America Has Changed

I have chosen interesting times to live in the United States.  So far, I have witnessed a remarkable Superbowl and a classic NBA championship. Nothing, however, prepared me for the drama that was Obama vs McCain.  (And the Palin side-show.)

 

There is something to be said when you know you are living "history."  A word usually reserved for the past but aptly describe the present.  But if there is anything that the Obama victory tells me, it is that America has changed -  the English perfect tense, used for emphasis on completed action.

 

The new Presidency is voted for its promise of change in the government of  "the most powerful nation on earth," (sorry, I could not help the quotation marks) which is probably at its weakest.  The real message of Vote '08 is not that America is changing or will change but that it has changed.

 

I have a healthy interest in my host country's politics.  (Actually, who doesn't? There is something for everyone in American politics.) From my vantage point, this nation has changed.  Electing a young African-American as President is the latest of the unprecedented headlines that has hit the American scene in the last decade, not the first.  It is the result of change, not the impetus. It is the State of the Nation, not a campaign promise.

 

My F-1 visa expires in 2010... I wonder what it would be like then.