i wonder if this "happy" thing will catch on

most striking to me yesterday during the coverage of the inauguration was all the genuine, unadulterated joy that surrounded the new president.  in my admittedly brief life i've never seen anything like it on such a scale.  what a thing to imagine, let alone witness, that joy is something to attach to national politics.  that seems far more radical than any of the ridiculous things people think obama is going to do in their paranoid nightmares.  from my perspective, governmental phenomena seem more often to have aspects of suspicion, paranoia and emotional meanness (in the stingy, grasping dickensian sense) interspersed with reptilian brain pay offs--treating citizens as though they are rats to electrify or ply with cocaine.  when people, policies and institutions (at all scales, really) adopt alternating tough and patronizing postures, it always seems like extreme insecurity and fear, like being generous and forthright will be overly costly (i never understand how).  in all kinds of policy situations, it just seems so unthinkable to foster joy, to make situations in which it is possible to feel joy, rather than hard-scrabbling scuttling fear, silly tough posturing, or a momentary lull.  (and for the record, i wouldn't think it's very easy.)  it's nice to think for a while that a government can make people happy, rather than merely smug, paid off or facing the fact that they were born bad.