After suspension for nodding at Obama, drum major calling it quits

An Ohio man who was suspended as the drum major of a band for giving President Obama a nod during last week's inaugural parade is calling it quits.

John Coleman resigned from the Cleveland Firefighters Memorial Pipes & Drums a week after the parade in Washington. "Publicity about his suspension had gotten to be too much," he told WEWS.

"It's come to a point where I don't want embarrassment anymore between the pipe band and myself," Coleman, who is a firefighter, told WEWS on Tuesday.

Coleman was seen during the nationally televised January 20 parade nodding toward the new president while marching with the band. A few steps later, he appeared to wave briefly.

He told WEWS that as the band was marching past the grandstand where Barack Obama was sitting.

"Contact was made with our eyes both together and he smiled and waved at the band," he told the station. "And just as a gesture, I nodded my head. I gave him a slight wave and went on."

Representatives from the group did not return calls from several news organizations asking for comment. But bandleader Mike Engle told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that Coleman was suspended because he ignored military protocol.

"We had gone over and over time and again with everyone in the band that this was a military parade," Engle told the newspaper. "Protocol and proper decorum had to be followed at all times. Unfortunately, John chose to ignore that."

Coleman had been suspended from the band for six months.

In a written statement, band manager Ken Rybka said Coleman's resignation from the group "comes as a shock and surprise."

The band has been inundated with phone calls, e-mails and messages on its Internet pages -- almost all of them critical -- since the story first broke on Monday, Rybka said.

"It is unfortunate that an internal band issue has raised so much discussion and ire from the general public," Rybka said in the statement. "It has disheartened me more than you can imagine."

Rybka said that he will be taking a leave of absence from the band because of the furor.

"The 'afterglow' of participating in the inaugural parade is gone," he said.

Being suspended for waving, nodding, saluting someone? especially the President of the country? someone fill me in here...that's a bad thing now? if someone looks our way, it's NOT the polite thing to do to nod? ESPECIALLY if it's the PRESIDENT?? are we supposed to act like drones in that situation and act like we see nothing and continue on? He was suspended for "ignoring military protocol"? Isn't military protocol to salute the President? or even the general (the whole hand to the head thing?) what am I missing here? someone fill me in? Anyone with military experience, that know exactly what the infraction here was and understand it?

President Obama steps into history, and a world of peril

Tracing the arc of history to a day many thought would never come, Barack Obama will be sworn in as America's 44th and first black president -- and wades into a sea of troubles.

Climaxing the unlikeliest of journeys, Barack Obama, the son of a black Kenyan and white mother from Kansas will be taking the oath of office at noon (1700 GMT) on the steps of the Capitol, a congressional building built by slave labor.

Guarded by an unprecedented security operation, millions were expected to pack the National Mall stretching from Capitol Hill to the Lincoln Memorial, where Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963, spoke of a dream of racial unity.

To his successor, outgoing President George W. Bush bequeaths an economy in crisis, a war on two fronts and a patchwork of frayed alliances. For Barack Obama, drawing inspiration both from former great Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt, the perils of the age call for a spirit of national sacrifice unseen since World War II.

"Tomorrow, we will come together as one people on the same mall where Dr. King's dream echoes still," Obama said Monday, paying tribute to the slain civil rights hero on the national holiday commemorating King's birth.

"As we do, we recognize that here in America, our destinies are inextricably linked," he said.

"We resolve that as we walk, we must walk together. And as we go forward in the work of renewing the promise of this nation, let's remember King's lesson -- that our separate dreams are really one."

Tuesday morning, in the first presidential handover since the September 11 attacks of 2001, Barack Obama and his wife Michelle were to meet the departing president and First Lady Laura Bush at their new home in the White House.

Then, after swearing to "preserve, protect and defend" the US constitution, Obama is to deliver his most important speech yet in a career littered with memorable oratory since his explosion onto the national stage in 2004.

Braving the cold, a vast crowd was expected to line the Mall, watching the historic inauguration either near the West Front of the US Capitol for the lucky few, or in front of giant television screens for the rest.

Renita King, 46, said she had flown from Houston, Texas with her six-year-old son Arthur to mark the years of racial prejudice endured by her 73-year-old mother.

"I am here for her, and every time that she was called a n*gger -- that is how I see this, as an American," she said.

Aides said Obama's call for all Americans to embrace public service would dominate his inaugural address, as he gets to grips with the nation's longest recession since World War II and his plans to pull US troops out of Iraq.

"Given the crisis we're in and the hardships so many people are going through, we can't allow any idle hands. Everybody's going to have to be involved. Everybody's going to have to pitch in," Obama said during a visit Monday to a teen shelter in Washington.

The "war on terror" is just one part of Obama's groaning in-tray of challenges.
From Gaza to Guantanamo, he confronts a world in tumult, a point underscored by the latest bellicose noises from nuclear-armed North Korea.

