Tis the season ... a time for beautiful music, lovely pageantry, parties, fun and family time, the annual bedlam in shopping malls, specialty stores, discount houses and now the Internet.

Much of the world is caught up in what is called the "spirit of the season" evidenced by a gift buying frenzy, which often puts the purchasers deep into debt and which fills the coffers of the merchants.

"Are you all ready for Christmas?" my dental hygienist cheerfully inquired as I headed for her chair, dreading the next half hour, as I dutifully went for my semi-annual dental cleaning.

The weather that we have experienced so far this winter has me harkening back to our first Missouri snowfall, last winter. Being Texans, it was a big deal to us, and since it was a very mild winter last year, it was the only accumulating snowfall that we had as a family.

Recently, I watched a documentary entitled Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West, which showed actual footage of Muslim extremists and their religious leaders using classic propaganda techniques to inflame their followers to hate Westerners, particularly Israelis, Americans and the British.

The ability to turn raw materials from out of the ground into manufactured finished goods was, at one time, a great national asset of America and Britain.