There is a ton of star gazing, and it has moved too much into the Hollywood category for my taste. I must be even more of a nerd than most of the attendees, as I have no idea who these Hollywood types are and draw a blank when someone asks me if I have seen the last episode of a show I have never heard of.

What does excite me about the correspondents’ dinner is that fact that it exists. There are many parts of the world where spoofing and comedy from the president and the comedian would not take place. Just this year, I brought some Halloween decorations and masks to South Sudan. In my mask cache was one of President Obama. It spooked out the good people in the village where I was staying. They told me that if someone wore a mask of a politician in South Sudan, they would be arrested.

Reporters Without Borders (where I am on the American advisory board) ranks South Sudan 124 out of 179 countries surveyed. South Sudan, as well as other African countries, still has a long way to go.

President Obama used the dinner to poke fun at himself. “Now, look, I get it. These days, I look in the mirror and I have to admit, I’m not the strapping young Muslim socialist that I used to be. Time passes. You get a little gray. And yet, even after all this time, I still make rookie mistakes. Like, I’m out in California, we’re at a fundraiser, we’re having a nice time. I happen to mention that Kamala Harris is the best-looking attorney general in the country. As you might imagine, I got trouble when I got back home. Who knew Eric Holder was so sensitive?”

He got some great laughs and smiles.

Conan O’Brien had jokes that would never have flown in many parts of the world that are uptight about press freedom.

“I have a question, and I think some of you also have this question,” he told the president. “It’s been several months since you were reelected, Sir, so I’m curious, why are you still sending everyone five emails a day asking for more money?

“You won,” he reminded Obama. “Do you have a gambling problem we don’t know about?

“Did you put it all on Gonzaga?” he asked, a reference to the president’s NCAA March Madness college basketball bracket. “You did, didn’t you? He did!”

There are people who want to copy the press freedoms of the West. When it takes place however, the powers in those countries get freaked out. Bassem Youssef, a cardiac surgeon, began his show in his home on YouTube. It was picked up by Egyptian television. Recently, he was brought in for questioning by the police. Jon Stewart, asked why President Morsi was so afraid. He has all the tanks and the guns. As Jon Stewart pointed out, Youssef had only the humor.

The tradition of the correspondents’ dinner is to be an example to the rest of the world. By example, we show how we hold our press freedom as a bedrock of our society. It is something to be admired and emulated – even if there is still a bit too much Hollywood.

We left Watertown before the lockdown began in the wee hours of April 19 to take part in a walk to raise money for people held in bondage and slavery. It was another reminder that there are some really bad people sharing our planet and that there are others who are trying to be change agents, despite overwhelming odds.

Pastor Heidi McGinnis, an ordained Presbyterian minister, has been trying to end slavery since the early 1990s. Back then, she went to what is now South Sudan and saw boys who had been former slaves and who had many wounds inflicted on them intentionally. One boy died in her arms, but as she told me, “He was sick, but he was free.” She went to South Sudan to bear witness to slavery and now works with Christian Solidarity International to let people know that slavery is still happening and is determined to put an end to it.

One day she got a call from a 13 year old. Pastor Heidi took her to lunch. Becca Bretz had just learned about genocide and slavery and wanted to do something about it. Pastor Heidi was impressed by this young girl’s energy and determination. Together, pastor Heidi and Becca Bretz developed a walk to end slavery.

It hasn’t been easy. Now a high-school student at Heritage High School in Littleton, Colo., Becca asked if she could put up fliers for her walk, but she was told she couldn’t put up the fliers because she was not doing it as part of a club in the school but as an individual.

Becca was not deterred, and together with pastor Heidi has raised about $20,000 to end slavery in just two years of walks. This June will mark their third walk to end slavery. With Becca and pastor Heidi’s organization skills, it promises to be even more successful. Her Free For $50 website promotes the walk and spreads the word about her work and her success.

One school, Marin Catholic High School, has taken note. Theology and global Studies teacher Joe Tassone took up the mantel. Saturday’s walk raised more than $10,000, all by students at Marin Catholic High School. They not only raised money, they made videos and posted them.

