“The battered ruble plunged to a record low against the dollar again Tuesday [80 Rub to $1 USD], as investors grew convinced that the Russian central bank’s surprise move overnight to jack up interest rates to 17% wouldn’t be enough to alleviate the pressure on the currency from falling oil prices and western sanctions” (Wall Street Journal, December 16, 2014). Just a year ago, the ruble was trading at about 33 rubles to one U.S.

An Islamic extremist took 17 hostages in a café in central Sydney on Monday, December 16.  After a 17-hour siege, at 2:00 a.m., he began shooting some of the hostages.  New South Wales (NSW) police had been well-positioned outside and stormed the café. Two of the people inside were killed and the gunman was shot dead by the police (AP, December 15, 2014). 

“Taliban gunmen stormed a military-run school in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Tuesday, killing 126 people, officials said, in the worst attack to hit the country in years. The overwhelming majority of the victims were students at the army public school, which has children and teenagers in grades 1-10” (The Times-Tribune, December 16, 2014). “‘My son was in uniform in the morning.

Have you noticed? Something has changed in the basic fabric of our society. Bedrock moral principles of conduct for orderly, successful entities seem to have evaporated. Brazen lies are commonplace at the highest levels of government. It's not just yearning for the good old days—integrity is going extinct. Is there hope for a better world?

China continues to make waves in Asia and the world. A recent report states, “The Chinese economy just overtook the United States economy to become the largest in the world. For the first time since Ulysses S. Grant was president, America is not the leading economic power on the planet” (MarketWatch, December 4, 2014).