How does any of this relate to us in our times?

When we read about what went on in history, long, long ago, we say, "Wasn't that awful!" or "Wasn't that ridiculous!" If it were so awful and so ridiculous, then why is so much of it still going on?

As I was growing up in the pre-historic days before television, mass media and the inter-net, I was blithely unaware of slavery or racial strife. Granted, we had radio, newspapers, movies and books but few larger than life color images of the rest of the world. In the 1940's our secure little town in Northern Colorado boasted a population of about 14,000, predominately WASP (white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant) with one black family. The minority people were the Mexican farm laborers that worked in the sugar beet fields. That world was my reality.

Our one high school had the three grades, 10, 11, and 12. When I was a senior, it was not required but customary practice for we older girls, the "big sisters", to take a half dozen of the incoming sophomore "little sisters" under our wings. We were the big shots of course and as such were in a position to impart our vast wisdom and experience to the little girls on how to achieve the crowning success in high school that we had! Before school started we were supposed to contact each of the girls and make arrangements to meet with them for informal orientations. It was also customary to have social outings and parties for them in our homes. Several of my senior girl friends got together with our little sisters for these occasions.

When I received my list of little sisters, one of them was a girl with a decidedly Mexican name and address in the part of town that would be called the "Barrio". Many of the Mexican kids did not start school at the beginning of the year with the rest of us because they were needed to work with their families. I assumed that my little Mexican sister would be one of them, so I did not invite her to any of the parties or outings with the rest of my little sisters. I dropped her a note telling her I was her big sister and would help her get started in school, when and where I would meet her.

Sure enough she showed up at school several weeks late. She was a quiet, polite and sweet little person. I took her around, showing her where her classes would be and that was that. I honestly do not remember seeing her around school at all during the year.

At the end of the year we big shots were caught up in the excitement of the graduation activities. We all had our pictures taken for the yearbook and had extra pictures made up to give to our friends with flowery sentiments written on the back. We recounted glowing memories of our high school careers, the good times we had had together and undying continued devotion to our friendships as we went out into the wide world. There was almost a competition to see who could collect the biggest stack of pictures.

One of the last days of school, my little sister sought me out and stopped me in the hall. I had completely forgotten about her altogether. She gave me a radiant smile and said she had a picture for me. On the back she had written about how much she thanked me for being her big sister. She turned and left. I never saw her again.

I was stunned. I had done the barest minimum required of a big sister. I had not gone out of my way in the slightest to even be nice to her. She had deserved better from me. She was so much more gracious than I had been. I stood there in shame. Obviously, I have never forgotten her and I still have her picture. She taught me one of the most important lessons of my life.

Possibly one of the cruelest forms of slavery or discrimination is not outright persecution, but the rendering of minorities into invisibility.

When I went off to college in Missouri, for the first time in my life I came in contact with large numbers of black people; in stores, on the streets and busses. Still later, when I was twenty-one I took my first job in Houston, Texas with an airline. Management had put me up in a hotel the first night I got there and a recommendation for a room in a private home to live.

I took a cab way out to the suburbs the next day with all my luggage. My landlady was a lovely southern widow. Everyday she put a fresh magnolia blossom in my room from her tree in the yard. She told me where the stores were, where to catch the bus and how to get to the downtown ticket office. I was thoroughly grown up embarking on life on my own. I was ready to take on the world!

The next day I climbed onto the bus at what turned out to be nearly at the end of the line. The bus was empty except for two or three people. Absentmindedly, I went toward the back and sat down. The bus driver stopped the bus, turned around and said, "Are you a n-----?" Completely surprised, I said, "Uh, no". He said, "Then get up here and sit where the white folks sit." I sheepishly complied. The driver and other passengers watched as I moved and he did not start up the bus again until I was properly seated. That was my first encounter with "Jim Crow".