Mr. Tassone’s classes are active. That is how they put in practice the theology the students are learning.

Pastor Heidi brings young people into the fold. Her vision is to end slavery, end suffering and end persecution in all of its forms. She invited me to the walk with my foster son, a former slave who wants to help his brothers and sisters who are still in bondage. Pastor Heidi knows how to put her belief system into action. “God has my soul, and slaves have my heart,” she says.

Hearts like pastor Heidi’s might help to bring the end to both the evil of terrorism and the evil of slavery. It might help end human misery. If only we all had hearts like pastor Heidi.

The data came from the Centers for Disease Control, or CDC, in Atlanta. The CDC found some alarming statistics on ADHD. According to the New York Times, 6.4 million children aged 4-17 had “received an ADHD diagnosis at some point in their lives, a 16-point increase since 2007 and a 41 percent rise in the past decade.”

They also found that two-thirds of those diagnosed received prescriptions for stimulants.

Many professionals who interact with ADHD children and teens are concerned about this rise in prescriptions and misuse of the medication.

“We need to ensure balance,” Dr. Frieden told the New York Times. “The right medications for ADHD, given to the right people, can make a huge difference.”

Last weekend was a 5K walk to raise money for the Franklin Stroud Foundation. Stroud was considered a pediatrician to the stars – not the stars of Hollywood, but to well-known names of political Washington, D.C. To Dr. Stroud, however, every child was the same, and they all deserved help. I was proud to be his friend and to have even a slight glimpse of his compassion for young people.

He cared for children with all kinds of ailments, but he was ahead of his time in recognizing and treating children with ADD and ADHD. He was not a medical elitist and made teachers, nurses and psychologists all part of the child’s team, along with parents and other family members. His foundation states, “Dr. Stroud believed in a holistic approach to health. He believed that diet and nutrition, relationships and environment affect a child’s health. Ultimately, he believed the whole child’s health contributed to their behavior in school and their ability to learn. He recognized that some children learn differently from the mainstream. He helped parents assess their child’s needs and design a path to success. He guided and advised them as they chose schools and attended schools and in some cases served as a direct advocate to the school.”

Aware that a single solution does not fit every child, he developed partnerships with others in the field.

I interviewed William Stixrud, Ph.D., a neuropsychologist who worked with Dr. Stroud. Often we see treatment for ADHD and ADD divided into two camps: the always medicate and the never medicate.

As Dr. Stixrud explained, careful evaluation and decision-making is needed, and there are no simple answers. Stixrud believes in a whole-child approach and a careful evaluation. He has developed a consultation practice based on that.

Fortunately, Dr. Stixrud and Dr. Stroud were not lone rangers. Thom and Louise Hartmann began the Hunter School under the premise that children who had ADHD developed from hunters who had to be acutely aware of their surroundings and that ADHD was an adaptive strategy to help people survive. Drs. Patricia Gerbarg and Dr. Richard Brown recently wrote a comprehensive book, “Non-Drug Treatments for ADHD, New Options for Kids, Adults, and Clinicians.”

The Stroud Foundation is aiming to gather research and to cast a wide net to help these children, just like Frank Stroud did. He said “no child wants to fail,” and his vision will continue to make sure that the best treatment will be available. He believed in good treatment, but not over or under treatment. We have much to learn from the legacy of Frank Stroud.

Some folks from the older generations went crazy over the ruling that made it to the front-page of most newspapers. The sex education of these older generations was quite different than the current generation coming of age now.

The Builders, the Boomers (1946-1964) and the Xs (1965-1983) obtained information in a very different way than the current generation and had a different coming-of-age experience. Some of these late Builders and early Boomers were part of the “free love” and flower-power generation. Many of us in those two generations engaged in protests on race and war and smoked pot, among other things. We were a television generation and thought we had access to a world of information. Television, was the great leveler at that time, as was radio. The Internet did not exist, even in the futuristic television programs such as “The Jetsons.”

