News

“Chinese and Russian forces conducted a first-ever joint amphibious exercise landing 400 marines on Russia’s Pacific Coast… The exercise marks not only the first time People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and Russian Navy have drilled together in an amphibious exercise but also the first time China has landed troops on foreign territory” (USNI News, August 26, 2015).

Do some of the decisions made by our leaders leave you feeling befuddled and confused? We may think to ourselves, “How could any rational human being come to such strange conclusions and make such decisions?”

We have leaders at many different levels, whether our nations, states, local communities, companies where we work, our schools, or other organized bodies of which we are a member.

Over the weekend, torrential rains caused “epic” flooding in Louisiana, requiring 30,000 rescues from 40,000 damaged homes in what appears to be the “worst flooding in Louisiana history” and the “worst natural disaster in the United States since Superstorm Sandy that hammered the East Coast in 2012” (AP, August 16, 2016;  LA Times

The tragic plight of hundreds of girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria have been in the news for nearly two years, but there has been little mention of some 10,000 boys kidnapped by Boko Haram to use as child soldiers (Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2016). Boys as young as age five have been taught to fight and kill by teenage boys fearing for their own lives. Many of these boys have been sent into battle unarmed and often under the influence of opiates.