Our National Symbol: Let's Forego the Eagle In Favor of the Owl
You know, when men like Ben Franklin, John Adams, and Tom Jefferson were helping found this country, an eagle seemed like a really appropriate national symbol which is probably why the eagle beat out the turkey for that honor.
Think eagle, and you think wide wing span, fierce, cranky, independent, and assuredly aggressive when needed. That's to some degree who we needed to be to survive.
But perhaps the time of the eagle has long since passed. Oh, not that we aren't still cranky, aggressive, and eager to flex our wings right in somebody else's face - just look at our little bantamweight rooster of a president and he does it daily (and twice on Sunday when he naps instead of attends prayer).
I ask with no mock seriousness: why not replace the eagle with the owl?
Yes, the owl has in some mythologies been seen as a purveyor or overseer of death and destruction (but then, so has the U.S.). Yet the owl is also rooted in a concept of wisdom, of smarts that come from watching, and - er, yeah - of being able to swoop down and murder a kitten in record time. You know, sorta like the United States.
But my thought behind the owl as a new national symbol is that:
- it's harder to take with the same two-dimensional egotestical (a word I coined for my first male editor who stood towering over me as he raged, "If you don't register as a Republican, you aren't worth anything! It's like kissing your vote goodbye!") fervor that some like Ollie North pray to the eagle
- it would symbolize the American citizen's need and RESPONSIBILITY to watch over the action of its leaders and both the treatment of and treatment by its soldiers
- it stands more for smarts than for brawn and after six years of Psycho Cowboy from Crawford, we can all stand a bit more intelligence - even
most of Texas - the owl looks less like Donald Rumsfeld
What say ye?
And no, stop looking at me askance. I haven't consumed alcohol in like years.
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