Before he secured his fame as “Mark Twain,” the iconic American writer Samuel Langhorne Clemens started out seeking the wild and adventurous life of a Mississippi riverboat pilot. However, when Clemens discovered that piloting a riverboat was as much a demanding science as an adventure, he almost became too discouraged to continue, fearing that the demands of the job might steal the glory of the life he envisioned.

Cultures around the world have long viewed the shortest day of the year, December 21 or 22 (in the northern hemisphere), as a day for special ceremony and celebration. As the Christmas season—filled with the trappings of modern materialism cloaking ancient paganism—recedes into our memories, it is easy to have a negative view of the “winter solstice season” now behind us.

Last week, a judge ordered the removal of a 49-year-old banner in a gymnasium at Cranston West High School in Rhode Island.

Recently, when a U.S. aircraft carrier passed through the Strait of Hormuz, an Iranian top commander “stated that Iran’s submarines are able to ambush and hit enemy vessels specially US Aircraft carriers from the seabed throughout the Persian Gulf.”  This could be done using its Russian-made, sonar-evading, diesel-electric submarines.  A Major General followed up by threatening, “We are not in the habit of repeating the warning and we warn only once” (TheBlaze.com, January 18, 2012).  Now with oil sanctions imposed on Iran, a U.S.

Throughout 2011, the average rainfall in Texas was just under 15 inches (37.5 cm).  It was also the second warmest year on record.  News reports stated, “The prolonged Texas drought is to blame for devastating agriculture and livestock losses, estimated in the billions of dollars.  The historic drought has killed as many as half a billion trees, not including those that died in wildfires that scorched some 4 million acres in 2011” (Reuters, January 7, 2012).