According to the legendary ancient Greek epic poet Homer, during the ten-year siege of Troy, the Greeks plotted to invade their enemies by leaving a giant wooden horse at the gates of Troy.  This “gift horse” was carefully timed to coincide with what appeared to be a recession of the Greek fleet.  Assuming that the gargantuan equine was a peace offering, the Trojans opened their gates and rolled the horse inside.  In the dead of night, a team of thirty select Greeks quietly stole out of the horse and reopened the gates to their own armada that destroyed Troy.

Since that time, the term “Trojan Horse” refers to trickery or sleight-of-hand conducted with ill intent.  In the computer world, a “Trojan Horse” refers to malevolent computer programs (“malware”) that appear to be useful or harmless.  They induce the user to install and run them and thereby, seriously compromise, crash, or totally obliterate the user’s system.

Herein lies the crux of this article.  By having a computer system linked to the World Wide Web, have we invited foes into our homes?

I recently heard on the radio that a school in Pennsylvania gave every one of its students a free Apple laptop computer without notifying them that it could reveal what the students were doing at school or home, whenever the school decided to access its video cameras linked to those laptops.  The school’s treachery was revealed when its administrators interrogated one student concerning his use of drugs.  Needless to say, when the student informed his parents of this occurrence, the question arose as to whether or not this constituted a violation of the student’s civil rights.

If this could happen to a student, via a body of adults that he and his parents trusted implicitly, the question arises as to how widespread this problem may be. Legally, the issue impacts not only the unwary user but also the manufacturer(s) of the computer and videocam, the Internet provider, and those who supplied the laptop to the student.   If you think you’re immune to such deception, consider how many times you have agreed to terms of software utilization and access, via the Internet, without actually reading all of the terms.

The PC may be the greatest learning tool in recent history, but at what cost?  Is your personal business at risk? Once the foe has access to your home and its possessions, you are at his mercy.  It’s twenty-six years after George Orwell’s prognostications about “1984″ have come and gone, and it appears that the author was correct.  “Big Brother” is indeed watching!

Our Constitution guarantees us freedom from illegal searches and seizures, but how many times have you heard that someone who has been accused of a crime has had his computer impounded by law enforcement authorities?  If the presumption of “innocent until found guilty” is the basis for our law, and if the Constitution protects us against invasions of this nature, what exactly is going on here, and why is it going on?  Is this part of the Patriot Act now expanding into avenues it was never intended to survey?

Finally, we have a subject into which the ACLU can really sink its sharp little incisors.  If the ACLU is so concerned with safeguarding our inalienable rights, let them examine the legality of cyberspace agreements and malware programs.   Let them then push to institute laws that would protect PC users — nearly every American above the age of two — from pitfalls such as these.

Your files on your PC contain what you are and who you are: your thoughts, your opinions, your desires, the sites you enter, the products you purchase, your banking documents, ad infinitum.  You may consider these aspects of your life to be highly personal and accessible only by the use of a password.  Consider again how private they really are if a Trojan Horse in the guise of a malicious program or an unscrupulous party should be left at your gateway to the Internet. 

In the James Hilton novel, Lost Horizon, the High Lama reveals to his predecessor that a great storm is coming to engulf the world.  At the storm’s conclusion, the treasures of Shangri-La (heaven-on-Earth) were promised to emerge, thereby restoring a ravaged world.  In his prognostications, the spiritual leader also echoed Jesus Christ in predicting that the meek would inherit the Earth.

Unfortunately, Lost Horizon is a work of pure fiction.  The truth of the matter is, it will not be a happy ending after the great storm in America subsides.  The storm in question is, of course, the collapse of our financial institutions and, fittingly, the government that allowed it to happen. Although our present administration pontificates that our “recovery” in the wake of the $710 billion bailout is working and the future looks brighter, this storm has been brewing for quite a while now, and no hurricane hunter’s device tossed into its eye is going to deflate it.

California’s Governor has announced that his State can no longer fund itself, and has requested that the Federal government bail it out.  If the former mighty “Conan the Barbarian” can be felled by such a storm, what shelter exists for the common man and woman?  And, California is just the tip of the iceberg, as more States totter on the edge of financial ruin.  How many bailouts can the taxpayers afford?