It was in this mix that I learned about sex. I first heard that oral sex was possible in fifth grade. I did not hear about it from the sex education teacher that put up cardboard ovaries and other organs on her flannel board. I did not hear about it when they showed the birds and bees movies with the free Kotex in our parents/girls meetings held at the elementary school. I heard about it on the rapid transit from a classmate. We had the make-out parties in grade school, too. A few kids in junior high school were rumored to have gone “all the way.”

It was not until I was 16 that the word “abortion” came into my lexicon. I did not know anyone who had even thought about ending a pregnancy until I was almost 17. Birth control pills were a new invention, having come on the market in 1960, and there was little controversy among my friends. Girls asked doctors for them and got them. Sexually transmitted diseases were thought to be easily stamped out with antibiotics. There were no worries about resistance or other diseases, and there had not even been one case of HIV/AIDS.

Fast forward to Friday, when a federal judge handed down a ruling that the morning-after pill be available to people (women and girls) of all ages. He ordered that the pill be available over the counter to all, regardless of age. The brand name is called “Plan B.” The morning-after pill has been available for more than 13 years but has not been universally available. Conservatives, who believe that they can control sexuality on all fronts, have objected. The secretary of Health and Human Services ruled that younger girls would need a prescription to get the pills. Politics clearly paid a role here, as did the policymakers who don’t understand the current young generation, the Millennials.

The federal judge who ruled to give more open access did not have to worry about politics. Judge Edward Korman, who has a lifetime appointment to the bench, can concern himself more with reality. The Millennials do not have to rely on flannel boards and birds and bee movies. They don’t have to hear the facts of life from a classmate. They get information on the Internet, and they are the first generation in human history that has not needed to go to the older generation for information. To expect that they will be asking their parents or doctors for a prescription when Plan B can be bought by their older friends in the local drug store is ludicrous.

None other than the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists agree. If it is good enough for the doctors delivering the care to these young women, it is good enough for me. It should also be good enough for people making policy in Washington, too.

Both cause unnecessary injury and bodily trauma. In a civil society, there is no need for either. As a realist, I understand that both guns and football will be a part of our society in the foreseeable future.

President Obama, as president, understands political realities. He knows that currently there is no chance that an assault weapons ban will be renewed, and if he wants to prevent Sandy Hook-type shootings, he has to go for the low hanging fruit – something the public will be willing to support.

As our collective attention span is short, and the memory of Sandy Hook is waning, President Obama wisely used the 100th day anniversary of the shooting to bring attention to one of the few avenues of gun-control legislation he has left: the universal background check.

The idea of a universal background check makes all the sense in the world. One poll showed that 80 percent of all gun owners agreed with it, and 90 percent of the entire adult population in the U.S. percent agrees with universal background checks. President Obama said in his White House speech this week, “Now, in the coming weeks, members of Congress will vote on whether we should require universal background checks for anyone who wants to buy a gun so that criminals or people with severe mental illnesses can’t get their hands on one. They’ll vote on tough new penalties for anyone who buys guns only to turn around and sell them to criminals. … Why wouldn’t we want to make it more difficult for a dangerous person to get his or her hand on a gun? Why wouldn’t we want to close the loophole that allows as many as 40 percent of all gun purchases to take place without a background check? Why wouldn’t we do that?”

Why wouldn’t we want to close the loophole? Currently, only six states have universal background checks for all guns purchased. Of course, just like so many other items for purchase, the Internet provides a way that people can get around the law. That needs to also be addressed. The Campaign to Close the Gun Show Loophole has gathered statistics showing that gun shows are the second leading source of guns used in crimes in the United States. Their data shows that “felons were associated with selling or purchasing firearms in 46 percent of the gun show investigations and that firearms that were illegally diverted at or through gun shows were recovered in subsequent crimes.” These crimes included homicide and robbery in more than a third of gun-show investigations. The campaign has also showed that because gun shows are a loophole, criminals know they can purchase guns at these shows. The shows are a major trafficking channel that has turned out to be the second largest gun source per investigation.

This week the attorney general in New York obtained an agreement from the operators of gun shows in the state to provide background checks for guns and to make sure the guns are somehow tagged to show that the background checks have been performed. In the absence of federal law, this is the kind of leadership that we need. If you want a gun and know you can’t pass a standard background check at a licensed gun dealer, then show up at a gun show and you can get what you want. No more in New York, the attorney general says.

