I attended the inauguration with a great group of folks (about 2 million of them). We couchsurfed in DC with Dan, who hosted about 15 other couchsurfers from around the world. There were many other people in DC who hosted 10+ people.

Read this great CNN article on Couchsurfing + the Inauguration.

I’ve included a rundown of my own personal experience, along with a rundown of interesting takes on the inauguration from the mainstream media.

Personal Videos + Photos (shot by Rob Moon)

Photos of the Inauguration on Flickr

Video of the Inauguration on YouTube

I love this video – we saw this amazing woman from Memphis after the Inauguration speech. She sang to us.

My Photos on Facebook (uploaded from my iPhone)

I also shot video on my iPhone + uploaded it to the web using Qik. For more videos of the inauguration, visit the Qik Inauguration Page.

For a fascinating look at Obama’s speech, simply type in a keyword in the video player below, courtest of Delve Networks

Below is a tag cloud of keywords Obama said in his Inauguration Speech, courtesy of Read/Write Web.

Mainstream Coverage

And now a rundown of great inauguration mainstream media + resources

The Inauguration Speech on NYTimes.com

Washington Post’s Moving Video of the Inauguration and Beyond

Online Video of Inauguration Sets Records (NYTimes.com)

400 Newspapers across the world featuring the inauguration (going.com)

China Censors Part of Obama Speech (NYTimes.com)

CNN’s AMAZING Photo-Multimedia Collage of “The Moment” – a must view

Incredible Hi-Res Photos from The Boston Globe

And finally, a roundup of resources I found on AlumniBlender:

Data Visualization of the Inauguration speech

An analysis of CNN Live’s integration with Facebook

History.

Despite all the votes that are still coming in (provisional ballots, North Carolina, and countless other votes), our country has declared Barack Obama the next president. He has managed to win the seat of the White House by winning an overwhelming amount of Electoral Votes.

For those who don’t understand the electoral votes, I’ve pulled this graphic up to help explain things.

[via The Onion]

There’s tons of free stuff this election day!

In addition to the Free Coffee at Starbucks, Free Ice Cream at Ben & Jerry’s, Free Donuts at Krispy-Kreme, and Free Sandwiches at Chick-Fil-A, Babeland is giving away free sex toys.

[via the official Babeland site]

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From the NYTimes

Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell endorsed the presidential bid of Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, during an interview Sunday on “Meet the Press.”

The former Army general, who served as Secretary of State during President George W. Bush’s first term said a number of factors contributed to his decision to support Mr. Obama over Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee.

“I think that Senator Obama brings a fresh set of eyes, fresh set of ideas to the table,” Mr. Powell said, speaking outside NBC’s Washington studio. “I think that Senator McCain, as gifted as he is, is essentially going to execute the Republican agenda, the orthodoxy of the Republican agenda with a new face and a maverick approach to it, and he’d be quite good at it, but i think we need more than that.”

Mr. Powell also said following the interview that the negativity of the McCain campaign was “over the top” and troubled him.

Conservative newspapers have also gone towards Obama.

According to Editor & Publisher, Obama now has a 3 to 1 lead over McCain in newspaper endorsements — 51 newspapers with a total 6,299,363 daily circulation. At least seven of those papers endorsed President Bush in 2004.

I got this in an email today – does anybody know the actual source?

Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for ‘The Vagina Monologues’, wrote the following about Sarah Palin.

Drill, Drill, Drill

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it’s their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don’t like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them.. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story — connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God’s plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin’s view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, ‘It was a task from God.’

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist’s baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God’s name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack.. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don’t move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, ‘Drill Drill Drill.’ I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Eve Ensler

September 5, 2008

For those who haven’t heard, John McCain selected Sarah Palin as his sidekick.
Many tout her as inexperienced.

DailyKos has touted her as Punky Brewster, while Wonkette touted her a snow dwarf, and a hot lego.

[ via DailyKos ]

watch the video

At the 2:55-ish mark Palin responds to Kudlow’s queries about her interest in being vp by saying “What is it exactly that the VP does every day?”

. . . She is flippant about the job and implies she has better things to do. It demonstrates McCain’s extreme recklesness to chose someone who has no respect for the office. These are serious times and require serious people who care enough to tackle the challenges ahead.

. . . on the 45th anniversary of MLK’s “I have a dream speech” ….

I believe this will be a moment we will remember for a long, long time…
[ watch the whole acceptance speech here ]

Above everything else, with all the promises made, at the end of the DNC, Obama managed to inspire and motivate more than the 70,000+ people in Denver on this historical night. He re-committed himself and the Democratic party to a life’s work of dedication to “E Pluribus Unum” – Out of many, One.