Despite the rape and pillage of our economy by big business buying off elected officials, there has been no fiscal restraint in Washington or even at the State level. Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul is a strategy that does not work when our President asks citizens to tighten the belt even further as he uses that belt to strangle taxpayers with the costs linked to a proposed national healthcare system.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen! Americans had enjoyed an increasingly prosperous economy from the time that World War II ended, until President Bush, Senior, marched us into Saudi Arabia, thus sending interest rates skyrocketing.  The post-WWII boom began with an exploding housing industry, the advent of technology, and the race to space, which we won.  Considering that a relative blink of an eye earlier, our people were hurling themselves out of buildings due to the Stock Market crash, our fiscal rebound was an amazing accomplishment on a national level!  We pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps following the Great Depression, thanks largely to the institution of FDR’s social programs (including Social Security and Medicare).  Once the war ended, peace and prosperity reigned.

Now deeming these programs “entitlements,” our government claims that their wells of funding are running dry and cannot be sustained. I don’t know about you, but when I hear our Congressmen and media reps talk about “entitlements,” as if it is a dirty world, it makes my blood boil.  If the perks given to our so-called leaders of industry and government are not entitlements, then what is?

The difference between their entitlements and ours is that we average, law abiding, hard-working slobs actually contributed to our programs with our hard-earned dollars, the same as we do when we buy any insurance policy!  There is no doubt in my mind that the program funds were mismanaged, misappropriated, and (oh, why don’t I just come out and say it?) stolen, period, for purposes other than their original intent, which was to support the common workingman and woman!

When the government decides that it is time to take fiscal responsibility and make the first cut in spending, what will be cut?  Will we as a nation reduce aid to foreign countries (a calculated ploy to buy their friendship)?  Will we cut future bailouts to institutions whose CEO’s still crisscross the country in private jets and give immense bonuses to their higher-ups, even as they plead for the handouts?  Will we continue to reward corporations who export American jobs?  My guess is, we will, and thereby will escalate the screwing over of the taxpayers!

If we all manage to survive somehow until 2012, the results of the Presidential election will herald the path that America will take. I portend that fiscal responsibility will not come without pain to America’s citizens.  Cutting spending is akin to attempting to break a bad habit, without being armed with the necessary resources.  Hopefully, wise men and women will step forward to suggest a solution that will ease the suffering while we go through an even bigger withdrawal: the separation from our earnings and the social programs into which we have paid.

Perhaps, in the end, the meek will not inherit the earth.  Perhaps, in the end, only those robust taxpaying souls strong enough and resilient enough will survive yet another national crisis.

The graphical representation below demonstrates far better than words the staggering growth of unemployment throughout the United States during the period from January 2007 to the present time.  With double-digit unemployment spreading like a contagion to virtually every state and locality in the United States, our nation’s recovery from the worst recession since the Great Depression seems dubious.

Perhaps, we can all land those “lucrative” work-at-home jobs.  Or, better yet, maybe we should all seek bailout funds from Uncle Sam.  If bailout funds had gone directly to the people rather than the Wall Street elite, then average Americans would have been able to pay their bills and keep their homes while consumer spending, investment, and entrepreneurship would have blossomed.

“While Nero fiddled, Rome burned” is an expression coined to symbolize governmental extravagance in the face of suffering and hardship by its citizenry.  While politicians in Washington posture before the media – feigning concern for the citizens who foot the bill for their salaries, lavish expense accounts, and junkets around the globe, real Americans encounter joblessness or the fear of imminent joblessness and financial ruin on a daily basis.

At the dawn of each day, government officials at all levels should be compelled to watch the video below.  Then, perhaps, they might discover the source of the collective discontent of many and commit themselves to developing “working” solutions. 

A message crafted by an ancient intelligence millennia ago…

encoded with a message critical to the hopes of all mankind…

transmitted to and dutifully recorded by human scribes…

who were unaware of the import of the words they were writing…

published in a collection of books that have been read, studied, and debated for centuries…

the true meaning of which is unlocked at a point in history when enlightened men have gained the ability to decode it…

If you were guessing that this is the plot of an upcoming Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich (creators of Stargate and Independence Day) film or a new Dan Brown (author of Angels and Demons, The DaVinci Code, and The Lost Symbol) novel, you’d have guessed incorrectly.  The scenario summarized actually concerns God, the Bible, the various Books of the Old and New Testaments, the writers of those books, and the Parousia, Rapture, Judgment Day, and End of Time respectively.