Would a universal background check have prevented Sandy Hook? Most likely not, since the guns were registered to the shooter’s mother. Would it have prevented the shootings in Colorado? Yes, especially if the current “duty to warn” case law is extended so that clinicians who are concerned can notify the data base about who can and can’t purchase a gun. All of us who have worked in mental health know who those people are and the people who should never own a firearm. Most of the “patients” are like leaky faucets, and it is obvious that they should not be allowed to purchase or own guns.

It is time to empower the clinicians and first responders to be able to make a studied judgment and keep mentally disturbed people from owning firearms. Although, we don’t know the circumstances of the Sandy Hook shooter and his mental treatment, my guess is that we will find he had extensive interaction with mental health clinicians. His mother had the guns, but maybe we need to go even further and tighten the law so that households should not have guns if a resident of that household is deemed someone who should not own one. Radical? Perhaps it is, but it would be a lot safer for those who stand to lose their lives from crazy shooters.

What is fascinating, however, is the press speculation as to why he made the trip now and, in fact, why he made the trip at all. Various theories abounded and, like a the famous projective psychological test known as “the inkblot,” many journalists had their own interpretation based on their experiences and understanding of the Mideast.

The Israeli media had their speculations, and the American media had theirs. Most of the Israeli media believed that this was about the relationship between President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, given the famous past encounter between both men. Their ideas focused on the idea that there had to be some reparative movement made by President Obama. Israel is the most trusted ally in a region of the world that is important to the interests of our country. Having a bad relationship between the two leaders can’t be good, and the Israeli press honed in on that aspect.

Why he made the trip received more wide-ranging speculation from the Western press. Caroline Glick, writing for Real Clear Politics, thought one reason for the trip may have been to energize the political left in Israel and to “undermine the legitimacy of the Israeli government.” Glick adds, “First, he could be strengthening forces to help them pressure the government to make concessions to the Palestinians in order to convince the Palestinian Authority to renew negotiations and accept and Israeli peace offer.” She also thought this same “unelected” group may pressure the Israeli government to withdraw from Judea and Samaria.

Many Western journalists focused on Iran. Was President Obama in Israel to stop them from unilaterally taking action to prevent Iran from getting a bomb? Was it a security update or another nefarious worm that the U.S. and Israeli government were going to plant to put the development of nuclear weapons by Iran on hold? Iran was definitely top of the hit parade on the list of reasons why Western journalists thought he had decided to make the journey.

Of course, there was quite a bit of spoken and written word about Syria. The timing of the New York Times was interesting at the very least when it reported that the CIA was going to be putting more resources into Syria. A leak or good reporting? If it was a leak, then what did the timing of the leak mean about what the president was trying to accomplish on his Middle East visit?

The most common speculation was about the possible peace process. President Obama is looking toward his legacy. He doesn’t have to worry about being re-elected, and his wife is most likely never going to run for political office. He was able to get done what President Clinton tried to do as his first goal by introducing in 1994 “health care that is always there.” President Clinton couldn’t get health care reform done, but President Obama did. President Clinton took a keen interest in the peace process. He knew every settlement and who occupied it. What would happen in the legacy department if President Obama pulled off what President Clinton could not? What would it mean to the overall evaluation of his presidency if he could accomplish on two fronts what Clinton could not?

We might never know the real reason for this trip until the books start to tell the back story 10 years from now. It has kept the press occupied this week wondering why Obama made this trip now. Too bad we don’t have some Las Vegas-style odds on his real reason for going and could verify the bets on the real reasons soon. We might have some very rich journalists.

However at a time where news is consumed instantly, the back-and-forth accusations get tiring and old quickly. Unlike the 19th century, our politicians are in town two or three nights, attend fundraisers and have no reason to socialize or get along on off hours. Washington, D.C., is hyperpartisan. Election strategy goes on 24/7 and is reflected on television, radio and even constant emails.

