No doubt you have heard how the National Park Service tried to close off the World War II memorial on the National Mall. I say tried because these veterans and their families simply removed the barricades. Some of them even carried them to the south lawn of the White House in protest.

What I didn’t know was what the National Park Service was doing around the country. A recent column by Mark Steyn was a revelation. The Park Service demanded that privately run sites such as the Claude Moore Colonial Farm and privately owned sites such as Mount Vernon be closed down. He writes that when the Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway declined to comply with the government’s order to close, the Park Service sent armed agents and vehicles to blockade the hotel’s driveway.

Some of this country’s scenic wonders may sit on National Park Service land, but they are visible from some distance. Tourists, for example, can see Mount Rushmore in South Dakota from outside the boundaries of the park. Well, the National Park Service can’t have that. So the rangers attempted to close down a stretch of highway where you can see the stone images of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.

Mark Steyn tells the most extraordinary story of what happened at Yellowstone Park. A group of foreign tourists were pulled over photographing a herd of bison when an armed ranger informed them that taking photographs counts as illegal “recreation.” They were ordered back to the Old Faithful Inn, which is next to the geyser of the same name. They were forbidden to leave the inn to look at that geyser. And every hour and a half, a fleet of Park Service SUVs showed up ten minutes before Old Faithful was ready to blow so that rangers could surround the geyser and block its view.

We are told these parks are public places for all of us to enjoy. The shutdown illustrates the mindset of the Park Service that thinks they can control it anyway they wish. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

In a recent commentary, Robert Kaplan reminds us how important geography is when we consider what other nations are doing. He says that if “you want to know what Russia, China or Iran will do next, don’t read their newspapers or ask what our spies have dug up—consult a map. Geography can reveal as much about a government’s aims as its secret councils.”

He laments that geography has been replaced with talk about “economics, globalization and electronic communications.” While it is true that modern transportation and the Internet connect us to all parts of the world, it is also true that mountains and oceans still define a nation and its borders.

Why, he asks, are we hearing so much about the islands of the South China Sea? They are a blue water extension of the Chinese mainland and a reserve of an abundance of hydrocarbons.

Why does Russian President Vladimir Putin want buffer zones in Eastern Europe? For the same reason the czars wanted them. Russian is a “vast, continental space that is unprotected by mountains and rivers.”

Iraq is a country drawn in the sand by Winston Churchill. It combines different ethnic groups. In the past it was the Sumerians, Akkadians and Assyrians. Today they are the Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites.

What about Iran? It sits on the Iranian plateau, which is “an impregnable fortress that straddles both oil-producing religions of the Middle East: the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea.” Geographically, it is in a favored position to dominate both Iraq and Afghanistan. Robert Kaplan says that its location and geography make it “essential for the United States to reach accommodation with it.”

Of course geography is not destiny. But this commentary by Robert Kaplan reminds us that our foreign policy would make more sense and be more effective if we considered the geographic realities of many of the countries we want to influence. He correctly reminds us that before we craft our policies, maybe we should pull out some maps. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

More than fifty years ago, Marshall McLuhan wrote the book, Understanding Media. He declared that the electronic media of last century (telephone, radio,

television) were changing the way we viewed the world. No longer were we tied to words and text.

McLuhan was famous for turning many phrases, but the best known was: “The medium is the message.” What he meant was that the medium was

essentially more important than the message itself. We are often more influenced by how the message is delivered than what the message is.

He also had a flair for the dramatic. He wrote that “electronic technology is within the gates, and we are numb, deaf, blind and mute about its encounter with

the Gutenberg technology, on and through which the American way of life was formed.”

McLuhan wrote all of this before the advent of the Internet. I am almost certain he would see the fulfillment of his predictions about technology in the way we

use the Internet. We go on the Internet to learn about the world, to post items and pictures on Facebook and blogs, and most importantly we go to the Internet

to entertain ourselves.

Most of us are actually addicted to the Internet. George Barna has documented in his studies how Americans are addicted to media and technology. One of

my colleagues teaches at a local university and challenges his students to go at least one day without their smart phone. Hardly any of the students can

survive a one-day fast from technology. We are used to a steady feast of entertainment and information.

The medium has become the source and often the message is irrelevant. We merely seek more entertainment and information from the devices we carry in

our pockets or purses. And if we do read books or magazines, more and more of us read them on those same devices we carry around with us. Most of our

information these days comes in digital form.

Marshall McLuhan was right. The medium has become the message. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

The United States is facing a serious national security challenge that needs be addressed immediately but hasn’t generated much concern from

political leaders. This is the conclusion of Michael Maloof in his new book, A Nation Forsaken. The challenge he says we face is the potential impact of an

electromagnetic pulse (known as an EMP).

