Hype, Help, Hope

As we all zoom toward the end of a shortened work week - and frankly, the end of the year - it seems like everything is traveling faster.

Even the headlines right now seem more brief than usual, though thankfully they're also pretty accurate. "Congress moves toward standoff over payroll tax," or "Paul takes lead in Iowa," or even "Gingrich lead collapses" pretty much tell the tale. Whether or not Republicans put someone else on their Christmas wish list to Santa, the fact is, the GOP candidate for President in 2012 is likely to be Mitt Romney.

Wwith so many of the headlines thankfully brief, we're taking the opportunity to focus on a holiday that's often overlooked: Chanukkah.

In case you don't know, Chanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, begins tonight at sundown. Unlike Christmas for Christians (the biggest Christian holiday of the year), or Yule for Wiccans (also known as Solstice, the second biggest Wiccan holiday of the year), Chanukkah is often considered by many in the Jewish faith to be a somewhat minor holiday. The hype and commercialization of Christmas, however, has significantly boosted the profile of Chanukkah over the last century or so, especially in the U.S., since Chanukkah almost always falls during the Thanksgiving to New Year's time period.

Like so many events in America that used to hold a more special meaning - for example, having your favorite team win its way to a college bowl game - for some people the real meaning of Chanukkah seems to have gotten lost in all the hype.

Rabbi Marc Gellman, a longtime freelance religion columnist, had a fantastic historical basis for the real meaning of Chanukkah in one of his columns a few years ago. While interesting and scholarly, his piece didn't really seem to boil Chanukkah down to one key theme. In fact, if you search for a single meaning of Chanukkah these days, you're as likely to find a large variety of answers as you are with any other major religion or celebration, all claiming to be the definitive reason for the season.

Of course, there's the story that even many non-Jews know, that of the lamp in the temple having only enough lamp oil for one day, yet somehow - miraculously - the oil lasted eight days (which is exactly the same amount of time it takes to make new lamp oil, by the way). That story, while memorable, is much like the Christian tale of Jesus' birth - by itself, it doesn't often give a deeper meaning. Sure, it's a miracle - but why did it happen?

The ancient season of "Yule", much like that of Christianity and Judaism, also heralded a miracle at this time of year: the birth of a new year, and the hope for better year in the days, weeks, and months ahead. Nearly every belief system has a similar day or time to celebrate hope - many of them around this same time of year. For Muslims, Eid al-Adha is often the most hopeful holiday. For many atheists, their own birthdays represent a reason to celebrate the miracle that the individual in question has made one more trip around the sun.

The real meaning of this season, whatever you believe - like that of most important events - is much easier to see when you don't let yourself get swallowed by all the hype. Simply put, the meaning is...

Hope.

We can't think of a more concise, honest, or positive universal meaning to the season than that.

The Real Costs Of Mad Men's Dreams

How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?
– John Kerry, Vietnam Veteran, 1971

The name of the last man to die in Iraq, for the mistakes of the Bush Administration, was David Hickman. He was the 4,474th member of the U.S. military forces in Iraq to die as a result of that incredible misadventure.

There is no need to beat around the bush about the Iraq War. It was a war of choice, launched by some of the biggest cowards in the history of mankind. These were - and still are - men (and even a few women) who were often too cowardly to fight in America's massive military blunder in Vietnam, and are still too cowardly now to take responsibility for their disastrous failures in Iraq. As promised, President Obama ended the Iraq War, a war he did not start and was opposed to. The withdrawal was even finished this weekend - in time so that most troops will be home for the holidays.

After the cheering and the presents, however, the question any sane person will ask is, "What did this war cost America?"

The numbers are staggering. As we already noted, the Iraq War cost 4,474 combat field deaths. The deaths from PTSD and other post-battlefield trauma can only be estimated, but might push that number of Americans closer to 10,000 over nine years. That doesn't even count the estimated Iraqi deaths, both military and civilian, with numbers ranging wildly from 60,000 to 1 million. Counting the injured - physically, mentally, and emotionally - is a task that boosts the numbers of those directly affected by the war into the stratosphere.

The war that Dick Cheney said would go "relatively quickly," and that Donald Rumsfeld once estimated as taking "Five days or five weeks or five months," lasted nearly nine years. The cost in dollars, estimated by then-Bush Budget Director Mitch Daniels was $50 or $60 billion dollars.

