Well, now that I have your attention let me soften up a little here.  Any Presidential Inaugural in the United States should be an occassion of joy.  In what other part of the world would you see the reins of government for such a powerful nation change hands so smoothly??  Bush is out and Obama is in, and not a single person has been incarcerated or worse.

Well, maybe I’m premature.  Given the low temperatures at the Inaugural and the fact that you have limited bathroom access and seating, you may yet see a few casualties of the new government.  A word of advice to our older readers: don’t go.  This standing around for 6 hours in freezing cold is for the young.

And it is the young that should be celebrating; they are the ones that put Obama over the top and elected him President.  In their excited fugue state, they are going to go and throw a fantastic party next Tuesday to celebrate the first African-American President of the United States.    But I’m here to throw a little cold water on your party,  a little dose of reality on the Change Band-Wagon that rolled so smoothly over the remains of the GOP ticket last November.   You voted for change but what you’ve been getting is pragmatism: your new President has limited options in the face of a melting economy.  You voted to punish the rich, but it seems that we still need the rich to kick-start the economic engine from its current stupor.  You voted yourselves a ticket to the opening of a cornucopia of endless green energy and bio-fuels, but instead you are standing in the soup line with the rest of us.  Better get out of the line and get behind the serving table: we are going to need all the help we can get.

The euphoria I expect to see next Tuesday reminds me of a fantastic wedding day put together for a couple that never gave much thought to what is needed to form a long-lasting marriage.  The couple was so focused on having a great time at the wedding that they did not plan out the rudiments of a real marriage: a firm financial and emotional foundation for the life-long effort that lay ahead. 

I have heard so much about the menus for the different Inaugural celebrations being held but not much about how folks are going to pay for the meal and the entertainment.  Is this money disposable income or is it coming from your unemployment benefits?  Is it worth spending a piece of your future to get a short-lived high?

This is akin to the feeling you get when your team wins a game.  For a few moments life seems wonderful, but it is a feeling that is built on a meaningless event.   Roger Ebert has a great article on the feeling of elevation  and how you get it at the movies: it is a great sensation but it is built on something less than reality.  When the movie is over, so is the feeling of elation.  It take a little extra effort to turn the memory of that moment into action that lasts a lifetime.   I can only hope that that is what will happen on Inauguration Tuesday.  Go get  your jollies that day, but don’t lay the weight of the future on Mr. Obama; only you and the hard work of a few million others can make it as bright as you are expecting it to be.