I couldn't help but notice the exictement in an ABC newscaster's voice as he intoned what I realize is the official countdown the inauguration of Barack Obama: less than one week to go....

Perhaps I should lay off for a week. Write about the ongoing destruction of Gaza, the last few days of the worst president in U.S. history, or perhaps vent for the umpteenth time why the History Channel should just get it over with and rename themselves the Rapture Channel. Perhaps I should just let our Media Glitterati have the moment they've longed for ever since they caught sight of Barack Obama in Iowa so many moons ago.

In explaining his agonizing silence about Gaza, Obama kept reminding folks that we have only one president at a time. Puh-leeze. Our hapless media fucks have folllowed his every word and appointment with the fervor of a high school girl trailing the star quarterback. (Do we really give a shit what kind of dog his children get? Seriously?) I've never seen anything like it, and I doubt the next president (2012? 2016?) will have this much fawning over the "Office of the President Elect" ever again.

Maybe our Media Glitterati realizes that it's been had (girls with easy virtue never recover their reps) and want us to pretend that they never really liked George W. Bush anyway, and that they're really still virgins because they didn't let him do that all these years. Stop. The media whored itself out during the Bush Aeon, and no amount of claiming otherwise will change that. Doesn't matter how much they love Barack Obama: they're damaged goods.

To paraphrase Julius Caesar: the countdown die has been cast.

Well, there it is.

Uninspiring to the end, dare I say, unrepentant to the end. Bush's farewell speech was not one for the history books or illuminating to any degree. It was, like every other speech he's given, just a bunch of words.

What seems like the longest second presidential term is over. Finally. Like just about everything else he's chaired, he leaves the business called America in shambles. Unbelievable record deficits, a recession that seems to get worse every day, two unfinished wars, man, you name it.

Of course, speaking of the economy, right-wing assholes like Rush Limbaugh are already sowing the seeds of blaming Barack Obama for the current state of affairs. A few days ago, Limbaugh kept saying that within six months, Obama will "own" this economy. What else does one expect? These fucks keep blaming Clinton and even Carter for the sorry state of business affairs, there's no way they will say that Bush's (read Republican) steering capabilities did any harm.

But of course, what will our Media Glitterati do? They warmed up like hookers at a convention when Bush was running against Al Gore and never stopped the lovin' or the discounts for a favorite customer. They all enabled this man, they pushed our ridiculous Iraqi Expedition and slapped their own wrists when gosh, things didn't go well and maybe the case for war wasn't really investigated. You think? Of course, in our country, self-reliance has taken a back seat to self-forgiveness, so they all pretend that nothing has happened and that we all need to move on. As penance, they sought to push the candidacy of Obama and that dovetailed with baby boomers' continuing infatuation with themselves. See? We really are sorry for promoting Bush, so we'll promote this other guy to cleanse our nation and our souls.

In short, Bush may now be regarded as a former president. But for the media, their fatuous sycophancy has merely traded masters.

If you read any right-wing Web sites, they are spending today—the inauguration of Barack Obama—with ashes on their foreheads and sackcloth girding their loins.

Today is a study in contrast: the joy that millions of people are experiencing over the swearing in of Barack Obama and the self-pity among Republicans and conservatives. Now, for myself, I brush aside all the ridiculous fawning and slack-jawed reporting that is a hallmark of our Media Glitterati’s treatment of Obama. Personally, I prefer to see some action and see it soon: America cannot afford to wait any longer given the absolute mess that Bush and his cohorts have inflicted on us. I can skip the apotheosis because it’s premature and over the top.

By the same token, I really am happy that others are so happy. And I take heart that while conservatives are bitching up a storm because they don’t care what the world thinks of us, I find the opposite to be a reassuring note about American stature and power. After all, would conservatives prefer the world looks on the election and inauguration of an American president with the same breathless attention as the new president of Argentina? No one person in the world commands the attention of the American leader and I see that as a good thing.

Of course, I’ve come to understand that conservatives are really jealous of their Democrat and liberal counterparts. And if anyone denies that, he’s are a damn liar. They didn’t complain about this eight years ago, when George W. Bush was sworn in as president. They didn’t kick the ground, pout and spend the day licking their wounds in much the same manner liberals did when their roles were reversed. If anything, the conservative reaction to the excitement generated by the inauguration is a little embarrassing and borderline hysterical. If you’re so superior to the “loony left,” why are you carrying on like a spoilt brat who’s been told to go to his room? Why are you acting like this isn’t even your country? You don’t have to rush out with your (creepy) red, white and blue Obama poster, but the response of conservatives since the election reminds me greatly of Satan in “Paradise Lost,” where he returns to Pandemonium and sees that all the other fallen angels have been transformed into hissing snakes and his realm is one of ash.

