Adam J. West

My Dad worked in the coal mines of Novinger for seven years. Seven years is considered 14 years as the coal mine calculated it. Coal mining is notoriously arduous work, but Dad didn't mind. That's what kept food on his family's table.

My Dad's inability to read or write did not keep him from finding honorable work after the coal-mining years. Whether he was digging ditches, operating forklifts, tearing up concrete with a jack-hammer, or trading and selling animals to make ends meet, we never missed a meal.

Scientists are closely monitoring a swine flu virus outbreak which already has claimed the lives of at least 20 people in Mexico. Pigs are particularly predisposed to human and avian viruses and it is in pigs that "genetic reassortment" can most readily occur.  Scientists are very concerned.

China's central bank is suggesting that the US dollar be replaced as the international reserve currency. Is this a viable possibility? What would this mean for the U.S.A.? What currency would be considered for a new world economic order?

Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People's Bank of China states in an essay posted earlier this week that "The outbreak of the [financial] crisis and its spillover to the entire world reflected the inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system." (Taiwan News Online, March 25, 2009)

Fundamental changes are on the horizon for Europe! Top European Union leaders have questions about the future of the continent—and they realize that difficult times are ahead.

On December 14, 2008, I traveled to the town of Terezin, in the Czech Republic, with a German friend of mine. There is a former Nazi-controlled Jewish-ghetto-turned-concentration camp located there. Endless brick walls constitute the fortress—a sea of orange, yellow, and red bricks against a canvas of green grass, stretching long between the structures. Most of the walls and buildings were crowned with barbed wire.