Big Dreams, Fairy Tales & once upon a time...

Friends, the TV hasn't been on today, & it won't be (except TV Land) until Biggest Loser/American Idol tonight. I simply can't stomach it.

My kids are home from school playing in the snow. I'm blogging. My friend Sandy just called. She's at home w/ snow-day kids, too, & has been watching it. She says she can't suffer anything but Fox News. She says Network coverage is ripping Bush to shreds, saying he's leaving office "disgraced" (yes, that's a quote). Excuse me? Disgraced?? Who do these people think we are, that their propaganda-passing-for-news really has a finger on the pulse of the nation...?

Based on Network News (& cable, or any form mainstream Journalism) you'd think that Mr. Obama won the election by 98% of the vote. You'd think we're all raging & frothing at the gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. waving torches & brandishing firearms (the ones we'll soon have to surrender to Big Brother) to drag our erstwhile President into the streets. According to sweet Sandy, who has a stronger stomach than I, you'd never know that "55 million people voted for a Republican [i.e., against Prince Obama] despite the worst economic times since the '30's," despite 2 wars which the MSM can't stop telling us are dreadfully unpopular, despite a Republican Presidential candidate who rolled over & wouldn't fight the campaign fight...Even with all of that, Prince O. only won 52% of the vote...Folks, it should have been a landslide. (I know, I know, some say it was...dear, deluded souls that they are.) But, alas, a win's a win. And here we are at Inauguration Day.

If I've learned one thing in the past 6-8 months, it's to no longer believe the media. Don't trust what they say, but sift through it very carefully. And in some situations, like today, just don't even go there. Sometimes it just drips too thickly of tainted syrup, & I get cranky trudging through molasses uphill.

So, I'm taping it. It's history, after all & I get that. I respect our country's foundational principles, & today is the end result of those principles at work. I also respect the Civil Rights victory that this day represents. I understand that he embodies a victory for Dr. King's Big Dream for his people (though, Prince O. isn't really one of those people, is he?). And I really am thankful.

So, I'm taping it. Because I will want to see it, sans commentary & media effusiveness. I will want my children to see it, sans the same. My husband & I will make sure our children know, despite our vehement political differences w/ Mr. O, that this is an historic event & it is important. Our children will someday be able to say they saw it, the same way I can say that once-upon-a-time I saw Prince Charles & Lady Diana's wedding at 00:dark:thirty on a bleary-eyed summer morning. I only saw it because my Grandmother hauled me out of my kinder-dreams & propped me in front of her beach-house TV (complete w/ tin foiled rabbit ears). Today's inauguration will mean about as much to my children as Lady Di's dress meant to me so long ago. But they'll be able to say they saw it.

Funny. There's one thing I do remember about Charles' & Di's wedding. The media salivated & effused over that too. They could hardly contain themselves over the "fairy tale come true." They said it represented every little girl's Big Dreams - she landed a real-live Prince! So much Hope for the British people! So many Big Dreams it represented for the entire world! It's really too bad, actually...As much as that media machine tried to convince the world otherwise, in the fullness of time, Lady Di's Prince showed himself to be exactly what he had been all along - a Royal Toad.

~~~