There are times when I cannot read or listen to, the news.  It’s too depressing.  High government officials are defying the law.  Judges are making absurd rulings.  Major tech companies are becoming de facto governments of their own, violating the rights of citizens.  In some respects, the nation seems like a madhouse.  When will sanity be restored? Whenever I begin to get overwhelmed by the seeming hopelessness of it all, I can always crack open a book that I came across some years ago in a used-book store.  The author is Harold Rugg, the copyright is 1937.[1]  The opening and closing chapters concern current events of the era.  The perspective is that of historians living then, who are engulfed in world events that will eventually lead to the Second World War—but for those living in the times, there is no end in sight.  Mighty dictatorships are swarming the globe, not only Hitler, Hirohito and Mussolini, but also...(Read Full Post)