Recently, the pop culture society has been super-charged by the upcoming latest installment of the Twilight movies – movies centered on the romance of a girl and a vampire.  As I write this, hundreds of thousands of movie-goers flocked to the theaters to see the very first midnight showing. The Los Angeles Times reported that this movie broke the single day ticket sales records, and it is expected to be among the five top-grossing weekends overall.  Even a local fast-food restaurant gave me my food in a bag advertising the movie, encouraging me to "devour" my meal.

Little Angela Kasner, daughter of a Lutheran pastor in Russian-dominated East Germany, was barely two years old when an American radio preacher published in his magazine an astonishing statement: "The way is being prepared for a colossal third force in world politics—a European Federation of Nations more powerful than either Russia or the United States!… We have shown years in advance what would happen to Russia's ill-fated Empire in Eastern Europe" (Plain Truth, December 1956, p. 3).

In October, 2002, just a little over a year after September 11, 2001, the greater Washington, D.C. region was terrorized by indiscriminate sniper shootings killing ten people and critically injuring three others. Police soon figured out this rampage was being conducted by a serial killer or killers on the loose. For three weeks people within a hundred miles of the city feared to leave home or work place worrying the killer just might have them in his or her sights. Fearful people hurried from home to car to store or work place and then reversed the routine. No one knew where he or she might strike next. Many stayed indoors, TV shows recommended ways to avoid becoming targets, schoolchildren were kept inside at recess, parents covered their children on the way to the school buses and police officials declared no one was safe. 

It was a gray, chilly morning with soft, intermittent rain falling, which cleared to a blustery, cold, sunny afternoon as we visited the ancient walled city of Chester in England. This place was settled by the Romans over 2000 years ago as an outpost in the British Isles.

To encourage Congress to pass the "Elder Justice Act," a video documentary chronicling elder abuse was shown on October 19 on Capitol Hill.  Among other heart-wrenching accounts, the documentary told of Vicki Bastion, aged 92, of Hayward, California, who installed a security gate inside her home to protect her and her few remaining valuables from her grandson and his gang-related friends.