And, according to Harold Camping, Founder and President of Family Stations, Inc. – a Christian ministry with global radio and Web broadcast facilities, God has revealed May 21, 2011 as the date for Jesus’ Return and October 21, 2011 as the date on which the Earth and Universe will be destroyed and replaced by the New Creation, God’s everlasting Kingdom.

To understand Mr. Camping’s teachings, one must consider their philosophical underpinnings.  Mr. Camping believes that the Bible is the infallible and only Word of God through which He speaks to His people – that is, those whom he has chosen from before the foundation of the world.  At the time of the Rapture, these are the ones – both those alive on that date and those resurrected from their graves – whose bodies will be transformed into their eternal glorified bodies and who will meet Jesus in the air.  The remainder of the world’s population and lifeless remains of the rest of mankind that will spew forth from the Earth as a result of the great worldwide earthquake of May 21, 2011, will face God’s wrath during the Day of Judgment, the 153-day period concluding with the destruction of the world and universe on October, 21, 2011.

To determine these dates accurately and validate the legitimacy of these predictions, Mr. Camping relies upon two other fundamental principles:  first, Biblical passages must be interpreted in the context of the Bible as a whole, and second, scripture must be compared with scripture to ascertain its true meaning.  Mr. Camping views the Bible as an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.  Thus, while Bible stories may provide historical accounts of actual occurrences, they also are an allegory – symbolizing events and participants in the present day.  And so, the Biblical nation of Israel often symbolizes the Christian Churches and Jerusalem represents Heaven.

But, accurate analysis of the Bible and knowledge regarding the timing of the world’s end depend upon revelation from God, a revelation to his true believers that Mr. Camping asserts could not take place before the commencement of the Great Tribulation.  As evidence, he points to the book of Daniel in the Old Testament and Revelation in the New Testament.  In the 12^th Chapter of Daniel, God is speaking to Daniel about end-times and instructs him to “shut up the words, and seal the book until the time of the end” (Daniel 12:4).  In Revelation Chapters 5 through 8, Christ opens a book with seven seals.

Mr. Camping, analyzing these chapters in the context of the Bible as a whole, indicates that the book in Revelation is the very same book mentioned in Daniel.  According to Mr. Camping, the final seal on that book was broken on May 21, 1988, the date that he correlates with the beginning of the Great Tribulation – a 23-year period ending with the Rapture on May 21, 2011 and commencement of the Day of Judgment.

During the Great Tribulation, Mr. Camping posits, Satan is loosed on the Earth, and his rule extends even to the Churches.  Thus, true believers, those chosen by God who will join Jesus at the Rapture, have left the Churches and those remaining, including clergy, are following and proselytizing a false Gospel and actually engaging in apostasy.  Needless to say, Mr. Camping’s teachings are not popular among those in the traditional Christian denominations.

Yet, Mr. Camping is undeterred, unequivocal, and supremely confident in spreading the Word as he perceives it.  He points to a number of “proofs” provided by God that indicate that his calculations have been done accurately.  These proofs rely heavily upon numerology.

Mr. Camping, like many others Biblical scholars, attributes spiritual significance to certain numbers.  The number 3, he asserts is representative of “God’s purpose.”  The number 5 signifies “atonement” or “redemption.”  10 or 100 or 1,000 represent “completeness.”  The number 17 is associated with “heaven.”  And, 23 signifies “destruction.”

While it is not my intention to present all of the proofs revealed, I will highlight the techniques employed to give readers a sense for their nature and substance.  Mr. Camping has calculated that Jesus’ crucifixion took place on April 1, 33 A.D. and bases this date on a study of the Biblical information on Jesus’ life along with known historical data.  The Crucifixion marked the beginning of what Camping refers to as the Church Age, that ended with the commencement of the Great Tribulation on May 21, 1988.  The length of the Church Age, therefore, was 1955 years.  The number 1955 is the product of three prime numbers:  5 x 17 x 23.  Thus, “atonement” or “redemption” brings “Heaven” or brings God’s “destruction,” a phrase echoing 2 Corinthians 2:15-16 – “¹⁵For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. ¹⁶To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life.”

