Bear's Den: "Inauguration Pandemonium - No Thanks."

The presidential inauguration has come and gone, and I didn´t see it. Uh-huh, and I couldn´t give a care, neither. That´s because, in the nightly news, I´ve watched several on-scene reporters all enthusiastically saying that the whole thing was utter bedlam and uproarious ´pandemonium´. Well, I´ll drink a beer, now and then, but that´s about it for the bad spirits I need. So, it´s that last one – pandemonium – that makes me pretty darn happy that I missed the boat on this inauguration – historical or no.

Yeah, I know, I know, I´m a cad. Hooooow… could I not be excited? Well it´s easy, because, as far as I know, I haven´t done anything wrong. That´s why I got to opt-out of the viewing of the whole sha-bang. Now, being a history buff, you´d think that I would´ve wanted to see this first time ever record of a black man swearing-in to the highest office in the land. Heck, I was rooting hard for old Alan Keyes early on, but his light in the race went out fast so, ordinarily, I would´ve watched this inauguration, too. But the idol hoopla made the whole thing too much of a farce for me – sorry, but it did. Truth be told, I´m not much on watching any presidential inauguration, no matter what the flavor of the oath-taker: Democrat or Republican, or skin tone: black, white, red, yellow, brown or orange with pink polka-dots. Nah, I´d sooner sit and view the bark growing on a white oak tree. I mean, the gray color is similar, and the task is comparable. Heck… there may even be a dragonfly or something interesting that alights on the tree´s covering. This inauguration could´ve been different, but alas, such was not the case. Yep, I don´t watch the Oscars for the very same reason – I´m just not an idol worshiper.

Now respect is very important for a traditional American Indian. But, as an elder, I have to perform reality checks periodically, too. Now, the Christian Bible says a lot about idol worship, and I´ll leave that up to you. That said I figure that Obama has a rough row to hoe for the next four years – no matter what. He not only has the history of his office hanging over his head, but he´ll also have the history of the black experience dangling precariously above his noggin, too. But, maybe history will be kind to him. I mean, it was very nice to Kennedy, and it often overlooks any wrongdoing in this country, if the public stays star-struck enough.

Yeah, I think that Obama´s election is very similar to that of John Kennedy´s, anyway. Obama got the nod because he has excellent oratory skills, he had the money and he had a weak opponent. That´s how Kennedy got in, too. Now, couple that with being black and a fair-looking dude, and you have John Kennedy´s election, some 48 years later: instant celebrity and thus… ´idol´… status, to boot. Sure, and that´s what it is – like it or not. My daughter, who voted for Obama, was trying to chat this up with me the other day. But, if I´ve learned anything – it´s to not get between a dog and his favorite bone. When I was non-responsive, she ended with, "Well, at least the country is excited about our president again." Um-hmm, and all I thought was sure, and back in 1933, there was a country in Europe that was excited about their new leader, too and that didn´t turn out that well for the Germans, either. And, while I´m not saying that the two men are the same, I am hinting that the processes of the ´excited´ populace may be a tad too… frighteningly… similar, eh.

To me, Obama´s skin color is akin to Kennedy´s being Catholic at the time. In 1960, Catholicism was growing and becoming a prouder thing for those in that category, just as being black is for folks in that grouping, nowadays. Kennedy´s election was a milestone for a subjugated faction, just as Obama´s is for another such group of Americans. For this reason, I´m very proud of his election. It´s the passing of a major milestone for this country. But, that´s about as far as it goes with me. And I know, I know, if you´re a lover of Kennedy… then you believe that he was the greatest president ever! But then, if you view Kennedy that way, then I figure that you haven´t done the research, either. I´m thinking that you may be relying too much on what the nation´s history school books say. And boy… are they ever wrong sometimes. I mean, Columbus wasn´t a hee-ro – he just wasn´t. But he was and still seems to be… a ´star´. He murdered, raped, pillaged and tried desperately to enslave Indians, and yet… we have a national holiday in his honor. For me, that´s the bad side of idolatry, eh. And it can go the opposite way round, too. For example, many U.S. history books say, or hint, that what we did in ending the war with Japan via a nuclear weapon was wrong. And yet, if we hadn´t dropped atomic bombs on Japan, then they surely would´ve dropped them on us. They had a nuclear bomb program that they were working on, feverously, when we beat them to the punch. And, they would´ve had the means to do it, too. Japanese aircraft bombed the Oregon coast, long after Pearl Harbor, in September of 1942. Yet, few, if any, of the historical text books ever mention these truths. Instead, we´re told what others want us to believe.

So, what we´re sometimes told isn´t necessarily right, and I know this. It makes it a lot easier for me to be a cad. See, when I heard the reporters using words like utter bedlam and uproarious to describe the inauguration, I knew that I´d been right in skipping this out and out scene of idolatry. I mean, take bedlam, for instance. I know that its origin comes from St. Mary of Bethlehem, the first hospital in England expressly for… ´the insane´. Its name got shortened over time to just plain bedlam meaning: ´crazy´. Yep, and I know that when the reporters said that the inauguration was uproarious, that the word comes from the Dutch and means: a state of commotion or… ´violent disturbance´. But it was the last one that I heard them mention that made it easy for me. Uh-huh, ´pandemonium´ comes from the Greek, pan + daimōn, which means: ´evil spirit´. Well, I´ll drink a beer, now and then, but that´s about it for the bad spirits that I need. So, it´s that last one – pandemonium – that makes me pretty darn happy that I missed the boat on this inauguration – historical or no.