Obama's Schedule May 4

With the gulf oil catastrophe, an ongoing bomb plot investigation, Amadinejad being Ahmadinejad, Supreme Court Justice interviews, ongoing war, Middle East madness, on top of a slowly recovering economy, Obama has had a light public schedule so far this week.

If you ask me, Obama seems mighty preoccupied as of late, even at the fun events, such as the correspondents dinner and the presentation of the commander in chief trophy to the Naval Academy football team.

Who could blame him?

I wouldn't want to be president for anything in the world. It's mostly a thankless job, where you plow ahead, putting out fires, while millions of arm chair critics eat popcorn, drink beer, burp, gossip and make snide remarks about the job you're doing.
At 11:05 am eastern, Obama speaks to the business council on the economy.

At 12 pm, Obama will lunch with Elie Wiesel and Obama and Biden will meet with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at 4:30 pm.

Obama Meets With Elie Wiesel May 4

Update May 4: Read about their kosher lunch here.
Obama will meet Elie Wiesel at 12 pm eastern for lunch

Elie Wiesel Speaks on the Holocaust

Obama Visits Buchenwald June 5

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Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Tom Brokaw interviews Obama in Germany:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Trinity Easter Sermon: Night Visits Cultures

trinity united church of christ streamed its easter sermon live. i wanted to see for myself what a sermon was like and it in no way was like those loops endlessly played by the media.
rev. james forbes preached and it was the first time i've listened to an easter sermon in a long time. here's some of what he had to say.
he talked about "night" in the metaphoric sense, the same way that author thomas moore wrote about night in "dark nights of the soul," night like elie wiesel's book, "night."
we are in a period of night, which can be an awakening, he said. 9-11 ushered in night for america.
9-11 has weighed on america as "night." we could have reckoned with 9-11 with justice peace and compassion, but war took hold and we went in another direction and are in another, deeper night.
we all have suffered post traumatic stress disorder. night is when our leaders can't say can't say the 'r' word, while a major financial institution goes belly up. night is when tornadoes touch down in atlanta.
u.s. needs healing. we are in deep trouble in this nation.
if night lasts too long, we could be in great peril.
easter says that nighttime is primetime for the grace of god.
night is a reality. it is life. night is facing racism, sexism, economism, environmental degradation, imperialism.
none of us want to face anything that will find us guilty.
it was a perfect sermon.
yet the bigots were out in full force. i had always been aware there were plenty of hateful people out there. i guess i never realized how many.
on a positive note, obama's talk inspired other easter sermons.