Pulling Back From The Edge

As we promised to start the week, Monday already proved the news is not playing around this week. Yesterday alone included the "Where's Waldo"-like drama of the Edward Snowden story - including the news that Snowden appears to have targeted the NSA, the knock-knock joke opening from the defense attorney in the George Zimmerman murder trial, and the major news from the IRS that "progressive" groups - like other groups including conservatives - had also been among their targets for "special attention".

At the Supreme Court, six decisions came down Monday, including a substantive anti-worker decision, along with a major punt from the Court on the issue of Affirmative Action that sidestepped virtually all the difficult questions. In the U.S. Senate, for once, a difficult task was successfully tackled head-on, as immigration reform passed a key test vote in the U.S. Senate, 67-27.

Today is shaping up to be another major news day with more important decisions from the Supreme Court likely, the major announcement from President Obama of his sweeping actions on climate change, the Senate race in Massachusetts, and a major battle over women's rights and abortion in Texas.

Oh - and HealthCare.gov is now officially active as well.

If you're thinking there are a few things we haven't mentioned yet, you'd be right. Peering at the surging volume of news below us, Americans of all kinds are straining just to hang on, like a dog owner getting dragged to edge of a very nasty cliff.

At least one version of that cliff includes a monster at the bottom that is the Syrian civil war - and it should surprise no one that the gutless curs of the corporate military industry are chomping at the bit to drag the rest of us over that edge.

Before America does get involved any further than a pledge to give weapons to rebels - which is already a far worse idea than most will admit - we should definitely take half a moment in this maelstrom to look seriously at what the Syrian conflict is.

Not only is the Syrian conflict hopelessly confusing, politically, but there are no real heroes on any side. Even the military experts at the Pentagon have made it clear that serious intervention in Syria would be logistically untenable, politically impossible, and fiscally suicidal. Even legitimate analysis from overseas notes that Syrian jihadis are already dividing against themselves, in what is already becoming a wider regional conflict.

We're not going to say what's happening in Syria is acceptable, on a humanitarian level. It's not. However, Syria is also a political and military conflict that has no one who truly sides with the best interests of America, or really much of the rest of the world.

To let those drooling for America get our nation involved in yet another war, and pull the rest of us over the edge into the mess that is Syria, is simply not an option at this time. Thanks to chickenhawk conservatives and weak liberals, America has already wasted nearly a dozen years, in multiple wars overseas.

We've simply got too much going on at home right now, as a nation, to go fight monsters for somebody else.

Not Playing Around

As we're looking forward into this next week, we're a bit apprehensive about the massive number of major news stories looming on the horizon for all three branches of our government over the next few days.

To start with, the Supreme Court will be handing down a scattering of potentially history-altering rulings as they close their 2013 term this week. With voting rights, affirmative action, and both major same sex marriage cases being decided, those covering the news coming from the Court will have enough information coming out this week to last them long past Independence Day.

President Obama and the Executive branch have an even bigger workload on their plate this week than the Court, starting with the President's sweeping and massive climate change announcement and federal policy changes that will happen on Tuesday.

The Obama administration is also keeping close tabs on the legendary former leader of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, who is ill and could very likely die this week - just as President Obama is scheduled to visit several nations in Africa. The rebel factions in Syria also appear to finally be getting the weapons promised to them, so it's likely the Syrian civil war might also be drawing more attention from the White House.

In the midst of all of these news events coming up this week, does anyone think Congress will actually accomplish anything before their scheduled weeklong-plus holiday break begins Thursday afternoon? Or will this simply be another repeat of last week - a chance for Congressmembers to push around the pieces on their political gameboards, and not get one damn thing completely accomplished, as was the case with the farm bill last week.

If it sounds like we're angry at Congress, we are - and most Americans should be as well. Instead, so many Americans are still focused on stupid topics, like TV cook and longtime southern resident Paula Deen getting fired for admitting she's used the "n" word. Looking at social networking, there also still seems to be more than a few people angry about musician Kanye West and his girlfriend Kim Kardashian naming their 1st child "North" - which makes the child's legal name "North West."

The NSA story also had new twists over the weekend as Edward Snowden - who keeps insisting he isn't trying to be at the center of the story - left Hong Kong, joined forces with Wikileaks, and appears to be going to Ecuador, via Russia, Cuba, and possibly Venezuela. Meanwhile, a real whistleblower, former NSA agent Russ Tice,  admitted to the media that he actually saw, back in 2004 - when they were still illegal - orders from the NSA to spy on then-Senator Barack Obama, as well as Senators Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Diane Feinstein, and a member of the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, Congress has no real intention of doing anything to settle the truly important debate that lies at the heart of both the Snowden and Tice stories, the blance between security and privacy.

All of these topics - Paula Deen, the West/Kardashian child, and even Snowden and Tice - are merely distractions, games for the masses to keep them from pressuring Congress to find solutions for the real problems facing Americans. The farm bill, the immigration reform bill, and the looming student loan interest rate hike aren't going away, and will only get worse the longer Congress ignores them.

Even if both Americans and most members of Congress choose to diddle away their time this week, it's quite clear neither reality nor the news will be playing around.

Love And Respect

Working in the media - and especially in national or international media - there's a certain mystique, a type of near-immortality we occasionally experience when we meet and talk with those who enjoy our work. In general, it isn't something members of our staff truly enjoy - though we do know people who crave it.

Like so many members of the Republican Party right now, those people who love fame are often desperate to have people like them, no matter how silly, stupid, or offensively they act. We admit - we're just as mortal as anyone else - a fact we've been reminded of heavily this week, as a handful of well-known media figures died.

From the Broadway, TV, and film actor James Gandolfini, to the intense and direct journalist Michael Hastings; from the legendary country musician Slim Whitman, to former Rolling Stone writer and CMT executive Chet Flippo, to Nebraska Public Radio music director and host Bill Stibor.

Each of these individuals were amazing people, and all of them were individuals we'd had direct contact with, or that we know some of you, our readers, had regular contact with.

For all of the TV and radio moments, and incredible journalism these members of the media provided, one of the most interesting things we noticed as we looked at this group was that each member was also like our own staffers, in that they didn't crave fame. It's incredibly obvious that each one of them simply wanted to practice their craft at the highest level, to become the best at doing what they loved.

While we'd never want to trade the creative efforts of any of those individuals, we can only imagine what kind of federal government we'd have if the men and woman in Congress - and especially in the U.S. House of Representatives - had even one-tenth the commitment to excellence that this group of recently passed media professionals held every day of their lives.

That lack of committment was blindingly evident on Thursday in the abject failure of House Speaker John Boehner to keep the extremist fanatics in his Republican caucus in-line. That was when the latest House version of the Farm Bill failed spectacularly, just before the House left for another long weekend. In short, this version of the Farm Bill died because Republican extremists insisted that poor people on food stamps needed to give up all government food support, so that massive corporate agribusiness would get to keep most of their multi-billion dollar subsidies.

As former House Speaker and current Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said after Republicans cannibalized their own bill, "It's silly. It's sad. It's juvenile. It's unprofessional. It's amateur hour." On that, we can not disagree with Congresswoman Pelosi one bit.

It's easy to see why so many efforts in Congress fail these days, on both sides of the aisle, and in all kinds of committees. Far too often our politicians today seem desperate for the kind of fame, love, and respect our five media professionals had all earned in their respective careers.

The best don't primarily crave fame or love. They just do what they do better than anyone else, like those media professionals who passed away this week.

Those individuals earned our respect.

We only wish Congress would try to do the same, for once.