Wrapping Up
I'm pretty much losing all sense of cohesion now, so I'll just finish up my last thoughts.
The joke is that when Americans travel abroad, they tell people they're Canadian so the locals'll treat them nicer. The past eight years of the Bush administration have really hurt international relations with the United States.
A lot of people see Barack Obama as a means to mend a lot of that. Whether it's due to his message, his policies, his party, his colour, what have you - people around the world believe he's the guy the United States needs to start getting in touch with everyone else around the world.
I certainly hope so. International relations are so important now, and they're going to affect everyone along the way. If Obama's new policies can stem some of the oncoming financial crisis affecting us all, get our trade economies rolling along again, then we'll be glad for it. If he can ease the hostility so many people have for my neighbours to the south, then we'll be glad for it. If his administration can find a decent way to get out of the Middle East without just cutting loose, then we'll be glad for it. If he can change the idea of the "rich, loud, self-absorbed American who meddles where he's not wanted", well . . . I think we'll be pretty glad for it, yeah.
In the meantime, January's a long ways to go still.
And curiously, today the sun has still been rising every morning. I imagine it'll keep doing that for a while to come.
So one last message to all my friends under the stars and stripes, once again: you as a nation have been given an opening to make some amazing changes - don't screw it up for the rest of us, now. We're counting on you.
