An Historic Date

It was all played out this morning, clear as black & white, and everything that the term "black & white" represents. No shades of gray. No. It is clear. This is the dawning of a new era.

It has been a strange past year, where Black represented good and White represented evil. Out with the White, in with the Black!

"Dead white males" is a pejorative phrase in literary criticism, deriding the influence and hegemony of European high culture and rejecting it as a course of study where ever possible, in favor of lesser-heard voices. Of course, the so-called political correctness of the concept is actually antithetical in many ways to the concept of political correctness because deriding white guys falls right into the identity politics they play and you turn out to be just as bad as them. Maybe that's a lesson to be learned...

But since this is my bully pulpit, let me wax completely politically incorrect and satirical. When is the purple shag carpet getting installed in the White House? What kind of incense do the Obamas favor? All kidding aside, I voted for Obama and at the same time, fired W. A bargain if ever one was to be had in this economy.

In 1976, the year punk rock as we know it started its initial invasion, I voted for Jimmy Carter, and in January 1977, a big month for history and culture in the year punk rock exploded, Jimmy Carter was inaugurated. Thirty-two years ago today.

President Carter immediately pardoned those who avoided the draft and Viet Nam War. Outgoing Gerald Ford, who upon taking office, pardoned his predecessor, Richard "I am not a crook" Nixon, pardoned Tokyo Rose as his last judicial act as President. War is always lurking in the shadows, isn't it?

A week after Jimmy Carter started his term, the record label EMI dropped its recent signing, the Sex Pistols. Later that year, their album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols was released by Warner Bros. The rest is history.

HERE's to today's history making inauguration.