After that my landlady and coworkers explained the local customs, laws actually, often after I had committed a social blunder. I found it curious that the black people were permitted to prepare and serve food in restaurants but they were not allowed to sit down and eat there. Then there was the matter of separate rest rooms and drinking fountains. On the busses the black people sat in the back unless the bus filled up. As more whites boarded the bus, the blacks relinquished their seats and stood. Then the white people sat all the way to the back and the black people stood in the aisles. The black people were cordoned off from the white people in all possible ways in every aspect of life. The doctrine of separate but equal was decidedly unequal. The whole system was designed to keep the blacks in submissive deference to the whites.

(To bolster its own, collective egos have a compulsion to ostracize the "no-goodnik" group du jour.  We no longer have separate drinking fountains and rest rooms.  Still, for the past ten years or so there has been a vigorous campaign against smoking, that of course spilled over into politics.  Now there are "designated smoking areas" in airports and restaurants.  What's next?  The current campaign is against obesity.  Will that evolve into separate areas for the obese?  How about separate but equal for gays?  Many a politician has gained national and international name-recognition by his/her pontification on such weighty matters.  Gee, we have to have somebody to disapprove of and feel superior to since religious, ethnic and racial discriminations are no longer acceptable!.......or are they.)

Oddly enough, the "Jim Crow" system in Houston in the '50's seemed to work and the whole social fabric moved along quite smoothly. I thought it was unfair, but who was I to rock the boat? I was about as far down on the economic scale as you could get! My starting monthly salary was $130.00.

In a short time I rounded up a roommate to share the expenses of an apartment, again, way out in the suburbs with those long bus rides. We did not manage our meager resources very well. More interested in fashion than food, we often lived on oatmeal the last few days before payday. I liked my job and coworkers and we had an active if somewhat low budget social life.

I often worked the 3:30PM to midnight shift. I can honestly say that as a young woman alone, no one ever bothered me as I waited late at night on the city's street for the bus home. The bus route took us through the black section of the city. There was always plenty of festive action going on there.

One Saturday night the bus was full of passengers, neatly divided in half, whites in the front, blacks in the back. The driver stopped the bus for a red light and we noticed there was music and dancing going on the sidewalk. The driver pulled across the intersection and stopped. It appeared to be a spontaneous happening. A crowd of onlookers had gathered around. There was a little boy of perhaps ten years old furiously tap dancing to the music. He was good! He could have given Fred Astaire some serious competition. Black and white alike, we stood in the aisles of the bus to watch. It was a sheer delight!

Several years later after I was married in the early 1950's my Air Force husband was stationed for short periods of time in Sumter, South Carolina and Montgomery, Alabama. The same atmospheres prevailed in those cities as they had in Houston. Of course the black people were not allowed in the white churches of the towns and cities. As we drove around the countryside we saw their little white painted churches. They had embraced Christianity and expressed their devotion in the beautiful music of spirituals.

Getting on with my life and raising a family, I have been out of the work force for years. For money that is. But I didn't spend all those years lying on the couch eating bonbons and watching TV! In addition to keeping the home fires burning and taking care of my family, I did more than my fair share of volunteer work.

I have observed the changes made in many respects. The forty-hour week has been in place for a long time yet the convenience of laptops and cell phones has made it possible for people to continue work related business 24/7. (Not that I object to the marvel of computers! I would be hard pressed to write this without the speed and ease of the word processing feature and spell check.)

Multi-tasking is not a new concept. Ask any mother as she has a load of laundry in both the washer and dryer, answers questions of older children doing their homework as she holds a toddler on one hip and stirs a pot on the stove, with cartoons on TV in the background.

Multi-tasking has produced a frenzy of rushing Hunters/serfs and more often than not Gatherers/serfs too, exhausting themselves in their service to the masters/lords of multi-national corporations, who themselves are often caught up in the same frantic pace to climb the corporate ladder.

Granted, the workers are self-motivated, not physically compelled. Still, the by-products of such frenetic devotion are road rage, drug and alcohol abuse, fragmented and dysfunctional families. It takes a high degree of self-discipline to set priority time for work, family and leisure activities in order to maintain a balanced life. Not an easy thing to do.