Furthermore, there are 722,500 days between Jesus’ crucifixion and his return on May 21, 2011.  722,500 is the product of two repeating sets of spiritually significant numbers:  5 x 10 x 17 x 5 x 10 x 17.  Mr. Camping interprets this as “The atonement or redemption demonstrated by Christ’s suffering and death on April 1, 33 A.D. (the number 5) is 100% completed on May 21, 2011 (the number 10) when all the true believers are raptured into Heaven (the number 17).”  The sequence is doubled to “indicate that it has been established by God and will shortly come to pass” in accordance with Genesis 41:32, “And the dream was repeated to Pharaoh twice because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass.”

In 1970, Camping published a book entitled The Biblical Calendar of History in which he calculated the date of the Creation as 11,013 B.C. and of the Great Flood as 4,990 B.C.  According to the Genesis account, the Great Flood occurred on the 17^th day of the second month of the Hebrew calendar.  This equates to May 21^st of our modern calendar.  In 2 Peter 3:8, God stated, “But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”  If you add 4,990 + 2,011 and subtract 1 (to account for the fact that there was no year 0), you arrive at the number 7000 – making May 21, 2011 exactly 7,000 years from the date of the Great Flood.  And by May 21, 2011, the world is projected to have nearly 7 billion people inhabiting it.  Oh, by the way, did I mention that the number 7 represents “spiritual perfection?”

Is Harold Camping correct that on May 21, 2011, this world will be “perfected” with Jesus’ return to collect the true believers and usher in 153 days of God’s wrath and judgment ending with total annihilation of mankind and this universe and creation of a new Heaven and new Earth?  Or, will he join such notables as William Miller, a Baptist preacher and founder of what would become the Seventh Day Adventist Church who concluded that Christ’s Second Coming and the end of the world would occur sometime between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844, or for that matter himself, who questioned (albeit without his current level of conviction) whether 1994 might signal Jesus’ long-awaited return?

Obviously, the jury is still out on this question.  Yet, if you consider yourself to be a Christian, is the thought of Christ’s imminent return a source of hope or fear for you?  And, whether a Christian or not, do you number yourself among the many who intuit events portending imminent disaster?

Is Harold Camping a prophet of the Lord or a product of a civilization drifting aimlessly from crisis to crisis while desperately seeking answers?  Is time running out? 

For more information, visit the Family Radio Website (http://www.familyradio.com/) where you will find literature (http://www.familyradio.com/graphical/literature/frame/) providing information of intricate detail on the subjects discussed in this article.

In 1948, Communism and Socialism were on the rise in various parts of the world, and Americans were concerned about the spread of such political philosophies to our own shores.  The following cartoon, shown as a short subject in movie theaters at that time, exemplifies values still held by the majority of Americans.  Can you imagine any public setting in which this cartoon might be shown today?

If you were hoping for a racy article a la its title, all hope dies aborning.  This isn’t the stuff of which blue movies are made.  It’s an examination of a disturbing issue whose tentacles are far-reaching, as it concerns the recent, alleged kidnappings of a group of Haitian children by American Baptist ministers who’d journeyed to Haiti in the wake of the terrible earthquakes.

Not a lot of information seems to have surfaced concerning this story, and as frustrating as this, the lack of data is also understandable and just for the fact that the media is only handed so many facts to report.  Much of Haiti lies in ruins; she is grieving and wants for so very much.  Whether the outcome of this incident becomes the lynchpin of a crucial international incident and a precedent for future such occurrences, or eventually sifts like dust into the rubble of that shattered nation is, as of this writing, unknown.

What is known so far is this.

Accused of kidnapping, concealing the status of the children initially thought to be orphans, and attempting to secret the little ones across the border into the Dominican Republic, the fate of the missionaries charged with these acts remains to be seen.  It does appear doubtful that the Americans will receive a fair trial under Haitian Constitutional law.  As I understand it, that law has already been compromised in the manner that the accused parties have been held and questioned.  President Obama has, for now at least, washed his hands of this affair much like that consummate politician of old, Pontius Pilate.  While we are left to wonder about the destiny of the missionaries, we also wonder about their true motives.