A few highlights from the coverage on CNN.com follow

Al Gore says…
It is time for a change.
The best marketers often have the worst products. (This applies to energy companies, large Beaurocracies, and republicans)

[ Take a look at the site, WE CAN SOLVE IT ]

Barney Smith, a former republican and average joe, spoke about keeping jobs in America. He said, “We need a president who puts Barney Smith before Smith Barney,”

There is currently a poll to make Barney Smith VP – vote here on DailyKos.

With the exception of Barack Obama campaign videos, the live web coverage was uninterrupted by advertisements. Interesting…

By watching the video online, I was able to watch the video in a significantly different way – sharing the link to the feed with my social networks, updating my status on gmail, facebook, flickr, and twitter.

Some interesting insight from the New York Times:

For most of the convention, CNN — staid, stable and anchored by fewer egomaniacs — won higher ratings than the other cable news channels, as well as ABC and CBS. And Wednesday, CNN was neck and neck with NBC, and for a while even ahead, suggesting that when a political event is this interesting, television commentators are less so.

And now…Obama opens up his speech:

[ you can also watch the whole speech here ]

“Thank you”

“McCain has voted with Bush 90% of the time. I’m not willing to take a 10% chance on change.”

He also spoke at length on what change really means to him, and how it translates to politics.

What DOES change mean?
1. Cut taxes for middle class.
2. In 10 years, we will finally . . . (dropped data connection)
3. Keep jobs in the US
4. Equal
5. Wait – Tax Cuts for the middle class? Is this really change? An old promise – but if it’s actually fulfilled…

More Highlights from Obama’s speech:
We need a renewed sense of responsibility
What JFK called, “intellectual and moral strength.”
Each of us must do our part to make our businesses and homes more efficient (what does that mean?).

We need a president that will look to the future instead of trying to grapple with the past. Wait – did he really say that? We might need to go back to the transcript on that one…

You can find the transcript for his acceptance speech in 2004 here. If you find the transcript of his speech at the DNC in Denver, please send it on.

I’ve initially found this here on this great blog : [transcript]

I would also appreciate links for relevant and related videos…

Related Stories:
Moving story re: Watching Parties in Philadelphia (NYTimes)

In Denver, Obama Comes Full Circle From 2004 (NPR)
At the 2004 Democratic Convention, John Kerry was the presidential nominee and the keynote address was given by Barack Obama — who was then an Illinois state senator running for the U.S. Senate.

I just got an email from Barack Obama.

In his words,

I’m about to take the stage in St. Paul and announce that we have won the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

It’s been a long journey, and we should all pause to thank Hillary Clinton, who made history in this campaign. Our party and our country are better off because of her.

I want to make sure you understand what’s ahead of us. Earlier tonight, John McCain outlined a vision of America that’s very different from ours — a vision that continues the disastrous policies of George W. Bush.

But this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past and bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.

It’s going to take hard work, but thanks to you and millions of other donors and volunteers, no one has ever been more prepared for such a challenge.

In response to anti-Obama rhetoric from the jewish contingency, this group has created an anti-anti-Obama campaign.

hilarious

visit the site or the store for more

May 8th, 2008, 8pm
Brooklyn Lyceum – Union St and 4th Ave

Last night a large group of Brooklyn Bloggers came together at the Brooklyn Blogfest. Louise Crawford, one of the lead organizers, led off the ceremonies with a video by Blue Barn Pictures.

Overall, the event gave me a larger sense of what is going on in the local blog-o-sphere.
I really liked seeing the great photobloggers of Brooklyn featured in this video

To sum up – two things came to mind:
1. Dan Gillmor’s We The Media
2. Meetup.com – where Real Groups make a Real Difference

First – the event was a clear indicator of the rise of grassroots media and self-organized groups.

Second – it was simply nice to see established bloggers (people blogging for over 2 years) meet new bloggers. There was definitely a sense of self-congratulation, which is actually well deserved. Anyone running a blog (or two or three) knows how much work it takes to produce quality posts.

However, I do disagree that a blog must absolutely produce “fresh content” every day. That kind of mentality is inherited from the CNN news-cycle mentality.

Not surprisingly, the event was sponsored by Outside.in (great job on the free beer, by the way!)

For those who couldn’t make it, you can take a virtual walk through Brooklyn by following the links below:
Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn
Creative Times
The Brooklyn Optimist
So Good
Flatbush Gardener
Bedstuy Banana
New York Shitty
Sustainable Flatbush
Clinton Hill Chill
Brooklyn Ron
Dear Famous Asshole
Super Vegan
Kingston Lounge

and a honorable mentions…Fading Ad and Brit in Brooklyn

I truly wonder what will happen when “old media” catches up with grassroots media. “Old media” has already started “airing” user-generated content. What will happen in publishing? I can imagine a few years from now, we will begin seeing these blogs turn into published books and magazines.

For a hint of things to come, take a look at CNN’s iReport

view photos from the event on flickr