When the drained Hunters and Gatherers do get to their caves/homes they collapse in front of the fire/tube, drink beer and watch other Hunters chase around fighting each other over a ball covered with pig/mammoth hide. Oh well, that is a relatively harmless form of warfare. At least people are not being killed. Maimed perhaps but not slaughtered.

What we see in the world around us does not accurately reflect what is going on in the rest of the world. And the world is constantly changing. As the United States was initially an agricultural economy with a representative government of part time farmers and lawyers, it gradually changed into an independent industrial nation, albeit isolated from other nations by two vast oceans. That too has changed with air travel and instant communication.

The governments are no longer hereditary dynasties but enclaves of professional politicians, albeit elected by the populous. These officials are often chosen on the basis of how well they will look on television delivering speeches written by professional scribes. Few of them are able to think on their feet to say nothing of jotting down their own thoughts on the back of envelopes these days. This is not necessarily all bad. The complexities of modern life require professionals to tackle the intricacies of governing. Decisions made that affect the everyday lives of millions of people are daunting. Policies that will determine the course of our destinies for years to come are grave responsibilities. When budgets are discussed in terms of billions and trillions of dollars, I for one, cannot wrap my brain around that many zeros. I want someone representing me to be smarter than I am!

It has become very expensive to be elected. Electioneering is an industry in itself. Fund-raising for the next election consumes half of a politician's time, with an entourage of professional strategists whose sole motives are to win the next election, whatever it takes. If not outright quid pro quo favors for generous contributors to a candidate's campaign, there is little doubt that like-minded influence and access is a direct result of this mutual advantage.

If politicians and world leaders would expend the same amount of thought, time, energy, effort and money toward solving problems that they do maligning each other, there is no telling what heights of achievement could be realized.

The Technology Age has brought on the multinational corporations with much of the industrial manufacturing being done outside our shores. Outsourcing. The real power is increasingly in the hands of the corporation in partnership with foreign industries that obliterate the jurisdiction of national borders. This power is outstripping national governments to say nothing of the UN.

I am reminded of one time early in my married life when we were traveling north from South Carolina. My husband was driving and I was the navigator with the maps in my lap. We came zipping down a long hill and spotted a patrol car sitting in the valley. The trooper turned on his light for us to stop. My husband asked me how far we were from the border. I checked the map, about two miles. He stepped on the gas and we went flying until we passed the "Welcome to North Carolina" sign. Smart alecky, I turned around and waved goodbye to the cop as we sped away out of his jurisdiction.

Of course, the policeman could have radioed ahead to be on the lookout for our car. In the chase he was close enough to take down our license plate. Fortunately for us there was very little traffic on that highway so our speeding did not put anyone else in jeopardy. Still it was a reckless and dangerous thing for us to do at best. We dodged a traffic ticket at our own peril. We slowed down and were the most law-abiding citizens in North Carolina for the rest of that day however.

That was only one of our misadventures when we were young and foolish. Like typical young people, we had boundless energy and enthusiasm. Today's young people are no different. They love to bounce up and down and make a lot of noise but most of them make it through unscathed and emerge as responsible old fogies like us. Still, we old-timers beyond the age of thirty long for the days of slow intimate dancing before amplifiers proliferated!

About the time cars were coming into mass production and that mode of travel was becoming available to the average consumer, there was an overlapping in time from the horse and buggy days. No, I wasn't around then. I'm not quite that old! The hue and cry went up regarding all the horse and buggy industries and people employed by them that were being thrown out of business and work. The so-called "Buggy Whip People". What was to become of them when these new-fangled automobiles took up all the space on the muddy rutted roads at horrendous speeds of ten miles an hour!

As we all know, the car did replace the horse and buggies, bringing new enterprises and jobs not only in the automotive and oil businesses but, road constructions, the interstate highway system and innumerable other related "advances" in society. Because of cars, people moved to the suburbs into shiny new housing developments as the home construction businesses grew by leaps and bounds. The one big innovation of the automobile instigated a vast and rapid change in the structure of societies, not only here in the U. S. but around the world.

