TED'S HOUSE: RANDOM NOTES FROM THE STRICKLAND INAUGURATION

I attended yesterday's inauguration of Ted Strickland. There's really nothing to say that won't be found in any newspaper account of the event. But here are a some random notes:

I was happy to see John and Annie Glenn looking healthy and chipper. Their automobile accident a few months ago had me concerned that they might decline. Judging from the couple's appearance yesterday they seem healthy as the horses that braced the front of the Statehouse.

BTW, were all of those horses necessary, or did they line High Steet for ceremonial purposes only? You'd have thought Operation Save America (and here) was back in town.

Speaking of... They lied. The Phelps Family Tour didn't show. Does this mean that Ohio isn't the Land of the Sodomite Damned after all? The only "protesters" I saw ( I stayed out of the press pen and slogged around in the mud) were two people lugging around signs demanding "immigration reform."

Can't the state get better jumbotrons? Or perhaps it was just the weather. The grainy quality of the pictures looked like the ceremony was shot through a mosquito net from the back of a moving truck. (The jumbotron pictures posted here look better than the real-time broadcast at the event).

I didn't mind Strickland quoting Ronald Reagan much, since it was an OK line, but did Citizen Ted really have to quote George W. Bush? (NOTE: Democrats are polite Nobody booed. Anyone care to say what the reaction would have been if Ken Blackwell had been up there quoting Bill Clinton?)


Tramping around yesterday I noticed an actual physical energy A sense of decency. It was an odd feeling--one I never get when politics are involved. Politicians, of course, never live up to their "promise" or our mythologies. I'm sure some of us will have have reason to "hate' Ted Strickland soon enough. But damn! It's nice to have somebody in the Statehouse who actually has the people's interest at heart and notices that we are 7 years into the 21st century.



Here's a few pictures:


High Noon at Ted's House













Is this all necessary?













The Umbrellas of Columbus













A real Ohio event!













Demands for immigration reform













Watching the Gov













Ted cleans up!