Tuesday, January 20, 2009

What's It All Mean?

Like many, I spent part of today watching the swearing in of a new president. The peaceful transition of power is always an awesome spectacle, something that never fails to send chills through my nervous system. To paraphrase Sigmund Freud, "The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization."

While watching the Inaugural Address a Sharp-shinned Hawk flew into our yard, choosing to perch in the tree closest to our windows. He patrols our yard frequently, usually landing across the yard watching for evidence of the scattered feeder birds, but today he was a mere 30 feet from where we sat.

Sharp-shinned HawkInaugural Sharpie

Of course, if you know me at all, my mind went right to wondering what the significance might be.

What did it mean that an accipiter hawk flew in and landed at the moment power shifted? Did it foretell something about the incoming president, or perhaps summarize the reign of the outgoing leader? Maybe something party-wide, or ideological? Or was it just a hungry bird trying to exploit my feeders?

I have my thoughts, what are yours? What could it all mean?

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5 comments:

Jochen said...

It means that you had forgotten to re-fill your feeder and that there was no prey for it around, so there was nothing for it to do but land and scan.

You see, birds are above such worldly things as elections and shifting of power. During the hype of the oncoming year 2000, I saw this awesome cartoon that I'll quickly describe:

It showed two pictures of a group of penguins, apparently a breeding colony, in the snow and the first caption read:
"Antarctica, 31st of December 1999, 11:59 p.m."
The second picture was nothing but an exact copy of the first one, and the caption read:
"Antarctica, 1st of January 2000, 00:01 a.m."

Birds are just far too cool.

Anonymous said...

It should only help you remember this day for the rest of your life . . . that is my guess!

Deejbrown said...

Perhaps the Sharpie is the President's Power Bird....?

Anonymous said...

I think he felt the flight to Washington was a bit much, so he was trying to view the event through your windows.

Michael said...

It's time to put away childish things, like making decisions based upon signs, portents, omens and gut feelings.

Again you and your countrymen can benefit from reason, science and data-based policies - the very best of modernity.

Anyway, that's my hunch.

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