Following the inauguration of President Barack Obama and vice president-elect Joseph Biden, the new US leaders were to lunch with members of Congress, Supreme Court justices and Obama's cabinet, including secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

Marching bands, military veterans, union workers and schoolchildren were to then join a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House for President Obama to take up the reins of power in the Oval Office.... and his place in history.

Outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney, 67, who pulled a muscle in his back Monday -- the latest in a series of health problems -- while moving boxes and will be in a wheelchair for the inauguration, the White House said.

The whirlwind day is to end with 10 official inaugural balls before the Obama's could retire with their daughters Malia and Sasha, becoming the youngest First Family since that of John F. Kennedy, who occupied the White House in the early 1960s.

The celebrations have an acute poignancy for many in the United States, and the world, given Obama's mold-shattering bi-racial heritage.

Even tennis star Serena Williams, a Jehovah's Witness who makes a point of staying out of political matters, said from the Australian Open that she was inspired by Obama.

"This is an amazing moment for American history," she said.

Can the rest of the world be excited about the new presidency? Yes we can!

Beyonce to sing for Barack Obamas' first inaugural dance

Beyonce will sing for Barack and Michelle Obama's first dance on inauguration night.

The song? "Crazy in Love?" Her version of Etta James' "At Last?" The Presidential Inaugural Committee isn't saying. "It is our hope that we can keep the song secret until the moment," said spokeswoman Linda Douglass.

Beyonce is part of the star-studded lineup at the official Neighborhood Ball that will be televised on ABC, along with her husband Jay-Z, Will.I.Am, Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, Shakira, Sting, Faith Hill, Mary J. Blige, Stevie Wonder and Maroon 5.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee says presenters at the ball will include Denzel Washington, Jessica Alba, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ray Romano, Jamie Foxx, Queen Latifah and Kate Walsh.

The Neighbourhood Ball is for Washington, D.C. residents, and will be broadcast live and streamed online with an interactive component on the Internet.

The inaugural Web site allows people to host or find viewing parties around the country.

"We are encouraging people all around the country to have their own inaugural ball," Douglass said.

"All Americans are invited to take a moment and have a little party, and they'll be connected to the folks in Washington and the Neighbourhood Ball through both broadcast and on the Internet."

Beyonce has been eager to participate in the inauguration, telling a reporter the day after the election: "Whatever they want - if they need me to volunteer, they need me to sing, I'm there, and I'm ready."

Lawsuit seeks to take God out of Presidential inauguration

A number of atheists and non-religious organizations want Barack Obama's inauguration ceremony to leave out all references to God and religion.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Washington, the plaintiffs demand that the words "so help me God" not be added to the end of the president's oath of office.

In addition, the lawsuit objects to plans for ministers to deliver an invocation and a benediction in which they may discuss God and religion.

An advance copy of the lawsuit was posted online by Michael Newdow, a California doctor and lawyer who has filed similar and unsuccessful suits over inauguration ceremonies in 2001 and 2005.

Joining Newdow in the suit are groups advocating religious freedom or atheism, including the American Humanist Association, the Freedom from Religion Foundation and atheist groups from Minnesota; Seattle, Washington; and Florida.

The new lawsuit says in part, "There can be no purpose for placing 'so help me God' in an oath or sponsoring prayers to God, other than promoting the particular point of view that God exists."

Newdow said references to God during inauguration ceremonies violate the Constitution's ban on the establishment of religion.

Newdow and other plaintiffs say they want to watch the inaugural either in person or on television. As atheists, they contend, having to watch a ceremony with religious components will make them feel excluded and stigmatized.

"Plaintiffs are placed in the untenable position of having to choose between not watching the presidential inauguration or being forced to countenance endorsements of purely religious notions that they expressly deny," according to the lawsuit.

Among those named in the lawsuit are Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, who is expected to swear in the new president; the Presidential Inauguration Committee; the Joint Congressional Committee on Inauguration Ceremonies and its chairwoman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California; and the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee and its commander, Maj. Gen. Richard Rowe Jr.

The two ministers scheduled to participate in the ceremony also are named: the Rev. Rick Warren and the Rev. Joseph Lowery. The document includes a quotation from Warren on atheists: "I could not vote for an atheist because an atheist says, 'I don't need God.' "

Newdow said that he didn't name President-elect Barack Obama in the suit because in addition to participating as a government official at the ceremony, he possesses rights as an individual that allow him to express religious beliefs.

"If he chooses to ask for God's help, I'm not going to challenge him," Newdow said. "I think it's unwise."

Newdow said that as a member of a racial minority, Obama should have respect for atheists, who also are members of a minority.

Newdow said religious references in the inauguration ceremony send a message to non-believers.

"The message here is, we who believe in God are the righteous, the real Americans," he said.

Newdow said it's unconstitutional to imply that atheists and others are not as good.

He acknowledged that his suit is unlikely to be successful.

"I have no doubt I'll lose," he said, adding that he hoped to eventually succeed through appeals and hoped future inauguration ceremonies would exclude religious references.

I'm wondering what my readers thoughts on this are? leave your comments on this topic.