Everything has a half-life, and the half-life of socialism is only slightly greater than that of the fruit fly. The pendulum, when it starts to swing, never stops at the vertical, but always continues until it reaches the opposite extreme. The Common Market was a good idea, but not enough for the socialists, and so they gave the people of Europe the European Union, run from Brussels by unelected bureaucrats. If almost half of Europeans under the age of thirty are unemployed and have no prospect of employment, how long does anyone believe this condition will continue? The answer is clear. It will not be long before the young look about for political alternatives, as they are now doing. Nationalism is not so quietly gaining ground, and the EU has no power to prevent the collapse of the socialist model. The only question is, Will the swing from the soft Left ultimately lead back to the hard Left, back to totalitarianism, or will it lead to free market democracy? Given the history of Europe, at the moment it’s a flip of the coin.

And so it ends, a man, a horse
With cheering crowds and joy of course
The motorcades, the throbbing drums
The doling out of misers crumbs
The strong in charge, the weak on knees
With bird pecked bodies hung from trees
The rule of law a notion scorned
No memory, the past unmourned
But all was calm, the old way gone
The continent the strong man’s pawn
But then, by chance, the coin may light
On heads and all may be all right
But socialism, when it dies
Has always led to whimpered cries

Science can explain the facts, but it cannot explain the mystery. Scientists will tell you that rainbows were explained to everyone’s satisfaction by Descarte and Newton, who determined the rainbow is formed by the reflection of light from the surface of a raindrop, the reflections separating the light into its separate wavelengths, thus creating the bands of color. Do not believe them.

Late morning, sun-laced misty rain, the river bank in bloom
With flaming dogwood mirrored on the quiet flowing stream
I chanced to look beyond the bend, and spied the faery loom
Transparent and as gauzy as a dream
Around the loom the faeries danced, I listened, but in vain
The tableau silent, faery wings, so blurred with motion bled
And as spellbound I watched the dance, I saw that they had lain
Upon the grass a brilliant bow of red
That slowly rose above the trees and formed a flaming arc
Then anchored by the flurried wings into its chosen place
A phantom bow of colored light, so red it turned the bark
Of dogwood into dancing flames of grace
Now from the loom came orange light, with orange shadows cast
By faery wings as light emerged in gleaming colored bows
As weavers crafted yellow, green, each larger than the last
And quicker paced came blues and indigos
All hastened to the growing bow, and set atop the first
By swarms of hurried faery wings intent on building well
While at the loom a violet, came tumbling with a burst
I held my breath, afraid to break the spell
Into the air the violet bow now gloriously crowned
The shining rainbow fashioned of the purest spectral light
And as I watched, the faery wings dropped slowly to the ground
And with their loom they faded from my sight
Again I saw the river bank, the dogwood, sun-splashed mist
The rainbow shining quietly above the river’s banks
A mystery that I believe shows God has truly kissed
Our world with wonder, all without much thanks