Whether we like it or not, globalization is here and has been creeping up for some time now. Naturally, this brings on a host of new opportunities as well as problems that have never had to be addressed before. How are we going to go about working it out smoothly so it benefits more than it hurts?

Obviously the organization needed to oversee these new developments is already in place. The UN. Sure, there are many people who have nothing but contempt for the perceived ineptitude of the UN. The same has been said and will be said for the local, state wide and national ineptitude of elected officials. Why should the UN be any different than those governing entities? Who else and what else is going to confront problems on a global scale?

The UN has many, many critics to be sure.  It is a very young organization, still at the stage of the Hunters burning down the hut to get roast pig!  Given time, though, perhaps it can come up with  microwave ovens for the whole world!  What is the alternative?  Continued strife between nations, religious and ethnic traditions?  Or worse.  Nuclear annihilation of all that is good and beneficial to humanity?

The multinational corporation has its own army in the form of security forces (mercenaries?). So we find the parent company in the position of the lords of feudal times with their knights to protect their interests and a work force similar to that of the serf. The same fealty to the lord is demanded and received through stock options, profit sharing and retirement plans.

Penthouses and corporate jets have replaced the castles and city-states of medieval times. Battalions of lawyers protect the lords from national laws designed to inhibit the corporate autonomy. Power lies not in the hands of large landed estates but in ownership of assets. The power brokers are able to go about their business as they wish, seemingly accountable to no authority. The politicians and especially the presidents and prime ministers, with rare exceptions, are as ineffectual as the present day European monarchs, whose duties are now primarily ceremonial with photo ops.

The actual manufacture of goods as well as services, more and more are being done in foreign countries not constrained by national laws or standards of the United States. I have seen factories in China making silk, jade and cloisonne objects that OSHA would close down in the blink of an eye for alarming safety hazards.

Outsourcing jobs overseas does reduce labor costs for the corporations and helps to somewhat raise the standard of living for people in underdeveloped countries. The prices of goods and services are reduced as well for the average consumer here. Hey, I shop at Wal Mart too! No one can argue that those are not plusses for all the people involved. The downside is that here in our country, many people are hurting as they see our industries and jobs vanishing.

What is the recourse? Who is going to see to it that working conditions are safe for the labor force - worldwide? What is to be done about the downward slide of our standard of living with the exodus of industry and jobs?

The corporations can weasel around Green Card immigration requirements by simply keeping employees on the payrolls of foreign subsidiaries. These employees can range from janitors to "security personnel". The shell game of moving assets around in the international banking world is such a complex and snarled up mess that I doubt if there are any but a few financiers who have a clue of how it works.

So we have come full circle from the Middle Ages to Modern Times. How much has really changed? There is an old French saying that goes: " Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." The more things change, the more they stay the same.

How can we as human beings turn a blind eye to the deprivation of pitiful grinding poverty and hopelessness around the world? And lets not kid ourselves. We have plenty of pockets of poverty right here in our own country. Perhaps not to the degree in other countries, but none-the-less, it is here too.

The Church had a vision of a world, especially of Europe, united under the umbrella of Christian morality. The Holy Roman Empire was supposed to be the fulfillment of that dream. The framework for social order was there and great strides were made. In the ninth century, Charlemagne was a pretty smart cookie, but still try as he might, he couldn't pull it off with the only recourse he knew - conquest and force. Several centuries later the Crusaders were still at it, convinced that their way was the only way. They failed too.

Unfortunately, that dream of the Church became a fantasy bogged down in the usual fear and greed of sovereignties. Major religions went from hope of salvation to punitive measures for any deviation from their authority; driving mankind away from adventurous curiosity to stifling conformity. Hostility resulted between religions nit-picking over trifles that did not conform to each one's traditions. Religions would do well to emphasize their common tenets rather than their differences.

The League of Nations was the first step toward forming an international body to recognize and accept the difference of religions and ethnic heritage in order to foster mutual respect and progress. We all know what happened to that organization and the resulting events leading up to and including the disastrous effects of World War II; the most horrendous catalogue of death and destruction in human history.

