What a wonderful start to 2009. A new president governing this land I live in (but can’t vote in), and someone who I would have voted for in a heartbeat. When he was sworn in on Tuesday, it felt a little bit like it wasn’t really going to change things so much in the immediate future. After all (and as President Obama has said, many times,) this is a time of grave economic hardship and conflict around the world. I was settling in for a slower road to the changes that he (and the rest of the country, if not the world) wanted to make.

Ah, how wrong I was. Within 24 hours of taking the oath, he signed the order to halt tribunals at Guantanamo, that horror of horrors, and then an order to close the place within a year.

This morning, I was delighted to read that he signed another order to close the CIA ‘ghost prisons’ and order a full review on the treatment of detainees, reaffirmed the USA’s commitment to the Geneva Conventions and signalled an end to the last 6 years of torture and rendition of suspects in the ‘war on terror’.

I am fervently sending all my prayers and daimoku to ensuring that these wonderful changes continue. It feels strange to live here and feel proud of the choices the government is making, but a good kind of strange. Long may it continue.