It was stated that the missionaries actually went door-to-door, soliciting children to take back to the United States.   Reportedly, the Baptists had sought orphans.  But it then surfaced that some Haitian parents had actually thrust their children into the Americans’ hands, pleading for them to take their children out of the horror that is Haiti and to the United States, where they would receive a far better chance for survival and success than they ever would on their native soil.  Given these reports, the questions that plague me now are these:

1.   Were the missionaries’ objectives selfless or mercenary?  Did they intend to charge childless couples back home, or families who already have children and are willing to adopt the Haitian kids, a fee for their services?

2.   If the children went to good homes, would the fees have been justified?  If one travels overseas to adopt a child, one incurs two-fold fees: one sum for the government and the adoption agency, and one sum under the table, to “facilitate” transactions involving human flesh, including the hearts of the parents-to-be and adoptive children.   In light of this truth, this question becomes a not so little horned dilemma.

3.   If the answer to question #2 is “No”, why is it “No?”   Why are foreign nations sanctioned when exchanging money for flesh, but American citizens not?  Why are we held up to a different standard than the rest of the world (a world, by the way, that largely vilifies us as demon spawn)?

4.   Why are we held up to a different standard when so many people still wish to immigrate here, due to our freedoms, standard of living, and renowned generosity?  So much for us being demon spawn, eh?  Why are we measured by a different yardstick when America stands head and shoulders above every other nation in sending medical assistance, peace-keeping troops, and dollars sent to Haiti — the latter to the tune of $100 million from the Feds (taxpayers) alone, with even more from private donors as well as fundraisers such as last week’s concert full of luminaries?  The next highest contributor with $14.3 million, which is still extremely generous, was France.

5.   Is this really about the children, and Haitian law, or is it about something else?  Is it about a government machine (Haiti) trying to squeeze more out of another already squeezed-to-max government machine (the U.S.)?  Is it about the Haitian government, which historically has cared little for its people, scrambling to project an image of “We’re still in charge” and “We protect our own” to the rest of the world? 

6.   How moral was it for the parents of the children to have given them away just for the asking?  Some of the children were extremely upset by the sudden separation from their parents, even in the face of a horrible national crisis.  The child who cried the loudest was the one who’d alerted the guards at the border to this whole kidnapping-versus-salvation situation.  Did the parents know better than their sorrowful children?  Surely, the parents’ motives seem justified, at least, on the face of things.

7.   On the other hand, how moral, how justified is it to remove children from their birth parents when said children do not wish to be removed?  What long-term emotional scars could these children have incurred in transitioning overnight into a completely alien culture?  Would the lives they may have had in the States, via the missionaries, have erased those scars?  Or would they have created a backfiring whose long-term ramifications are best left to another article, or at least, the minds of readers with logical brains?

The most pressing question of all, of course, is the fate of the children.  What is to become of them?  What is to become of their housing, their health care, their education, their futures?  Balanced against the desires of some of these children to remain at home in Haiti, even under these recent horrific circumstances, the answers are anything but clear-cut.

When a resolution does emerge, I pray that the children’s welfare will be considered and honored, not politics or Xenophobia, and not the usual alpha male breast-beatings that favor oppression of what is right. 

In the war on terrorism, our enemies have defined us as “The Great Satan,” an epithet suggestive of religious connotations vis a vis our way of life.  As with most things in this increasingly global, so-called politically correct society, we now find ourselves in a war of words that allegedly helps us discern our friends from our enemies.  It’s time we volley some truth back to our detractors, including those deranged imbeciles seeking to blow up our aircraft and murder innocent people over our very heads.

For years “The Voice of America” has extolled, to the rest of the world, the benefits of living in a free country.  But the U.S. never does anything by halves.  Our nation was not founded upon, nor did it progress via, rhetoric.  Ideology put into action is what drives us.  In natural disasters around the globe, for example, what one single country has emerged unfailingly to send aid in astronomical amounts to the nations in distress?  Was it one of the countries touting us as the Devil?  Was it Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, or China?  Nope.  Guess again!  The top contributing world nations are:

1. The United States
2. European Union
3. United Kingdom
4. Japan
5. Sweden

The top recipient countries of these funds, in 2009, were:

1. Sudan
2. Occupied Palestinian territory
3. Ethiopia
4. Pakistan
5. Zimbabwe

To this list you may add Haiti, which has recently suffered another horrendous catastrophe, an earthquake of 6.1 on the Richter Scale.  Several years ago at Christmastime, the recipients were all of the nations affected by the devastating tsunami in Southeast Asia.  In fact, in terms of dollars alone, The United States has pledged $100 million in aid to Haiti (but this was our initial assessment, so I’m sure we’ll double that).  The next closest contender was France, weighing in with $14.3 million.  To this most generous amount of money sent by America, we have also deployed 50,000 of our troops to Haiti, to restore order and assist with rescue and restoration efforts.  Now take another look at the list directly above this paragraph.  All of the recipient nations are located in the Middle East or Africa, and have received little or no help from their geographic neighbors.

