Keeping Their Eyes On the Ball

Thank you, Republican leaders of our nation, for your steadfast devotion to acting on the most important and urgent needs of our citizenry.

The White House voiced support for two provisions that cleared on Thursday. One declared English to be the national language of the United States. The other deemed it the "common unifying language."

In these times, there are so many ridiculous distractions that might absorb the attention of lesser men. It is our good fortune that you are not lured away to spend time on such trivialities as this:

GENEVA, May 19 — A United Nations panel on torture called on the United States today to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba and expressed concern over reports of secret detention centers and of a practice of sending terror suspects to countries with poor human rights records.

The panel's report came on the same day as American military officers detailed an hourlong melee that occurred after a group of inmates at the detention center tried to commit suicide on Thursday, and other inmates there attacked guards trying to prevent one of the men from hanging himself.

(Those ingrates. We treat them so well, and all they can think about is fighting for the ability to kill themselves.) It's a good thing Congress hasn't wasted any time on them. Or on this:

"It's been eight months since Katrina,'' said Jack Bowers, my New Jersey friend and Habitat for Humanity guide through the Lower Ninth Ward, as he took us through deserted streets where nothing, absolutely nothing, was being done about the wasteland that this place is.

"Eight months!" he said. "And look at it. When people talk to me about New Orleans, they say, 'Well, things are getting back to normal down there, aren't they?' I tell them things are a long, long way from normal, and it's going to be a long time before it's ever normal. And I tell them they've never seen anything like this.''

Why should Congress or the President take their attention away from important business, when FEMA has things like that under control?

WASHINGTON - The government has no plans to move at least half of the 10,000 emergency housing trailers sitting empty in Hope, Ark., saying they may be needed for the 2006 hurricane season.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency detailed its plan to keep the trailers at the Hope municipal airport in a letter to Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., who had asked that some of the trailers be used for American Indian housing.

The letter did not mention Johnson's request, but FEMA spokesman Aaron Walker said Friday that federal law says the trailers must be used for disaster victims.

The trailers originally were purchased to house people displaced by Hurricane Katrina. But FEMA officials later said that regulations against placing the homes in flood plains prevented their use on the Gulf Coast.

Johnson said the agency is hoarding the trailers and ignoring an urgent need for housing in other areas of the country. If they couldn't be used for Katrina, he said, it is unlikely they will be used for another disaster this year.

"It's clear that they overpurchased for Katrina," Johnson said. "These trailers are going to be wasted resources."

What they are doing with the other half of the Arkansas trailers is unclear from the letter.

When I think of all the silly, childish things that our leaders in Washington could be doing, it truly warms my heart to see that they are spending every waking moment fulfilling the profound responsibilities of their offices, and doing what is most important.