First Spring 2010 Blog for Sandra's 7:30am Class

First of all, whew! We got through the downpour, the deadly typhoon-monsoon of the begining semester and you lived to tell about it! People, we attend campus when it is still dark outside, are you crazy??? This class is EARLY early...I think I still had some dried toothpaste in the corners of my mouth yesterday during roll and a few of you were wearing pajamas! Any-hoo... here we are blogging, this week we'll talk about the State of The U speech by Mr. Pres, agent of change himself, Barack Obama! Here you can read some of the transcript for the speech if you missed it :
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100128/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_state_of_the_union_text

You may watch or read just a portion or the entire speech depending on your time restraints. As you consider a few things, I'd like to get your name (in your 6 line minimum post below, click on comments) and some thoughts about the rhetorical situation (speech context both physical AND emotional). Remember, though it is billed a live speech in front of a present audience of warm bodies (well, some of those senators may not have actually still been breathing...) the true intended audience of the state of the union address was who? Where? I don't want your personal opinion of our president here, I want insight and observation of a speech by a critical observer (YOU). What was one rhetorical situation-aspect that was somehow referred to in the speech? Check other entries and postings, repeating another student's answer will result in no credit for this blog. It was a LONG speech there'splenty of stuff to pull out and talk about! See you in class bloggers!!!