Three weeks ago, on a Saturday night, I attended a "special" public forum on the campus of William Penn University in Oskaloosa, Iowa, where the main speaker for the evening was the former Supreme Court Justice of Alabama, the honorable Roy Stewart Moore.

Justice Moore, as you might remember, was removed from his office as Supreme Court Chief Justice on November 13, 2003 because of his refusal to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the state courthouse despite orders to do so from a federal judge. It became a national story in 2003.

In September, the United Nations called a special meeting to address the global rise in food prices.  In July and August alone, worldwide food prices rose 5%. Droughts in Russia’s wheat growing region prompted a continuation of its ban on the export of wheat outside Russia.  Simultaneously, lower corn yields in the U.S. led to a record-high trading price for corn for the year.

Last week, Britain and France reached an historic defense pact.  “‘Today we open a new chapter in a long history of cooperation on defense and security between Britain and France,’ Mr. Cameron said.  Mr. Sarkozy said the agreements showed ‘a level of trust and confidence between our two nations which is unequalled in history.’”

Two weeks ago, the Vatican Synod of Bishops declared that the Israeli claim to the Holy Land and Jerusalem, as a God-given promise, was not biblically legitimate. Monsignor Bustros declared, “we Christians cannot speak of the ‘promised land’ as an exclusive right for a privileged Jewish people... There is no longer a chosen people.”

The Anti-Defamation League immediately responded to the Monsignor’s comments as “the worst kind of anti-Judaism, bordering on anti-Semitism” (Jerusalem Post online, October 27, 2010).

The densely wooded area of Russia’s Arctic Circle is home to a large population of bears. “Last summer was Russia’s hottest on record, with raging forest fires and droughts wiping out woodland and crops, forcing the bears to forage closer and closer to human settlements….” Two weeks ago, bears entered the village of Verkhnyaya Chova and began eating partially decomposed bodies in a local cemetery.