Odetta dying just after Barack Obama gets elected feels somehow right, if it could ever feel right for her to die. At least she lived to see the moment, if not its outcome. The Neocons who lied to the world, who created Al Quaeda in show trials so that they could maintain the military hegemony of the US, who created the final ten years of the Cold War when it should have been long over, are gone, and probably for some time to come. Will it make things any better? Yes it will. At least for a while. Right now we need strong symbolism, and Obama is symbolism that all the world is reading with a little more hope. RIP Odetta. Sadness. But some optimism too.