Wallace G. Smith

An item caught my eye in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's front page on December 5th.  It was an article on Iraqis and Afghans who have recently moved to the United States.  While some have faced hardship here, they love their adopted country.  (For all America's faults – and perhaps because of some of them – it is still a country that many dream of coming to.)

The business of living life is full of many, many details. There are project reports to write, looming deadlines to meet, and a coffee spill on your desk that demands your attention. There are school forms to fill out and permission slips to sign while finishing your children's lunches as you see their school bus pull around the corner. Our eyeglass prescriptions need to be updated, our garbage needs to be taken out, and our dog needs to be taken to the vet. Details, details, details.

The world held its breath last November 4 as the most powerful nation on earth elected its new president.  At the selection of Senator Barack Obama, there was much celebration, both in the U. S. and abroad.

The ongoing economic drama playing out in America is fascinating, but only in the way that one might find a train wreck fascinating.

If you are reading this commentary, it means that the world did not end on September 10, 2008.  Why that date?  It's the day that European Organization for Nuclear Research switched on the Large Hadron Collider under the border of France and Switzerland.