Three weeks ago, “A balloon-festooned barge bearing the standards of the service branches sponsored by the Defense Ministry sailed among about 80 other floats, with music blaring from most of them and dancers dressed in flamboyant costumes—or very little….”   The parade in Amsterdam “capped a weeklong festival of around 300 parties and events.  It included the popular ‘Drag Queen Olympics’….”

“A car bomb in the southern Philippines killed one person and wounded seven Monday in an attack targeting a governor who took office after many of his relatives were slain in the country’s worst political massacre in 2009.”  Among the suspects in the 2009 massacre are a “powerful family patriarch and former governor, Andal Ampatuan Sr., and a number of his sons…,” and almost 200 others!

Statistics abound that demonstrate an increase in violent behavior among school age children. In recent years we have heard of many tragic cases of high school kids who have brought a gun to school and murdered their own classmates and teachers. Everyone remembers the Columbine tragedy. Many in society though believe that this is only a rare example of a very few emotionally disturbed young people. Can we dismiss this type of violence as simply an aberration, or are there seeds of violence being sown in our society today that will surface even more in the future?

In a potentially significant sequence of events, “Arab states will be chairing the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly in September as the Palestinian Authority makes its statehood bid.  Lebanon is slated to preside over the Security Council in September while Qatar will head the General Assembly.”

As the United States sees its debt continue to soar out of control, it would be prudent to take time to examine the results of such reckless spending.  Just like any credit card, national debt carries with it the obligation for the debtor to pay interest.  $14 trillion is an immense amount of debt, and it carries with it the burden of substantial interest payments.  Last year alone the U.S. spent just under $413 billion paying off the interest on its loans.