The torrent of sickening images of death and destruction in Haiti just keep on coming. Search and rescue operations have become grisly recovery operations, as the dead are removed from the rubble of collapsed buildings.

As we begin 2010, I think it is good to take a look back. What a decade it has been!  Just think, September 11, 2001 was a turning point for the United States and for the world. Now wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drag painfully on. The world's economies are in shambles. We see increasing unemployment, bank failures, major manufacturers in bankruptcy, and government agencies floundering as they try to solve problems, only to create news ones.

Sadly, the United States is a deeply divided nation today.

Celebrating the 130th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Stalin, some Russians still reminisce about the glory days of communism. What lessons can we learn from Stalin's command economy and the prophesied end times? Will Russia experience a resurgence of economic power and influence?

Most people dismiss the commercialism, the pagan influence, and the impossibility of a December 25 birth, and take comfort in slogans such as “Put Christ back in Christmas.” But how many professing Christians would feel comfortable celebrating Christmas if they understood that you cannot “put Christ back in Christmas” because Christmas is Satanic?

A visit to the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, was for me a moving experience.  The impact of the horrific attack catapulted the United States into World War II and directly affected the lives of millions of Americans, including my family.  You see, my father, caught up in the national indignation and patriotic fervor that swept the nation, enlisted in the U.S. Navy three days later.