It clearly seeks to inspire, smoothing over difficulties, full of passionate indignation on behalf of women, ending with a roll call of the years in which they won the vote.
"The clerk told me the other day, 'Wow, I am going to miss calling your name.' " While myriad others have led off the roll call over the years, there is something about Mr. Akaka's name that made it stand out.
The morning roll call, which 20 years ago would have been, for the most part, a lineup of white men with military haircuts, included blacks, Latinos, Asians and women, evidence of what Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa described in an interview as the result of an aggressive and crucial effort to diversify the department.
The roll call of 40 years of fiascos and failures can't be vindicated by the paltry instances of success.
The roll call ended a two-year odyssey for the child health legislation, which President George W. Bush adamantly opposed on the ground it would lead to "government-run health care for every American".
Any discussion about the New Orleans Saints inevitably includes a roll call of lowlights, from years of bumbling play, to running back Ricky Williams's wearing a wedding dress next to a tuxedoed Mike Ditka on the cover of a national magazine.
Today, in a New Year honours roll call long on sporting awards but short on City gongs, Chris and Carol Hoy become the first mother and son to be recognised for separate achievements in the same list.
Poyet would be Sunderland's sixth permanent manager in five years, a roll call that reads Di Canio, O'Neill, Steve Bruce, Ricky Sbragia and Roy Keane.
Vanessa Engle's numbing film looks at one year, taking a roll call of the 86 women killed by their partners or former partners.
The BBC has released its annual Faces of the Year list, a roll call of those, according to the BBC, "whose fame is really something of the last 12 months".
