Can’t help myself

Still marveling here, still left breathless by history.

A friend said she has hope, now, that dignity may be restored to the White House after too many embarrassing years. Maureen Dowd agrees in her lyrical New York Times column today.

Kevin reported that at school yesterday, every class was devoted to discussion of the election result.

Melinda and thousands of her fellow ’Cuse students ran onto the Quad after the two speeches and celebrated long into the night.

If you go to YouTube and type "Obama celebration" into the search window, you will find some amazing footage of spontaneous joy erupting all over the United States. Check the one in Portland, Oregon, where near the end a huge crowd in the streets burst into the "Star Spangled Banner" in unison.

Taken in the aggregate, these scenes resemble a nation's jubilant liberation from an oppressive occupying enemy force. I know that's not true; as much as I deplore much of what Bush's administration did and decry the cruel Darwinism of his cronies, I won't label them evil.

But, just look at us Americans. We're in a recession, we're at war, the unemployment rate is still going up, houses stand empty after foreclosure … and still we join hands in relief and amazement at what this country can, after all, dream and achieve.

These photos and some other stunning ones are on a Boston Globe site. Some verge on the cloyingly iconic, but I'm not complaining. I'm pretty sure we all know that our president-elect is a man, not a god; that he will make some mistakes; that healing our country will take time, hard work, and sacrifice by all. That's nowhere near reason enough to rain on our parade.