The actual cost of the war in dollars, however, was about $824 billion – and it's only that cheap if you exclude interest on the debt accrued from the war and ignore the cost of veterans benefits associated with the war. If you add those figures, as President Obama's administration does in estimating the total cost of the Iraq War, 'Dick & George's Iraq Adventure' may end up saddling America with a bill easily over one trillion dollars.

What could we have done with one trillion dollars over the last decade?

For starters, how about re-investing in America? The latest census figures now reveal that over fifty percent of Americans are living at or below the poverty level. If that $1 trillion spent in Iraq had been invested here at home, potentially tens of thousands of jobs could have been created, repairing America's infrastructure, schools, and communications needs.

If the money squandered on the Iraq War had been spent here at home there's a great possibility President Obama would never have needed to implement the Stimulus Act - an action that cut the poverty rate in half, by the way. Without the stimulus, the number of Americans in poverty over just the last two years would likely have been closer to 65% of the population.

If that $1 trillion from the war in Iraq had been spent on our national debt and education, inequality could likely have been curbed some, while education would have been improved. Since 1990 – just before the first Iraq War –  the richest one percent in America have grabbed nearly one of every five dollars in income earned by ALL Americans, drastically increasing income inequality. Meanwhile, Americans are now so poorly educated that while half of the nation lives at or near poverty level, sixty percent of Americans still see themselves as "haves" - as people who aren't poor.

No matter how the final tally is collected, we know the cost of the Iraq War was too high.

The next time someone in politics begins to talk about war as some kind of gift, as some GOP candidates for President have recently done with Iran, feel free to sock them – loudly and in public – with the bill for the Iraq War. Just make sure to add the cost of the American Dream to their tab.

Friday Funday: What We're Wishing For

With most holiday gifts winging and winding their way through the mail, and the holidays of Channukah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa almost here, we hope that you're just about finished with any holiday preparations you might be making.

We know - many of you might be snorting, laughing, or guffawing at the idea of being finished with holiday plans just days before the real event, instead of hours or minutes before. The fact is, we think this year has already given many people we know some pretty good gifts.

For starters, for every American, President Obama delivered on his initial campaign promise: to end the war in Iraq. We understand not EVERY American will be leaving Iraq, as there will still be nearly 17,000 private contractors and civilian diplomatic employees there. Those are private jobs, however, and unlike our service members, those individuals can leave any time they want.

On a Nebraska note, we're glad to see Coach Carl Pelini get his own head coaching position, right in the backyard of our South Florida offices - where we think our webmaster may become an FAU fan. Just yesterday, it was announced that Marvin Sanders, another former NU coach, will be joining Pelini in South Florida, a smart hire in our minds.

We're also glad to see former Husker coach and playing legend Turner Gill get hired by Liberty University as their head football coach. We hope Liberty will give Gill the time, effort and resources to succeed that the University of Kansas never did.

There have been some other recent gifts falling into the lap of a few others we know outside of Nebraska, including Ben Smith of Politico, someone we read regularly. After five years of being the go-to man for seemingly everything at Politico, Ben is handing primary control of his blog at Politico to Dylan Byers, and is moving from politics to social media as the new editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed, where he'll get to build a new team of writers and journalists from the ground up.

Looking ahead to 2012, there are a lot of things on the wish lists of our staff. Good health for all of us and our family members tops the list, along with decent weather and steady income. Of course, we're not worried about having subjects to draw or write about. We think the GOP nomination race will easily last until May or later, and the rest of the year will more than likely be filled with plenty of political news, on every level. Frankly, as the field of 2012 GOP presidential candidates proved once again last night, we think President Obama is getting an amazing gift heading into his re-election battle next year. We doubt next year will deliver the same kind of gift to those fighting for seats in Congress.

If there was one single thing we could hope for in 2012, it would be that people listen to one another. We'd hope that those making fun of the Occupiers open their ears and minds and understand how truly dire things have become for many of our fellow citizens right here in the U.S. We'd hope that our political representatives learn to listen to one another, and more importantly, to their constituents who want the rich to pay more taxes, and for budgets to be used with more wisdom.

Sure - we could have said we wished for world peace. We were trying to be a bit more grandiose, though, with our big wish.

As far as physical gifts that we might get this year?

As a local television commercial we saw recently put it: it doesn't really matter what most of us get this year - because most of us already have everything we could truly want.

Or as the Rolling Stones put it, you can't always get what you want - but sometimes, you get what you need.

Our staff is pretty well set. We hope that you and your family and friends get what you need this holiday season, too.