My Tuesday class ran from 9 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. Upon exiting and walking down the hallway, I ran into a commotion near one of the computer rooms. Employees were pushing a TV into the area and soon had it turned to a very grainy CBS local affiliate.

I saw one of the World Trade Center towers, smoke billowing upward as if sourced by brimstone.

The thought was horrible: Weren't there two of those?

I asked a student what was happening.

“We're being attacked,” he answered grimly.

Chills overwhelmed me.

I called home. My mother was tearful. My brother was in the background, passing along information from Fox News. I wandered into the building foyer, theorizing. Terrorists, obviously. Perhaps masterminded by Usama bin Laden.

My brother began shouting in the background. Something about it going down.

I returned to the TV room. The image was projected on a screen.

Even more smoke rose. And the second of the two towers had already crumbled.

Students whispered. Completely confused, in the first stages of grief.

One young man was at a computer, already writing something about the experience. An email, perhaps. No ... a journal entry, I recall. I should have spoken with him. He evidently wrote his innermost thoughts, easily readable to me standing nearby. Something like, I want to do something. I want to understand this, and then I want to make the attackers pay.

My, how it all comes back.



Classes were not cancelled. They should have been.

I skipped my math class — one of the few class sessions I ever intentionally passed up.

Reactions were nearly universal. In those days, solidarity existed. People were unified in grief, and some anger.

Only later did I learn about the Pentagon crash, Flight 93 and its incredible story, and the exact nature of the attacks. Air Force One was diverted. The Capitol evacuated. Unconfirmed reports: plane hits the Capitol, plane on its way to the White House, president in D.C., president not in D.C. ...

The deaths of firefighters and New York City officers. Ash and smoke, like a volcanic avalanche, flooding through the streets. People's bodies and hair bleached with the fallout, staggering like zombies ...

I'm tearing up, now. Thought I would. Perhaps it's time to end.

Indeed ... never forget. Just because it's been half a decade doesn't mean the impact should fade.

Recommended Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution and Religion by David Barton

Hunched over his desk, penknife in hand, Thomas Jefferson sliced carefully at the pages of Holy Scripture, excising everything that did not fit his personal world view. Hell? It can't be. The supernatural? Not even worth considering. God's wrath against sin? I don't think so....

Today, Jefferson's handiwork is on display at his home in Monticello: a copy of the King James version of the New Testament, full of holes.

Jefferson own words explain that his intent for that book was not for it to be a “Bible,” but rather for it to be a primer for the Indians on the teachings of Christ (which is why Jefferson titled that work, “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth”). What Jefferson did was to take the “red letter” portions of the New Testament and publish these teachings in order to introduce the Indians to Christian morality. And as President of the United States, Jefferson signed a treaty with the Kaskaskia tribe wherein he provided—at the government's expense—Christian missionaries to the Indians. In fact, Jefferson himself declared, “I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.” While many might question this claim, the fact remains that Jefferson called himself a Christian, not a deist.

10. U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton

1995 decision that denied the peoples of the states the right to set term limits on their congressional representatives even though the Constitution is silent on term limits and the 10th Amendment leaves to the states and the people powers that the Constitution does not explicitly give to the federal government or expressly deny to the states.


9. Baker v. Carr

1962 decision that laid the groundwork for the “one man, one vote” standard ending county representation in state legislatures and forcing states, unlike the U.S. Senate, to redistrict based solely on population.


8. Plyer v. Doe

1982 decision that said that the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause requires state governments to provide public education to illegal aliens.


7. Grutter v. Bollinger

2003 decision that said the University of Michigan Law School could use race as a factor in admissions so it could achieve a “critical mass” of a particular racial group.


6. Wickard v. Filburn

1942 decision that said Congress could regulate a farmer’s growing of wheat for his own use on his own property under the constitutional language that authorizes Congress to regulate commerce “among the several states.”


5. McConnell v. Federal Election Commission

2003 decision that upheld the McCain-Feingold law’s prohibitions on political speech.


4. Berman v. Parker

1954 case that said the District of Columbia could seize a department store and hand it over to a private developer to redevelop a “blighted” neighborhood, even though the department store itself wasn’t “blighted.” Decision set the stage for the 2005 Kelo v. New London decision allowing government to take property other than for direct “public use.”


3. Everson v. Board of Education

1947 decision that said 1st Amendment Establishment Clause erected a “wall of separation” between church and state. Precursor to the 1971 Lemon v. Kurtzman decision that created a three-pronged test for when “wall of separation” was breached and led to cases such as McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky, which prohibited the posting of the 10 Commandments in a courthouse.


2. Lawrence v. Texas

2003 decision that declared same-sex sodomy a constitutional right, creating the rationale for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to declare a right to same-sex marriage.


1. Roe v. Wade

1973 decision that declared abortion-on-demand a constitutional right, overturning the abortion laws of the states, and led to further abominations such as Stenberg v. Carhart, which declared partial birth abortion a constitutional right.

Is God Dead in Europe? A Vision of the Future, Coming Fast

Journalist James P. Gannon offers a bracing picture of what happens when secularism takes hold of a civilization in “Is God Dead in Europe?,” published in USA Today.

Consider these observations:

[. . .]

A fierce controversy over any mention of Europe's Christian heritage erupted in 2004 when officials were drafting a constitution for the European Union, Weigel notes.

Any mention of the continent's religious past or contributions of Christian culture — in a preface citing the sources of Europe's distinct civilization — would be exclusionary and offensive to non-Christians, many argued. Former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who presided over the process, summed up the dominant view: “Europeans live in a purely secular political system, where religion does not play an important role.

Stalin's half-man, half-ape super-warriors

The Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the creation of Planet of the Apes-style warriors by crossing humans with apes, according to recently uncovered secret documents.

Moscow archives show that in the mid-1920s Russia's top animal breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, was ordered to turn his skills from horse and animal work to the quest for a super-warrior.

According to Moscow newspapers, Stalin told the scientist: “I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat.”