Still the dream persisted and the United Nations was formed. Despite the myriad obstacles of nationalistic sovereignties, it is our best hope to solve the problems that extend beyond national frontiers and so deeply affect all of humanity.

The United States is the only "Super Power" left. Exactly, what does that mean? True we have the largest capability of nuclear and conventional arms. The most muscle. That hearkens back to the old cliché of "might makes right". We might remember another cliché, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

Think of the big strong Hunter who requires that his Gatherer wife do his bidding. If she is unwilling or unable he smacks her one or threatens to. Then he says, "Do you love me?" If she says no, POW, he smacks her again. Is that the mature way to preserve a happy marriage for either of them?

Birth and death are the natural order of life.  The sophistication and technology of war - like slavery, the inventions of man - are not the natural order of life.

War is a chest-thumping guy thing to demonstrate that this one is a tougher he-man than the other. The muscle-flexing lofty pronouncements of political or religious justifications do not disguise the fact that the victor just wants a bigger cave and huge chunks of mammoth meat while relishing the fact that the vanquished is left with destruction and humiliation. All that brute strength energy would better serve humanity, including the he-man Hunter, if it were directed toward the creative accomplishments that such ego gratification provide.

Any way you look at it, morally, religiously, economically, socially, politically, war does not make sense - either for those who advocate it or those who participate in it. It always seems to start with a schoolyard mentality of, "Well, he hit me first!" or "Well, he was going to hit me so I had to hit him first!" It then escalates into state-sanctioned but never-the-less premeditated killing.  Who can be so naive as to believe that dropping a bomb isn't intended to kill?  And why is killing on a massive scale in war approved, but murder of one individual is a capital crime?

My husband has a great story of when he was in grammar school growing up in Northern New Hampshire. He and a small group of his young friends were accustomed to going for hikes in the White Mountains. They got the idea to build a "camp" up there in the woods. They "borrowed" their father's hammers, saws, hatchets and other implements they needed. It is not clear whether they had permission for the use of the tools.

The young buddies worked like beavers, cutting down small trees, stripping them and building their "camp". About the time it was completed, they would get into a quarrel over something trivial and one would say, "I'm going home and I want my nails!" Arguments would ensue. Then they would go to work tearing down the "camp" and go home with their assorted tools and nails. Of course, in a day or two they were all friends again and went back up to the woods to build another camp.

Have you ever noticed whenever families go to the beach, besides frolicking in the water, they invariably go to work making sand castles or gathering drift wood for a lean-to.  This seems to be another innate drive - - to build something together!  Ever since the days of the Hunters and Gatherers, humans have worked so hard for millennia to build civilizations.  In its vanity, the lust for power is capable of destroying everything almost instantly.

Is it really necessary to settle ancient scores that are sometimes centuries old? Does picking away at the scabs of old wounds help in healing? War is extremely costly not only in terms of lives but more and more expensive armaments. We have developed so many nifty gee-whiz and wonderful war toys, some feel it is a shame not to use them and see how they work!

Couldn't the huge budget and effort for accouterments of war be better spent feeding hungry people, alleviating the suffering of disease? To put it in perspective, how much does one fighter aircraft cost? A million - each? That money for only one would go a long way toward mitigating some poverty and promoting education. And making life more pleasant through satisfying work, the healthy competition of sports, the beauty of music and the arts for the short time each one of us has to spend on this earth? Life has so much more to offer than strife.

In the tenth century, the Japanese Emperor Daigo made an effort to collect his country's rich heritage of poetry into the volumes known as Kokinshu.  A description of its contents reveals a universal concept of humanity.

