” The Red &
Black editorial board could not agree more.
In these trying times, conflict and discord
will not accomplish anything.
The fervor and energy on campus during last
fall’s election season cannot diminish.
As young adults preparing for the real world,
it is more important than ever for us to work
together.
Let’s not allow our differences to stand in
the way of creating a better future.
Shannon Otto for the editorial board
Opinions expressed in The Bed & Black are the opinions of the writers and not necessarily those of The Red and Black
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Our generation defined by inauguration
It is the single great
est demonstration of
true democracy, and it
took place in a few short
minutes.
In a world in which
power all too often trans
fers only through the
blood of thousands of
people, our country gath
ers our leaders old and
new together to cel
ebrate peacefully. As we
look on, power is passed
peacefully to the next
man chosen by the “ballot
over the bullet.”
It’s been happening for
200 years, but this time
was unlike any other.
Many will say President
Barack Obama’s inau
guration was the fulfill
ment of the dreams of our
Founding Fathers, but
that isn’t quite true.
This was a vision far
exceeding that of our
founding fathers, whose
ideas of equality hardly
stretched beyond white,
male property owners.
The idea of a man of
color taking the same oath
George Washington swore
surely was beyond any
thing they or many of
us could have dreamt.
I traveled to
Washington, D.C., last
week, and I saw a city
scrambling to get things
done.
Crews were spreading
mulch, digging ditches
and setting up row after
row of folding chairs.
There was curious energy
pulsing through the crew.
No matter who they
voted for, workers seemed
to feel this wasn’t just
another day on the job.
It was a day no one had
seen in the history of the
nation, when the country
moved in truly new direc
tions. They seemed to
Help community, find your own Calcutta
Mother Teresa once said,
“Calcuttas are everywhere
if only we have eyes to see.
Find your Calcutta.”
Especially in today’s times, I real
ize the validity of this statement.
You may have heard the stats
about our quaint college town
Athens has a 40 percent poverty rate,
making this county the fifth poorest
county for its size in the nation.
And though we could rejnain
comfortable in our college bubble,
it’s time we step out to help.
During my beloved three-and
a-half years in Athens, I have been
fortunate enough to see many out
lets for helping this community and
the communities beyond.
My freshmen year, I stumbled
upon a mentoring program. For the
remainder of that year, I mentored
a teenage girl about to graduate
from an alternative high school.
My relationship with my mentee
became more than helping her with
homework. We became friends.
Since freshmen, year, mentoring
has become my passion so much
so that I founded a student orga-
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McAfee
know they were helping
prepare for a day of his
tory and worked like they
were proud to be part of
the experience.
Just as we were part of
it, down here in Athens,
as fellow American citi
zens.
For one brief moment
in time, many from
Athens-Clarke County
to California forgot their
differences to look into a
blinding light coming from
Washington.
We wished our new
leader the best of luck
as he pledged to fight
what he called the “nag
ging fear that America’s
decline is inevitable.”
Even the most cynical
political Grinch, like me,
saw his heart grow a few
sizes Tuesday. At least
briefly.
For as I watched the
inauguration coverage, I
realized the moment had
special significance for the
young generation growing
up in the shadows of the
fallen Twin Towers.
Until recently, it looked
as though Sept. 11, 2001
would be the defining
point of our young lives
the day that changed us
forever.
But we now have a
new day, anew event that
changed our country and
the world in ways that
can’t be measured by any
thing but emotion.
The horrible experi
ence of Sept. 11 has been
upstaged by a warming
feeling of future greatness,
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ELISE AMENDOLA | The Associated Press
A Sasha Obama laughs with her father,
President Barack Obama, following his inaugu
ral address at the U.S. Capitol Tuesday.
of eyes “fixed on the hori
zon,” and the coming of a
greater tomorrow.
And this time, our
feelings of overwhelming
pride don’t flow from a
national tragedy, but a
national accomplishment.
In Washington, I asked
one visitor, Charles Willis,
who had moved from
Georgia to Pennsylvania,
what he would tell those
back in Georgia to take
from the inauguration.
“I would ask them to
give Obama a chance, no
matter what your politics
are,” he said. “Hold back
iNL Kate
Kotsko
nization to recruit other University
students for the mentor program,
called Forever Young Campaign.
At the end of my sophomore
year, I attended Relay for Life. I had
attended Relay in the past, but that
year was unique for me I ended
up getting my hair chopped off
right on the track.
City Salon came to the event to
cut participants’ hair for Locks of
Love, an organization that takes
donated human hair and turns it
into wigs for cancer patients.
This made me think. A hair
salon, a typical for-profit business,
became more to me that day. It
became a business doing its best to
help its Calcutta.
There are so many unique ways
to help others.
For instance, in my junior
year, I saw a documentary made
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on your verdict for now,
and let him show us what
he can do.”
Well, I’m ready to give
our new president that
chance. We can’t yet be
sure of what Obama can
do, but we can be sure of
one thing.
We can know that as
American citizens, we
are part of a country that
once more has taken “one
giant leap for mankind.”
Marc McAfee is a
senior from Kennesaw
majoring in
broadcast news.
by University graduates about
Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.
If you haven’t yet seen “Darius
Goes West,” you should make an
effort to do so. It is inspirational.
Throughout my senior year, I
have interned at a homeless shelter
to fulfill my major requirements. I
have seen so many wonderful ways
to express compassion to the fami
lies at our shelter.
You may not have a knack for
mentoring, cutting hair or making
films, but you can do something.
This is our time to give back to
the community we love so dearly.
A great place to start is
Volunteer UGA, an organization
that connects students to programs
such as ugaMIRACLE, HEROs,
Special Olympics and many others.
As the age-old saying goes, “No
one can do everything, but everyone
can do something.”
Find your something. Find your
Calcutta.
Kate Kotsko is a senior from,
Eureka, Mo. majoring in
social work.
Cambri Steadman
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