I thought my email inbox would have a much-needed rest after the elections. I received hundreds of emails every day with subject lines saying that I had only 12 more hours to send in money or the candidate would lose to the other side. Now, I get emails saying “GOP sequester effects” and “Obama’s secret sequester strategy.” I even got one that said, “Will Obama’s defense cuts lead to a military draft?” with the intended result of booking a guest on radio. Where do they cook these things up? I thought, how can we run a country with so much angst and rancor and politics?

This lack of resolution on the sequestration is killing us as a country. What most of us do under this dysfunction is to escape to our own lives and try and tune this insanity out. I know I did.

I rarely see movies. In fact, in two years’ time, I saw four movies, “We Bought a Zoo,” “Dolphin Tale,” “The King’s Speech” and “Mr. Poppers Penguins.” This week was different, though. I saw three movies in one week, “Lincoln,” “Flight” and “Argo.” I also saw a good part of the Academy Awards. Two different friends told me to see “Flight” and said Denzel Washington should have won an award. He did not even get nominated.

“Flight” was about a pilot who saves most of his passengers in a dangerous landing in a field, but he’s later discovered to be a drug addict and a drunk. There is no American hero here, only a guy who is a very talented pilot and who lives with a horrible addiction. There is nothing American about this movie, except perhaps a society that lives in excess with too much booze and too many illegal drugs. For most Americans who having alcoholism somewhere in their family tree, this movie was not a vacation from rancor; it was a well-planned trip into it.

The other movies, “Lincoln” and “Argo,” are studies in what we would like America to be about. This is what we were taught when we were in grade school. Lincoln was our role model. He was far from perfect, both as a family man and as president. However, there is not a U.S. citizen who wouldn’t call him a hero. CIA officer Mendez, who risked his life to save six Americans, is another hero with whom Americans can identify. He left his family for only a few days but risked his life to get six Americas out of Iran in 1980. Had he been discovered, he would have been killed and tortured. That’s not a great way for a family man to die.

“Argo” and “Lincoln” have inspired us. Hollywood designed them to do just that. But, why didn’t Denzel Washington’s “Flight” get an Oscar? It was a superb piece of acting and a great script. The answer is reflected in my mailbox. We live in sequestration land – the land where our politicians can’t get it together, can’t stop fighting and can’t get out of their own way to do the business of the American people. From members of the Academy to the simple taxpaying citizen, Americans are sick of it.

We want leadership, we want heroes. The Oscar winners this year reflect our hopes, dreams and desires. If only the sequestration fight were a movie and not reality, America would be better off.

The speeches were amazing. If President Barack Obama had made these declarations in speeches, the Republicans would have had apoplexy. We all have heard about Eisenhower’s “military industrial complex” remarks during his farewell speech, but few have heard many of his remarks before that speech. Smith supplies us with the speeches he made, and they are shocking coming from a president and general who was a Republican.

In his first State of the Union speech, he brought up the defense budget and discussed the need prevent the country from going into more debt. Eisenhower said “to amass military power without regard to our economic capacity would be to defend ourselves against one kind of disaster by inviting another.” That same year he gave another speech saying defense policy “cannot consist of sudden, blind responses to a series of fire alarm emergencies.” He was not afraid to overrule his joint chiefs, and he also said, “If we demand too much in taxes in order to build planes and ships, we will tend to dry up the accumulations of capital that are necessary to provide jobs for the millions of workers we must absorb each year.” Can you imagine the reaction if any of these remarks had been uttered by President Obama or even President Clinton?

Outgoing President Eisenhower made his famous remark about the military industrial complex during his farewell speech. It is the context he made it in that is even more jarring. His famous remark was, “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex.” What has been overlooked in that same speech is what he said about the related military industries: “Three-and-a-half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations. This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development.” I can’t even imagine the 24-hour news cycle if Obama dared to utter these words.

Those of us who grew up mid-century will not give much of the civil rights credit to Dwight Eisenhower. But according to Smith, he was tough as nails about making sure that the law was filed and that he could end discrimination where he could. Perhaps, he did not use as much political capital as he could have or should have, but his record stands given the test of time.

In his first State of the Union speech shortly after he took office in 1953, he said, “I propose to use whatever authority exists in the office of the president to end segregation in the District of Columbia, including the federal government and segregation in the armed forces.”

