The American Civil War was a dark chapter in America's history. Yet it did produce those who merited respect and honor. David O. Dodd was one such individual, though only a boy. He refused to betray his native Arkansas, and as a consequence was hanged as a spy by Union forces.

Belgium's Flemish separatist party president, Bart De Wever, was elected mayor of Antwerp last Sunday and took the opportunity of his victory to call for more government action in splitting the country.

Prime Minister David Cameron said what the party faithful were waiting to hear at the Conservative Party Annual Conference in Great Britain. As the world watches the eurozone convulse in economic chaos and Chancellor Merkel of Germany get heckled in Greece for not doing more to help that bankrupt nation stave off the consequences of rampant spending, Cameron strongly backed a referendum on Britain’s membership in the European Union.

Ruth Davidson, the leader of the Conservative Party in Scotland, has made a refreshing statement for a politician: A “rotten system of patronage” has created a situation in which nine out of 10 households in Scotland receive more benefits from government than the household pays in taxes.

Portugal has announced big tax increases to solve its current sovereign debt crisis. Independent private analyst firms such as Fitch Rating, Standard & Poor’s, and Moody’s figure that it is increasingly likely that Portugal and the other “PIIGS” nations will not be able to pay off their government bonds.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada is trying to get Congress, after the November elections, to pass into law language that would preempt from the states the right to regulate Internet gambling and would instead provide for federal regulation of this activity — benefiting his home state.

A Mori survey taken for the European Depression Association has found that 10 percent of European workers say that they have missed work because of depression. When the survey dug deeper, the results were grimmer: A whopping 20 percent of those surveyed had been diagnosed with depression at some time in their lives. 

The “IDEA” survey (Impact of Depression in the workplace in Europe Audit) polled 7,000 workers in seven different nations: Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and Denmark. Interestingly, those who reported diagnosis for depression the most often were workers in nations that have largely avoided the recent economic problems of the eurozone — Germany (61 percent), Denmark (60 percent), Britain (58 percent) — while Italy, which is facing major economic problems, had the lowest rate of depression at 12 percent.

One hundred and fifty years ago, on September 30, 1862, Bismarck defended big military expenditures and military aggression in defense of statecraft. The result has not been good.

Fifty years ago, Rachel Carson published her book Silent Spring. The politically correct pseudo-science therein was largely responsible for the banning of DDT in much of the world, resulting in perhaps hundreds of millions of deaths.

Seventy-five years ago, on September 21, 1937, the world received The Hobbit or There and Back Again, a strong and sweet message from one of the greatest Christian apologists in modern history, J.R.R. Tolkien. Much of the reason for the book's success is obvious: Tolkien was a fabulous writer; he was describing a mystical, but earthy world which preceded the rise of man; and the characters were drawn with a master’s touch of personality. The Hobbit has lost none of its allure over the last 75 years and it has been continuously in print since then.