"The poetry of Japan, as a seed, springs from the heart of man creating countless leaves of language.....In a world full of things man strives to find words to express the impression left on his heart by sight and sound.....And so the heart of man came to find expression in words for his joy in the beauty of blossoms, his wonder at the song of birds, and his tender welcome of the mists that bathe the landscapes, as well as his mournful sympathy with the evanescent morning dew.....to verse the poets were moved when they saw the ground white with snowy showers of fallen cherry blossoms on spring mornings, or heard on autumn evenings the rustle of falling leaves; or year after year gazed upon the mirror's doleful reflections of the ravages of time,.....or trembled as they watched the ephemeral dewdrop quivering on the beaded grass."₁₄          

Everything in life is a risk. Any one of us could stub a toe, fall and break a neck getting out of bed in the morning, yet the objective is not to risk dying but to get up! Conversely, the goal of war is to destroy, kill or be killed. Whichever side has done the most killing and destruction has "won". Won what? Rubble and corpses.

We are not likely to see Presidents, Prime Ministers or other national leaders grabbing their swords and personally leading their armies into battle as King Arthur, Charlemagne, Khosru I or even George Washington and Teddy Roosevelt did. Today they will issue orders and then watch the results on CNN from the safety and comfort of bunkers in undisclosed locations.  (Or in the case of other leaders, cowardly hiding in caves while they send impressionable young men out to blow themselves up in order to kill as many others as possible.)

Religious human sacrifice is gone. Slavery is over. Is it not the time for war to be abolished too? Take war off the table altogether as an option, an obsolete concept whose time has come and gone. Of course, there are bad guys out there that have to be dealt with. Let's take a look at underlying conditions that allow the bad guys a chance to gain a stronghold on power in the first place. We are smarter now. We no longer have to settle disputes with brute strength.

The framework is there in the form of the UN. Give the UN the international authority it needs to solve problems through the combined cooperation of all nations without coercion. The UN needs to be given more teeth.....but not too many. The last thing we need is an international dictatorship!

This of course does not sit well with the military, who bristle at the very idea of foreign commanders being in charge of United States forces. Some monumental egos at work there. Generals are accustomed to issuing orders to be carried out without question in the guise of "discipline"; the pomposity of brooking no insubordination while refusing to relinquish any authority other than their own.

Still there is precedent for this: England's Gen. Bernard Montgomery was a very able commander working with Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. We hate to admit this but Germany's Gen. Erwin Rommel, "The Desert Fox", and Japan's Admiral Yamamoto were formidable opponents. It would be much better to have such strategic minds working toward the same objectives.

Speaking of Eisenhower; West Point graduate, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Western Europe during World War II, Supreme Commander of NATO and two term President of the United States. I think he was eminently qualified by experience to warn of the dangers of the military-industrial complex; as he did in his Farewell Address in January of 1961.  That address is well worth re-reading.  (You can find it on the inter net.)

Without war, the military would have nothing to do.  Industries that manufacture all the accouterments of war would lose billions in military contracts.  So from their point of view, peace sucks!

Obviously, the military-industrial complex will not go quietly into obsolescence. It certainly has the weapons - literally - to defend its position!  (This applies to terrorists and their arsenal of weapons too - car bombs and the like.  This choice of weapons can be almost as effective as B-2 bombers and missiles as far as propaganda at the targeted level goes.  The dead are dead, no matter who kills them!)  The idea of war as an option has to be phased out gradually in the thinking of people, worldwide, with viable alternatives.    

We can't very well solve problems by making bigger ones in the process. The Greeks had a myth about the teeth of dead soldiers taking root in the soil, to sprout and grow into the next generation of soldiers to start the fight all over again.

There is a penetrating little song written about World War I by Alan Murray with lyrics by Edward Lockton about a Frenchwoman, Madame Jeanette.  It goes like this:

"MADAME JEANETTE"

Madame Jeanette, when the sun goes down,

Sits at her door in the rush of the town;

Waiting for someone each close of the day,

Someone who fell at St. Pierre, they say.

Madame Jeanette, when the stars shine bright,

Sits at her window and looks through the night;

Listening for someone to pass down the way,

For someone who sleeps at St. Pierre, they say.

Madame Jeanette, she will wait there, I know,

Till her eyes have grown dim and her hair's white as snow;

Wait there and watch there, till one of these days,

They take her to slumber in Père Lachaise, in Pére Lachaise."