The weeks later at a press conference on March 19, he said, ”Wherever federal funds are expended, I do not see how any American can justify a discrimination in the expenditure of those funds.” He then desegregated the schools on military bases 15 months before Brown v. Board of Education. He desegregated hospitals run by the Veterans Administration and appointed federal judges who opposed segregation.

Perhaps one of the best decisions he made with regard to ending segregation happened after he met with Gov. Orval Faubus of Arkansas. Eisenhower requested the meeting concerning Faubus using the Arkansas National Guard at Central High School of Brown v Board of Education fame. He felt  Gov. Faubus did not keep his personal promise to him. Then President Eisenhower deployed the 101st Airborne, sending in 500 troops to let the black students into school. As if this is not enough, he addresses the nation that night and said, “Our enemies are gloating over this incident.” It was a brilliant move to put segregation into an international context.

Eisenhower was far from perfect. The CIA led him down a path of dumping two elected governments, Guatemala and also Iran. We are still suffering from what happened in Iran. No one is perfect for sure, but if President Obama attempted to do what President Eisenhower did while he was president, the right wing would call for his impeachment. People would do well to pay attention to history. It might help unite us and stop the crazy rancor and predictable partisan behavior we saw at this year’s State of the Union.

This week we learned about a 16-page memo about the legality of drones targeting U.S. citizens for assassination, the lack of even secret judicial oversight on the use of these drones and how much of our policy can be decided in secret. It was a quick throwback to the Vietnam War for many of the older baby boomers.

It was quite shocking. Yes, the Vietnam War was escalated by Lyndon Johnson, the Democrat president who developed many social programs labeled by him as “The Great Society.” But, we  also protested President George Bush’s March 2003 war in Iraq and questioned not only that the U.S. went to Iraq but why we went there.

Not only was the 16-page memo made public this week, but so was the fact that the U.S. has been operating a secret drone base in Saudi Arabia! News organizations have kept the knowledge of that base secret. It was a secret to the American public, but anyone who has a smidgen of knowledge about Saudi Arabia will tell you that many Saudi citizens clearly knew about it. The grapevine is active there, even if it is not in print or on the Internet.

The drone secrets are quite disturbing, and having a base for them in Saudi Arabia is even more so. There is some evidence that the 9/11 terrorists used the fact that Saudis allowed the U.S. to have military bases as a reason to attack us. Of course, there is a need for information to be classified. No one suggests that we leave ourselves open to individuals and countries that would do us harm. However, policy issues such as what countries we choose to have a base and the use of drones deserve some national, as well as congressional, dialog.

In times of relative peace when we haven’t had debate and dialog, we’ve had some officials make some really bad decisions. These decisions have often been made by advisers to the sitting president.

Two spectacular failures in national security tactics were made in the 1950s and early 1960s. One was President Eisenhower’s decision to plan a coup in Iran in the early part of his presidency. He knew enough to keep us from supporting the French in Vietnam but took the bait from his military advisers and worked with the British to install the Shah. The British “got to” Eisenhower and convinced him that, without getting rid of the elected government, communism would take hold. The CIA paid demonstrators, and then the argument was made that the government was unstable. Communism was the reason the British gave to the U.S. for help with an intervention in Iran, but the real reason was that the British regarded Iranian oil as their own and refused to negotiate with the Iranians. We made the Shah our puppet, and that led to the Iranian government we are now dealing with. Too bad we intervened. The world would be a safer place had we minded our own business.

Wisely, according to Eisenhower biographer Jean Smith, the United States did not provide air support or use atomic bombs in Vietnam during his administration. Obviously that was changed later on under Democratic administrations in the 1960s, but Eisenhower disregarded the advice of his generals and military advisers and realized that American cannot police the world nor engage in supporting colonialism. American opinion at the time would not have been supportive of any kind of Vietnam intervention, and President Eisenhower understood that, at least with Vietnam.

