AI and Coyote contemplate a candle on January 20
For more about why AI and Coyote are contemplating a candle on January 20, see How to January 20, 2025 and beyond: Keep a light lit in your window, on your desk, anywhere.
Bob Schwartz
Tag: Inauguration
January 20, 2025
January 20, 2025
How to January 20, 2025 and beyond: Keep a light lit in your window, on your desk, anywhere
Those of us concerned about the next four years of American leadership, which starts today, can react and respond in many ways. We consider how to act, what to say and what to think.
Today I offer a simple idea. Not a solution, just a simple idea.
Starting today, and as long as it is valuable, keep a dedicated light lit. In your window, on your desk, wherever it can be seen by you and by others. That is far from all we might choose to do or say. But it is a bright start.
We just celebrated two holidays where light is an essential element, whether in a lamp or from a star. Also, many traditions include lights that stay lit constantly as reminders and messages.
I have long used battery-operated electric candles around the house, for various occasions. Now I see that the idea of an eternal light, on this occasion, for this purpose, can be useful.
Starting today, I am keeping one of those candles on my desk, lit at all times, and when night falls, one in my office window. What is that saying for me, what might that say for you? What if someone asks: Why is there a candle in your window, what does it mean? We might benefit from thinking about that.
If I say be happy today, January 20, 2025, you may wonder what to be happy about. Light a light, keep it lit, and you may discover.
© 2025 by Bob M. Schwartz
January 18, 2025
It may be the week of Trump’s Inauguration, but it is Jimmy Carter on the Time magazine cover
Congress has long mandated that after the death of U.S. presidents, official flags at the Capitol fly at half-staff for thirty days.
Jimmy Carter died on December 29 at the age of 100. So during the Inauguration on January 20, flags would be flown at half-staff. But Trump objected crudely, saying that Democrats were “giddy” at the possibility. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson thus ordered that during the Inauguration the flags would be fully flown.
Trump was Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2024. But for their magazine cover on Inauguration week, we appreciate that it is this particular former president who is featured. We don’t know how Trump feels about this, though we might yet hear.
If America needs role models for moral leadership and exemplary living, we have had few presidents, maybe none, who fit the role better than Jimmy Carter.
January 20, 2017
Inaugural Concert 2017
Look closely at Lincoln
Watching the Inaugural Concert of 2017
Below his monumental chair.
A slave to stone and circumstance
Eyes fixed open on a scene
Out of his control.
He tries not to think back
To other gatherings
On other occasions
Not like this.
Not at all like this.
Look closely
To see him
Struggling to escape
Not just to free himself
But to descend the steps
A giant in the crowd
Striding and proclaiming
What he had seen
And done
And hoped.
Instead he sits
Unmoving and silent
Witness to a truth
A struggle
He lived and died for:
Even now
Even this
All is not lost
All is never lost.
January 22, 2013
The Real Basics of the Speech
Self-congratulation can be unbecoming, even when it is deserved. It can also be unhelpful and even counterproductive.
The immediate aftermath of the election was a storm of emotions for Democrats. It combined exhilaration at winning with relief from avoiding an unthinkable alternative. The first weeks seemed to be filled with a Republican state of denial, to which “elections have consequences and we won” seemed a pretty succinct response.
Then the ice started to break a bit. A few concessions were made, with Republicans implicitly acknowledging that things were different, if not subject to a sea change. Then President Obama delivered his Inaugural address.
Judging by the reaction, for some liberals/progressives, this was the missing second beat of election night. Obama won, and now he was openly announcing where he stood on the supposed left/right divide. Verbal high-fiving, fist-bumping and chest-thumping could be widely heard. The address was pronounced a liberal/progressive triumph.
And looked at one way, it was. But that is a self-limiting analysis, and actually robs the speech of its power, and robs Obama of his vision and careful eloquence.
The speech had three basic points:
These are our shared American principles.
Government works from the bottom up, not the top down.
We have to live in the present not the past.
Labeling that liberal, progressive or otherwise, no matter who is doing the labeling, short-circuits a potentially valuable conversation and possibilities of common ground. The victory lap, even if it is meant to be dispiriting to the presumed opposition, doesn’t help.
Obama supporters say that he was too conciliatory in his first term, that he unwisely—even naively—believed that compromise was possible. Now they see and hear the less yielding partisan they always believed he was.
They are only partly right. Obama will stand more firmly, but if you listen to the speech beyond the specifics you may be happy to have heard, it was all about those three simple points. Set aside the labels and even the initiatives, and just talk about the basics. The challenge Obama set is for those who claim true Americanism to disagree.
Bob Schwartz 