What do America’s actions tell the world?  Who really is “The Great Satan” among us?  And the most pressing question of all: why on Earth are we funding our enemies?   If America were run like a business instead of a charity, these practices would be considered unproductive, at best, and clinically insane, at worst.  So — why do we practice them?

It’s time that the world wakes up and realizes who is their friend, and who is their enemy.   More importantly, it is way past time to rally around the American flag and spend taxpayers’ hard-earned funds on the citizens of The United States of America, not inimical nations whose religious nuts are trying to blow us off the face of the planet.

It’s time we asked for a little interest on our funding, and I know just how to do it, without taking the equivalent of one red American cent from other countries.  It’s time we rebuilt the American manufacturing industry that we so blithely gave away to foreigners who benefit from it.  While we’re at it, we can bring Information Technology back here also.  We should bring ‘em back home.  We should create jobs for American workers to start reliving the American Dream of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” just as our forefathers intended.

If we stop being the world’s bottomless-pockets bank and non-profit organization all rolled into one, what, then, will the rest of the world call us?  Will it still refer to us as “The Great Satan” or the “The Great Savior Who Finally Woke Up?”  You know the answer to that one.  Case closed!

Twice recently, we have heard of by Al Qaeda’s planned attacks upon our commuter aircraft.  These threats have meet with nothing but perfunctory rhetoric from our Department of Homeland Security.  The enemy seems to know more about our security operations than those allegedly in charge of them.  The media, whose sense of responsibility I have seriously questioned for at least a decade, reports that our security force possesses a list of suspected terrorists numbering as high as 500,000.  Five will get you ten that if the government spoon-fed this figure to the media, it is must be twice as high as that, if not more.

Meanwhile, thousands of illegal aliens have already crossed the Mexican-American border, and guess what?  They aren’t headed to Acapulco for a little R&R.  They are infiltrating the United States and placing additional burdens upon our already groaning economy.  Just this week we learned that easily accessible technology — cell phones — now enable the unlawful “visitors” to pinpoint sources of potable water across our border, thereby accelerating the mass exodus out of their country and into ours.

I don’t know about you, but these numbers sound like an armies to me. Why have we not profiled potential terrorists?  Why have we not deterred the marauding aliens more productively?  Who’s minding our store?  Apparently, no one!  If this is a barometer of the efficacy of our national security, we are in deep doggie-do!

There is absolutely no excuse for allowing terrorists to board any manner of conveyance, at home or abroad, for the sole purpose of murdering innocent people.  In possession of advanced technology and so many names, we can profile passengers with ease!  And if we instituted more stringent controls at the border, we could put the kibosh on illegals claiming jobs and benefiting financially from our social programs without having to pay into them.

The truth of the matter is we have a homeland security in name only.  The present administration is so involved in pushing its healthcare reform through to approval that it can’t see the forest for the trees.  It can’t prioritize the needs and rights of our citizenry.

What are the CIA, the FBI, and Homeland Security doing to secure our transportation system against terrorist attacks?  Must another tragedy like 9/11 befall us before they take action?   Some time ago, we lost thirteen good people at Ford Hood at the hands of an Islamic zealot whose twisted mindset was not only known but also documented in his formal military records.  Two gatecrashers appeared recently at a White House fete, slipping like butter past security and potentially jeopardizing the safety of our President and First Lady.  Mere days after Christmas, two of our airplanes were in serious threat of attack by suicide bombers.  All of this could have been avoided had the suspects in question been profiled.

Had the terrorists succeeded, the dirty bastards would be dancing in the streets in Yemen and toasting Osama Bin Ladin in the rat-holes of Afghanistan.

If these incidents don’t constitute a wake up call, I guess we will just have to wait for the Big One before government moves its lazy, red tape-lovin’ behind. 