Given our lousy experience in Vietnam and with the coup in Iran, why is it that our government has not learned that secretive operations on a grand scale (renditions and having bases in foreign lands) are always discovered and the issue warrants a dialog with the American people? Why is it that only by digging do we find out that “insurgents” killed by drones are classified as “insurgents” if they are males of military age? Don’t citizens of the United States deserve to know that some of these young people killed as “collateral damage” are not insurgents but young men at the prime of their life killed when a drone came zipping by looking for someone else?

I never liked nor thought effective the secrecy of any large U.S. government operation, from CIA-sponsored coups to keeping military bases secret. Those secrets don’t belong in a real democracy, and they don’t belong in the United States’ policy. It is time for Congress to understand that government secrets have consequences.

With secret decisions, we risk the buildup of another country like Iran. We risk buying into the notion that safety comes from taking out some real bad actors. It is shortsighted, and the local anger from “collateral” damage (e.g. civilians killed) may cause more instability than the supposed safety they bring.

Decisions that involve our resources as a country need to be made in the light – not in the darkness by a few folks who have lost the awareness of the long term consequences of their actions.

This week, I moved into the “I am shocked” category. I was shocked by a government report and dismayed that the press corps did not do more when the report was published. I can even be a lazy press commentator and not have to do much writing about this report because quoting it is unsettling enough.

The report written by Christy Romero, the special inspector general of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, has a title that at first blush looks like it came from one of the slanted Washington, D.C., think-tanks: “Treasury Continues Approving Excessive Pay for Top Executives at Bailed-Out Companies.” I missed it the first go-around in January of 2012, and this is the second time a similar report has been issued, hence the words in the title “continues approving.” The report was sent as memorandum for Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner.

When companies were bailed out by you and me – the taxpayers – a special master for TARP executive compensation was created. Kenneth Feinberg, well known for overseeing government payouts from Katrina and other national problems, was the first paymaster, also known as the “pay czar.” He has been succeeded by Patricia Geoghegan, and the report takes aim right at her. According to the summary, the first report said Feinberg “could not rein in excessive compensation at the seven companies that received exceptional TARP assistance” because the most important goal “was to get companies to repay TARP.”

Feinberg had attempted to establish criteria for granting exceptions to an edict that cash salaries should not exceed $500,000 and that total compensation should target the 50th percentile. The data released by this report details how this benchmark has been ignored.

The special inspector general found that Geoghegan’s office had “approved pay packages of $3 million or more for the 54 percent of the top 25 employees of American International Group (AIG), General Motors Group (GM) and Ally Financial Inc. (Ally, formerly General Motors Acceptance Corporation, Inc.).” Of these, says the report, 16 of 69 top executives “received Treasury-approved pay packages of $5 million or more.

Companies had initially complained that by not paying large salaries and high compensation packages, good talent would go elsewhere. So, early on at TARP a deal was made to have long-term incentive-based stock. This clearly went out the window, and the report says Geoghegan’s office relinquished its authority to the companies that “have their own best interests in mind.”

Inspector General Romero’s report puts the blame right where it needs to go, saying, “By proposing and negotiating for excessive 2012 pay, these executives continue to lack an appreciation for their extraordinary situations and fail to view themselves through the lenses of companies substantially owed by the U.S. government.”

As I stated above, a cash limit of $500,000 was imposed. Geoghehan’s office allowed 70 percent of the top 25 employees at those three companies to get the full to the limit of $500,000! Romero’s report asks, “If the pay czar is not even willing to independently analyze the high cash salaries for 23 employees, who else will protect taxpayers?”

So, what is to be done? Two recommendations of the report should be taken up by the executive branch and also Congress. The first is that there should be guidelines, policies and procedures to ensure guidelines are met. The second recommendation is that the government should take an “active role in monitoring and regulating factors that could contribute to another financial crisis, including executive compensation that includes risk taking.” Yes, especially since the very same taxpayers that lent these companies money have a median household income of about $50,000.

If this were Africa, we would be reviewing this report and screaming, “Corruption!” But, sadly, this is America, where we were occupied this week by a sexy story, the gun hearings and partisan wrangling of the debt ceiling. The press took little notice. Although we have a free press, we have a pack-mentality press that should have had this report in the headlines.