How do we win the hearts and minds of people by "liberating" them with bombs and missiles that kill their families and friends; destroy their homes and livelihoods and then invade and occupy their country, the only one they have ever known?  There was a report of a grandfather and his four-year old grandson going for a walk when a missile struck in Iraq.  The grandfather was killed, the child lost both legs and one arm but survived for a life of disability.  These were "collateral damage".  What did that grandfather and his grandson have to do with Saddam Hussein's corrupt policies?  Does the U. S. even run a tally of the number of "collaterally damaged" Iraqis?  If so, I have never seen or heard that number to date.

In the same vein, how many hearts and minds of ordinary American people did Osama bin Ladin and his followers win over to their point of view (whatever that is) by destroying the Twin Towers and killing over 3,000 of our people?  Quite the contrary!!!!!  All he succeeded in doing was to engender outrage at such heartless brutality.

Problems are always multi-faceted without simplistic solutions. There inevitably will be some people who refuse to play by the rules and/or occasions arise that are exceptions to the rules. What's to be done about those? People have to sit down, put everything on the table and hammer out answers, bearing in mind that no one knows all there is to know about everything.

Countries have their own problems and interests to be sure. Global thinking requires less in the way of threats and ultimatums but more in honorable concerted effort for the mutual benefit of everyone.

The UN needs to have not an army but a strong police force under its sole jurisdiction. We don't see New York threatening to invade or nuke New Jersey, although from time to time there is probably plenty of provocation! Neither Belgium against Norway, nor Thailand against Indonesia.

I can only imagine the wrangling that will continue to go on at the UN because that is one of the things that Hunters do best! It goes on in Legislatures, Congress and Parliaments, the Knesset and the Duma all the time. There will probably be plenty of bellicose chest-thumping rhetoric echoing throughout the chambers. That's all right. It is much better than bloodshed. Remember, there was a time even here in the colonies when a verbal insult could get a challenge to a duel at dawn with its inherent silly rules and regulations.

The Space Program is that of exploration, one of mankind's basic drives from infancy on. Curiosity! Yes it is dangerous! None-the-less, the goal is the expansion of knowledge for the benefit of all humankind. The by-products of discovery have potential for unknown marvels.

Believe it or not, there was a time over a hundred years ago when there was serious thought of closing the patent office because there was nothing left to invent! That would have ruled out automobiles, airplanes, television and computers to say nothing of medical advances for the benefit and advantage of every one of us.

We sat up and took notice when Russia launched the "Sputnik" into space. That led to a race into space exploration that eventually evolved into cooperation between astronauts and cosmonauts. Pictures and reports from the people in space describe the earth as a serene sphere of oceans and landmasses interspersed with well-known landmarks of mountains and even a few manmade objects. These pictures show, not a patchwork of feuding little principalities, but one breathtakingly beautiful blue globe.

Our thinking has been shaped by events of past histories. We need to revise our thinking into being citizens of the earth, one small planet in a vast universe. Our affection and allegiance could be devoted to one world. Naturally we feel love and kinship toward the nation of our birth just as we feel the same toward our families. But we still enjoy the camaraderie of friends and neighbors not of our own blood.

We are comfortable with the language and customs of a lifetime. Loyalty to our own country does not preclude us from having an admiration of and appreciation for other countries and cultures. Political, religious and racial differences need no longer engender prejudice or animosity. Instead, we should be grateful to all the people down through history who have contributed to the rich heritage of the earth we now enjoy.

Considering the length of time it has taken to get to this brief moment in history, world unity will not happen overnight. It can happen though if that is the goal for civilized peoples of good will to work toward. We can retain our national identity and heritage while still respecting and even admiring those of others. We need not return to the jungle mentality of individual sovereignties at each other's throats.

No different than golf, the key here is to keep our eyes on the goal!  Humanity may wind up in the rough from time to time, but it is possible to break par!

We can save our xenophobia for the strange little green men who may invade us from distant galaxies. Who knows? They too in the end may turn out to be nice little green men, albeit strange.