Less than 12 hours ago North Korea announced that it has made all our nightmares come true by successfully completing their first nuclear weapons test. It didn't take long at all for the three main cable news networks to get their stable of talking heads on screen to argue who's fault it is. Some junior reporter from The New Republic or The Weekly Standard placed opposite one another to claim that Clinton did it, or Bush should have done, or, or, or - Just SHUT THE HELL UP!
First of all, these partisans need to stop focusing on why, and start talking about what's next. The question why, more often than not, is the most impotent question there is. Asking what's next allows us to focus on the solution. If we're going to disagree then lets at least let all that hot air propel us towards the solution.
Secondly, it's time the 4th estate be held accountable. When you put two Pit Bulls in small coup they naturally start fighting. The media throws two political hacks in a small enclosure, throws in a big hunk of meat, and then turns to us the viewing public and says "Hey, its not our fault they won't work together." Every TV ought to come with a "What's Next Button", and every time Bill OReilly, Keith Olberman or any of the other two dozen idiots start their shtick you can give the button a press and send a small electrical jolt to their chair. Hopefully, this would restart their brains and the conversation could move on. Once a year every cable news hack ought to be required to watch
Edward R. Murrow's body of work in its entirety.
North Korea is run by a mad man, and probably the most dangerous one since Hitler. The United States has approximately 40,000 troops on the Korean border, and if a war were to break out, it would surely endanger not only their lives, but the lives of thousands of young men and women who are at this moment sitting in high school and college classrooms around the country dreaming of their bright futures. Those dreams are far too important to be interrupted by war.
So to all those in the government, media, politics, and intellects of all stripes and colors I say - Shut the hell up and get to work. The dreams and lives of our children, and indeed the children around the world, are far too precious to destroy with our egotistical need to be right.
On this day in 1958 a Frenchman (go figure) introduced the world to Smurfs. From that day till this the world has been covered in the blue darkness.