As conservatives loved to tell liberals: the election is history. Get over it!

Well, how long will take before our Media Glitterati ceases to use their STOP THE PRESSES headline on Web sites?

For the past week, it's been a barrage of 24 point or larger headlines on every major newspaper site, from the LA Times to the Washington Post to the NY Times: OBAMA ERA BEGINS, FIRST COUPLE LEADS FIRST DANCE, SECOND DAY OF NEW DAWN FOR AMERICA, and so on and so forth.

It's not that I want to take this away from our Media Glitterati, for whom the triumph of Obama is their triumph and his story is their story (one that's never been told, I assure you), but if the new president wants to hit the ground running and get to work, can we stop with the fawning? Can we cease the daily pronouncements that smack of the royal reader proclaiming the king's business?

Enough! Expectations of Obama are so high that it's not going to help if our hapless media fucks keep blowing hot air everywhere and distort reality so that disappointment comes fast and hard. While I don't believe the media will turn on Obama (they didn't during the primaries and certainly not during the campaign itself), the fickleness of the public will be on full display if the kid gloves treatment continues indefinitely. If you promise them cake, the people will eventually demand to tell what size they want.

Of course, I write this seeing the damnable, idiotic phrase "The First 100 Days" just about everywhere. Oh no, no pressure there.

Dennis Overbye wants to put science on a pedestal.

I can't say that I blame his sentiment, really, because after eight years of Bush, I am sure he captures the sense of relief that many scientists in this country have felt after hearing Barack Obama pledge to put science back in its rightful place. I would have preferred Obama used the phrase "American science" but I keep forgetting we are in a post-nation state world in the Obama Epoch. Besides, I actually am grateful the top executive in this country would even utter that phrase.

So, in the spirit of waxing poetic in the Obama Epoch, Mr. Overbye outlines his feeling and attempts to address some of the heavier charges against science: that it promotes materialism, robs of us our metaphysical (read supernatural) sense of self, etc., etc. He assures that science is the best, most successful endeavor in human history, while informing us that science is not about any revealed truth but what people do to find truth.

I hope he and other scientists remember something key: get a better agent this time around.

While Mr. Overbye wants to portray himself and his colleagues as a persecuted minority, he fails to note when science has been used in the service of the state to oppress, maim and do all sorts of harm. He fails to mention that the eugenics movement began in this country before getting exported to Europe where the Nazis would take the "scientific" principles of life and race to deadly effect. While it's wrong to equate Darwinism with Nazism, that's precisely what religious leaders have done, and it's one of their more potent weapons to decry evolution. And the response from the scientific community? Well, it's about as limp-wristed as you can imagine. For every Richard Dawkins, there seems to be a hundred milquetoast scientists wanting just to keep their mouths shut and not rock the boat.

If anyone wants to put science on a pedestal, then they need a better marketing plan to meet moral argument with moral argument, even if science is not concerned with morals or ethics. The fact that Jews, Catholics and Muslims all worked to some degree on the Large Hadron Collider means nothing: you have to tell me why none of these distinctions matters when we talk about science, or how science is about explaining the world we see and why, and what we hope to discover in the future. Telling me a Jew and a Muslim worked on this project has about as much compelling narrative as one being blond, the other a brunette.

And while we're at it, scientists, learn this lesson well: our Media Glitterati have extraordinary short attention spans and you need to be succinct, affable and reassuring, even if you are really long-winded, an asshole and arrogant. Scientists have an image problem, and it's one they've brought on themselves. Do you really think, Mr. Overbye, that just because Saint Obama talked about restoring science, that alone makes it a fait accompli? That somehow people will be able to muddle through conflicting reports that one day too much coffee causes hallucinations and on the next, coffee drinking can stave off dementia? And you can't seriously make the connection that science is, on the one hand, not concerned with morals or ethics, but then turn around and say that practicing good science means practicing good democracy. The proper formulation should be, "good science means a stronger country," but of course, in the Obama Epoch, I suppose one should not take pride in his country but talk about "democracy" in ways politicians talk about "the people": a convenient, but utterly meaningless abstraction.

So, Mr. Overbye, you have your work cut out for you. Please don't depend on either Saint Obama or our hapless media fucks to do the job for you.