In writing this article, I am inviting bushels of rotten tomatoes to be hurled at me through cyberspace.   Having had the real-life versions, and worse, tossed at me because I chose to voice my convictions peacefully and legally, I can deal with Internet insults from strangers.

I am a longtime proponent of Roe versus Wade.  I am also a woman who struggled to have a child of my own and who, despite state of the art medical intervention via renowned experts, remains childless.  My perspective on this topic, therefore, is not driven by religious zealotry or a myopic brand of feminism.  It is driven by logic.  When men can conceive and bear children, then and only then might they (underline “might”) be allowed to legislate what takes place within a woman’s body.

Freedom, however, always has a price.

In the late 1980’s, more than ten years after its much-publicized adjudication, Roe v. Wade came under serious attack by its opponents.  It appeared that the bill would be overturned.  A group of Episcopalian priests, whom I knew peripherally through a third party, was mounting participation in a march on Washington to stay the course of the bill.  The priests were part of a nationwide protest well organized by NOW (National Organization for Women).  I decided to march with them.  I marched for Debbie and I marched for Maria, whose names have been changed to protect their privacy, and who could not have been more diametrically opposed in mindset and lifestyle.

Debbie was the dimwitted assistant who’d been foisted upon me in the name of nepotism.  Maria was an elderly, devout Catholic with whom I’d struck up a friendship.  Their names have been changed here to protect their privacy.  A few years after Roe v. Wade was approved in 1973, Debbie ended her pregnancy legally, under anesthesia and in safe and sanitary surroundings.  She did so to be free of the physically abusive philandering husband who had stolen money that was hers alone, through inheritance, and had left her virtually penniless.  Freed from the financial and emotional burden of caring for a child begotten by a rat bastard, Debbie ended her marriage, got stronger, and a little wiser.

Maria, by contrast, had been born strong and smart.  During the Great Depression, as the sole support of her children and disabled husband, Maria had self-aborted two fetuses.  Choosing to keep the roof over her head and food in her family’s bellies, she did the unthinkable.  She did it in fear and pain and silence.  She did it in grief for the two babies she would never meet, in order to keep the four she already had, and her husband, alive. 

And so, I marched for Debbie and Maria.  I marched for every other woman I did not wish to become a Maria.  I marched for my sister, my friends, my co-workers — none of whom were pregnant or planning to be.  I marched for those who could not march, and I marched for my two nieces who were not yet twinkles in their fathers’ eyes.

I paid for a seat on a bus going from The Big Apple to DC, took a day off from work without pay, and lined up for two hours in the freezing pre-dawn of an early spring day.  The unannounced drizzle that had begun earlier became a downpour.  Soaked to the skin, none of us got off the line or abandoned our cause.

Five hours later, we arrived in DC, deposited unceremoniously near the city’s then newly-renovated underground for a quick trip to the capital proper.  Climbing up from the dark bowels of the earth, I beheld the dome of our nation’s capital in the distance and the breath caught in my throat.  I had participated in organized protests before, for causes I’d deemed justifiable, but not at this level.  And I had visited DC thrice before, but never for anything like this.

As far as my eye could see beneath a sun that had finally blossomed, there flowed rivers of humanity, men and women, young and not so young, black, white, yellow, and brown.  They had come to ensure the freedom afforded us by Roe v. Wade.  As I watched, the rivers converged in an orderly manner, proceeding quietly, like a ballet without music, toward the White House.  Later, my husband, who’d been watching the news back home, informed me that 2 million of us had marched that day under NOW’s auspices.

Passersby caught sight of the flapping brown robes on the Episcopalian priests and inquired if we were there for the march.  When we said, “Yes”, the strangers rallied with, “We’re here for the Right to Life!”  One of the priests snapped, “We’re here for the right to life, too: women’s lives!”   This declaration earned us vile curses, for starters.

Those who professed to protect human life and who’d sanctioned and/or engineered the bombing of abortion clinics stood on the sidelines, barely held in check by the police.  But there were more of them than there were police.   We endured insults, death threats, rabid screams, and a few who broke through the barricades to attack us physically.  They spit on us and threw things at us.  Rocks, unopened cans of soda, which are heavy and dangerous at those speeds, and broken bottles.

Not one of us got off the lines.  Not one of us did violence to our attackers or detractors.  Our cause was too important for distractions.  Almost silently, we merged and moved inexorably toward the structure housing the Oval Office.

