As we move firmly into what the late Nat King Cole intoned as "the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer," I would like to worry about some really important things.

One is the name that will be chosen for the new baby elephant at the Pittsburgh zoo. Fannie? Freddie? -- because it will eventually have a long trunk good for slurping up liquid assets? That, I deem to be an appropriate subject for consideration as I lie on the grass and listen to the Lyme disease-carrying ticks creep up on me.

A second is how the "flip" of our casino in the process of being carried out by entrepreneur Don H. Barden comes out. I am idly curious as to just who -- apart from Mr. Barden himself -- will have made money out of the whole ghastly episode. I am sure that a whole passel of bankers, lawyers, consultants and politicians will rake in from the flip. However, given that I knew that we Pittsburghers were going to get hosed in the casino affair -- short-term as the concession was being awarded and the facility built, and long-term once it starts picking the pockets of those who venture into it -- I find the whole thing not something that stirs me up unduly in the hot summer weather.

A third fine summer reverie is the fate of the Pirates. I can actually listen to a game and not let it get to me when they blow another one. That is partly because I grew up listening to Rosey Roswell describe the pathos of the Pirates' many defeats with laconic relish, appreciating that it was still baseball, even if colored by a spirit of accepted futility.

So I will try in general to worry about the cute elephant's name, the casino and the Pirates. But seriously, here is what should really be on our minds. There is the government of President Bush in its dying days. Then, perhaps even worse, depending on how one sees the role of the media, how we geniuses cover what is going on.

One real worry is that in a sometime-between-now-and-November surprise, designed to put Sen. John McCain into the White House, the Bush administration will start a war with Iran, either attacking it itself or giving Israel the green light to do so. The result would be catastrophic for the United States, adding to the cross that U.S. forces already carry five-plus years into the Iraq war. With Afghanistan looking bad, another Middle Eastern war would further disrupt the oil market, and the Iranian response to an attack, directed against the Persian Gulf oil states as well as Israel, would rock our eyeteeth.

A second real worry is that the Bush administration, in an effort to help its core group of stockholders, will put the economy even deeper into the tank than it is already. Last week the Federal Reserve took over IndyMac, a housing lender considerably more dismal than even the thoroughly unlovable Bear Stearns, picking up $18 billion in more potentially bad loans for us as taxpayers.

Has anyone focused on the fact that if the federal government does a full bail-out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the U.S. government will add as much as another $5 trillion in bad debt, pushing up the $10 trillion national debt to $15 trillion or so? And don't forget that the federal government has to borrow every sawbuck it slips to Fannie and Freddie.

We, the media, don't help much. The other day on one of the talk shows the head of one of America's major networks said that the three big stories for the media now are, first, the elections, second, the economy, and third, the environment. Note that he left out the Iraq war, as if it were over or, even more astoundingly given that the deaths and financial cost continue to rise, that as a problem it is somehow just not that important.

I grant fully that for a major television network, its future and that of its CEO will turn on viewership and advertising revenue, including from political campaigns, rather than public service and informing the public.

At the same time, we the public, even in the midst of a presidential campaign such as this one where the future of the country is on the line, are sometimes like a cheerful big dog, chasing the sticks the media throw us, or our tails, rather than trying to figure out what is really going on.

Television is, of course, probably the wrong media to look to for serious coverage of the news, but we are the ones who choose among its various offerings. Between now and November there is no doubt that first the Olympics, then the college and professional football season will consistently outdraw serious discussions of issues among viewers.

So, give yourself the privilege of lying on the grass, working in the garden, even going to PNC Park to see the lamentable Pirates for the rest of the summer. Skip the party conventions with their canned enthusiasm. But it is going to be necessary to pay close attention to what happens and what the candidates say they are going to do about the mess the country is in as the political campaign moves to a close.

We also have to hope that no one starts another war or spends another $5 trillion of our money in the next four months. Count down the time. Cross your fingers.