Columns

Maybe it’s a statement about complacency, laziness or just a bit of “the-sky-is-falling” syndrome – literally – that I didn’t leap to the computer or TV Monday morning when it felt like the side of my house was going to be sent blasting into Franklin County.

Many of you were awake, alert and ever vigilant to your family’s safety, but all I did was lie there and hope that the siding would stay put and wonder if the dripping I heard was from the ceiling and not the gutter (neither happened).

During the past couple of weeks, the whole world seemed to be watching the unfolding events in Egypt. Each night on television, or each morning in the newspapers, Americans watched as the protests began gaining momentum.

As more and more people took to the streets of Cairo, many wondered if there would be violence and how what was going on there might affect the surrounding areas and even the rest of the world.

On Monday we will celebrate the births of two of America’s most renown presidents: George Washington, who couldn’t screw up a job for which no one had any expectations, and Abraham Lincoln, who dared to allow a nation to screw itself up in order to set it on course to purge itself of crimes against mankind.

Despite those who disagreed with their views, their tactics and even their legacies, these men are the icons against whom all subsequent presidents are measured.

If you are familiar with the biblical story of Moses leading the people of Israel through the Red Sea (or at least have seen Charlton Heston do it in The Ten Commandments), you know that miraculous event ended with the entire Egyptian army being drowned in the Red Sea.
As I follow the news lately, I am concerned that a similar catastrophe is barreling down the tracks at us, and like the Egyptian army, and more recently the country of Greece, we are in danger of drowning is a sea of red (ink).