Day 98 - Lila

Thought of the day: I have just watched Obama's State of the Union Speech that he made last night.  It was a good speech and reminded me of the inaugurational speech he made two years ago, but with more specifics and incorporated the hard realities of the past two years.  There's no point in denying that I had been a big fan of President Obama two years ago and I am still a big fan today.  Besides the numerous speeches I watched on youtube, I also had the opportunity to see him twice in person. I saw him the first time in his democratic party nomination event in Denver's Invesco Field with 84,000 others.  I was so far away from the center stage that I could barely see his face.  It was a very exciting evening nevertheless.  The second time was in a much smaller event in Denver last year, where I shook his hands (he is impressively tall!) and watched and photographed his speech.  Many people were disappointed by his administration.  I can see why as I am also disappointed that things are not better than it is today, but on the other hand, things are actually going remarkably well considering the perilous situation the country was in when he was inaugurated.  The Great Recession was not of his making, but he and his administration helped steer us out of it.  A lot had been achieved in the past two years in many areas of governing and legistration, much more than many people would give him credit for.  And I like his visions in the clean energy future.  A lot needs to be done including finding the source of funding for new research and infrastructure projects but it's utterly important that someone lays out a vision on the national stage and we know that he really means it and is trying his best to achieve it.  I, for one, would be more than willing to help by paying higher taxes - including higher gasoline taxes to reflect the true cost of fossil fuel (other countries have been doing it all along, why can't we?) - as long as I know that they are going to a good cause.  It's our responsibility to make sacrifices, or shall we say, investments, towards a better future for our children and our planet.

Photo of the day:

Lila.  She was lucky to be born in the US - the greatest nation on earth which has inspired so many other nations and hopefully will continue to inspire in the years to come.