Because 2 million of us showed up that day, I did not get as close to the White House as I’d wished.  Instead, I saw Bela Abzug, feisty in one of her signature hats, but she did not phase me for I was a New Yorker, as was the Congresswoman-activist.   Jesse Jackson did phase me, for I had never seen him in person before and he was about to throw his hat into the Presidential race.  The crowd was like an immense sound barrier, so I only caught snatches of phrases from both Abzug and the future Senator.  But my sense of being a part of something larger than myself, a sense of carving a moment in history, was acute.  That day is like a fly caught in amber. Burned into my memory, that day will live forever in my mind and heart.   Never have I been more proud and humbled to be an American citizen.

The Constitution of the United States afforded me the freedom to speak out, by my very presence, against those who would rob me and every other woman of what I saw then, and what I still see, as our unalienable right to choose.  In the end, I was one voice among the 2 million who made a lasting difference.  Roe v. Wade was not overturned.  Women did not return in fear to the back alleys and the butchers with dirty coat hangers.  If that law is ever threatened again, and if I am alive and well enough to do so, I will march once more upon our nation’s capital and exercise my right to free speech. 

A year after Barack Obama’s inauguration brought “change to America,” an unexpected change has occurred in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  Republican Scott Brown, a heretofore obscure State Senator and real estate attorney, won election to the United States Senate by defeating Democrat Martha Coakley in the Special Election to fill the remaining three years of deceased Senator Ted Kennedy’s term of office.  In arguably the country’s most liberal state and in a startling turnabout from polls showing him trailing by 20% as recently as two weeks ago, Brown defeated Coakley by 5 percentage points just one year after Barack Obama carried the state by 26% over his Republican rival, Senator John McCain.

The stunning results have severely dampened the mood of Democrats in Washington and thrown a monkey wrench into the Obama Administration’s plans for healthcare reform.  When seated, Brown will become the 41^st Republican in the U.S. Senate; thereby, robbing the Democrats of their filibuster-proof majority.  Perhaps more significantly, Brown’s election and margin of victory in a state in which Democrats outnumber Republicans by 3 to 1 calls into question the public’s support for the Administration’s agenda for change, most notably in the healthcare arena.

With elections for the entire House of Representatives and 36 of the 100 Senate seats looming in November, Brown’s victory, following GOP gubernatorial wins in New Jersey and Virginia, provides mounting evidence of the American public’s unease with the nature and pace of change as it currently exists.  As our 44^th President is learning, talking about change is easy; securing agreement and implementing change is difficult in the extreme.

As individuals, we struggle as we contend with change versus the status quo.  The idea of fresh ideas and approaches is very appealing yet also frightening, taking us out of our comfort zones.  Is it surprising that, when faced with momentous changes, the public collectively responds as do individuals?

In my humble opinion, Scott Brown’s surprising victory is an indication of the public’s ambivalence over the Democrats’ agenda for change and one-party rule.  Overwhelmed by the scope and rapidity of change, the voters of Massachusetts have taken a small step toward restoring balance to our legislative process and perspective.  This coming November, I believe that voters across the country will likely continue this trend.

Yet, one should be careful not to read too much into Brown’s victory or the prospective Republican electoral surge this fall.  The public holds neither Republicans nor Democrats in particularly high esteem.  And, the American people are smarter than politicians and their minions give them credit.

We understand that, as a nation, we face perplexing problems:  an economic downturn spawning persistent and worrisome unemployment levels, rapidly accelerating healthcare costs and deficiencies in health insurance coverage, climate change regardless of root cause, the growing threat of terrorism on American soil, and a deepening cynicism and distrust of government.  And, we realize that change is necessary if we are to resolve these and a host of other issues.  Yet, we are dissatisfied with the solutions offered and appalled by the rancor of current political discourse and the crass indifference of the Washington elite toward the citizens whom they represent.

Under these conditions, the victory of a relative political unknown over a well-oiled party machine should have come as no surprise.  And so, congratulations Scott Brown.  But, when you get to Washington, keep in mind the horse upon which you rode into town and resolve yourself to find and promote common ground with those of every political persuasion in crafting uniquely American solutions to our most pressing problems.  If you do, then that would be a change in which we all can believe.