I’ve hated flying ever since 1978, when the plane I was on was hijacked.

Every time there is a plane disaster, as there was Thursday afternoon, I think of the innocent people on board. And today, there was a miracle on the Hudson —no lives lost, first responders on the case.This was something to be grateful for.

But I was mesmerized by the coincidence of this event happening on the very day George W. Bush gave his Farewell Address. For eight years, we have lived with the “war on terror”–the condoning of torture, the Gitmo-ization of our rule of law, and with it the anti-Americanism which we must lance …. Tonight there was the self -adulation Bush offered himself–with talk of his hours in the rubble of 9-11.But the networks which so assiduously cultivated Bush at a different time in our history, knew the jig was up. They threw him in the water along with passengers coming out of the cold.

Bush stayed true to his gameplan tonight —stressing his resoluteness in the fight in the “war on terror.” But it is worth reflecting, after nearly a decade of a failed “war on terror” —-that it was a flock of birds that caused this havoc. Not nuclear weapons. Not conventional weapons. A flock of birds.Maybe this a signal being sent on the eve of this historic inauguration that we need to rethink how we deal with security.

Maybe, as we gather around for this extraordinary week of inaugural (e)motion, let’s reflect on how we might engage flocks of birds, to turn them in the right direction, instead of firing up billions of weapons we don’t need and which do us more harm than hope.