A Day in the U.S. House of Representatives--Boats, Baseball and Cyprus? Huh?

I've finally come to grips with the fact that I am now one of those "adults" who I made fun of as a teenager for watching C-SPAN. If you're even moderately interested in politics, the economy, etc. and you haven't ever turned on C-SPAN, I would recommend you at least take a look when you get a chance...if for nothing but to watch the weekly Prime Minister's Questions from the British House of Commons...I dare to say you won't regret it.

Tuesday night, I was watching C-SPAN's broadcast of the day's U.S. House floor proceedings and happened to begin watching as Rep. Zachary Space (D-OH) stood up to begin a speech that ended up being a condemnation of Turkey for the "illegal invasion" of Cyprus in 1974. As the coverage continued, I saw 3 more speeches from representatives on the "Black Anniversary," as Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ) called it. I was quite dumbfounded--with the genuine, pressing issues our country is currently facing, it struck me as highly inappropriate that our representatives felt that the best use of their time and resources was to research and craft a speech chastising a foreign country for something they did 34 years ago. Now, I certainly don't condone the invasion of Cyprus by the Turkish (I'm Greek by the way), but c'mon...for one thing, it was 34 years ago! Secondly, and perhaps most frustrating, why do our lawmakers feel it necessary to take every opportunity to give the proverbial slap-on-the wrist to anyone and everyone around the world who does any little thing that isn't to their liking? Many of these so-called misdeeds, frankly, I think we have little business involving ourselves in but it seems our feeling that it is our place to stick our nose into everything often overrides any sentiment of restraint.

This prompted me to wonder--surely, this wasn't a typical example of House business since, after all, these legislators get a taxpayer-provided salary (not to mention funds for their staffers, office, etc.) to serve as a "representative" for a particular area. Surely, they would use their resources on researching vital issues (perhaps the de-valuation of our currency, just as one example) that would provide a significant benefit to their constituents and to the U.S. as a country...right? Well, not really...although, I can't say I'm particularly surprised. Here are just a few items that were discussed/debated on the house floor on Tuesday alone (please do check out the full transcript of the proceedings for 7/22 at GovTrack.us, where you can also get proceedings back to 2004):

*Honoring a Florida citizen, Luis Diaz, upon his upcoming retirement as deputy director of Youth Co-Op in South Florida
*A fairly lengthy discussion on clarifying the definitions of a boat's "hull" and "deck," relating to H.R. 6531, the Vessel Hull Design Protection Amendments of 2008
*Several speeches "recognizing the significance of National Caribbean-American Heritage Month (H.Con.Res. 364)"
*Speeches "expressing support of the goals and ideals of National Carriage Driving Month (H.Res. 1128)"
*Designating a post office building in Jamestown, NY the "Stan Lundine Post Office Building"
*Discussion of the Congressional baseball game, which was held on July 17th

Of course, there were also discussions of serious issues (gas prices and energy policy) but it seems, dare I say, inexcusable that so much of the official Congressional business in the House for that day (and this is not an isolated event or "anomalous" day--check the proceedings) was devoted to such frivolous dreck (or flapdoodle--thanks to Sen. Jeff Sessions for this word). It is even more exasperating that several of these discussions were prompted by official House or Concurrent Resolutions, which means that time and money had to be spent doing research on these "issues" and then someone had to craft a document using appropriately "legal" language and the appropriate format!! I don't know about you, but I find this outrageous.

Please don't misunderstand--I don't think there's anything wrong with applauding the contributions of Caribbean-Americans or honoring horse-drawn carriage drivers, this is just not the business that our government should be worrying about!!! Plain and simple!! I wonder--if more people watched C-SPAN, would our legislators still spend their time on such rubbish? Surely, the power of the horse-drawn carriage lobby isn't that great...

Now, if you'd also like to read something else outrageous (but far more scary because it's actually serious)...please read the full transcript of the last speech of the day, given by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) titled "The Moral Compass of the United States In Its Quest for Victory." I'll leave further discussion for another post...