His book describes various scenarios ranging from a nuclear explosion by a rogue nation to a terrorist assault using less sophisticated weapons to a

natural phenomenon. Any one of these scenarios could push America or part of the country back to the 19th century in an instant.

Movies and television programs often use EMP as a plot device. The resulting impact reminds us how vulnerable our electronic grid is and how such a

disruption could ruin society and our way of life. But Michael Maloof goes on to explain that the potential problems could be much worse than what we see in

the media.

Once an EMP attack or natural occurrence fries our unprotected electronics, it would begin to shut down other systems in a devastating cascade. The

collapse of our national grid would wreck telecommunications, transportation, banking, energy production, food delivery, and emergency services. This could

lead to a shutdown of automated control systems that control large sections of American industry that monitor utilities, telecommunications, and oil and gas

pipelines.

He also documents the potential threat from a solar storm. NASA estimates that it could result in large-scale blackouts affecting 130 million people at

a cost upwards of $2 trillion.

Given the potential threat from natural or man-made EMP disruption, we should demand that government agencies address the threat now while we

have time to fix these vulnerabilities. This natural security threat deserves as much attention as tracking down terrorists who threaten our way of life. I’m Kerby

Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

The influence William Shakespeare has had on the English language is well known. In a previous commentary, I talked about the number of words he created or coined. He also is responsible for so many everyday phrases we use. Christina Sterbenz provides the context for these phrases we often use and forget were from Shakespeare.

When we use the phrase “catch a cold,” we mean that we are getting sick. In one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known plays someone says that should head “straight away for Britain, lest the bargain should catch cold and starve.” In other words, if the deal takes too long, it will fall apart. This came to eventually mean someone would get sick.

If you say, “It’s all Greek to me,” you are referring back to a scene in “Julius Caesar. Cassius doesn’t understand because he doesn’t speak Greek. Today it means that you don’t understand something because it is foreign or confusing.

Someone who is able to take advantage of life’s opportunities may have someone say: “The world is your oyster.” That phrase of Shakespeare comes from “The Merry Wives of Windsor.

You have probably have heard that “love is blind.” You may not know that the phrase appears in “The Merchant of Venice” by Shakespeare. Jessica says that “love is blind and lovers cannot see, the pretty follies that themselves commit.” Lovers often have the inability to see shortcomings in the one they love.

Someone might say that you have “a heart of gold.” They are using a phrase from Shakespeare found in “Henry V.” King Henry disguises himself as a commoner and asks Pistol if he considers himself a better man than the king. He answers using this now common phrase.

In order to start a conversation with someone, we explain that we need to “break the ice.” That phrase can be found in Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew.” And if you express your emotions too freely, someone might say you “wear your heart on your sleeve.” We find that phrase in Shakespeare’s “Othello.”

As you can see, we owe so much of our English language and common everyday phrases to William Shakespeare.

The threat from global warming has been dubbed the “greatest challenge of our times.” But since global warming hasn’t been occurring as predicted, more and more scientists merely talk about climate change. Has the climate changed through the centuries? Of course it has. But the changes in the past had little or nothing to do with human activity. What about the present?

The global economy from 1998 to 2012 has more than doubled in size (from $30 trillion in GDP to $71 trillion). During that same period of time, the world has put more than 100 billion tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If the predictions about carbon fuels and global warming are correct, we should have seen a significant increase in the world temperatures. Global surface temperatures have remained essentially flat during that period of time.

The latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change doesn’t say much about the fact that temperatures haven’t changed much. There are lots of warning about shrinking ice sheets and rising sea levels. It makes the striking claim that the “warming of the climate system is unequivocal.”

The report does bring some sanity to the discussion. For years we have heard pundits and fear mongers claim that droughts and hurricanes are due to global warming. The report acknowledges that there is little evidence those are significantly influenced by climate change. And it is worth noting that the number and severity of hurricanes has been down of late.

It is also worth asking the theoretical question: What if human activity was causing significant global warming? As I have explained in previous commentaries, the solutions put forward by politicians (carbon tax, cap and trade, etc.) would have essentially no impact on the environment but a major negative impact on the economy. Fortunately the scientific evidence that might be used to justify such wrong-headed solutions isn’t there. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

Monuments around the country have been defaced or destroyed by vandals, and yet you have probably not even heard about these actions. I will get to my second point in a moment, but let’s first talk about what vandals have been doing to religious and political monuments.

You may remember the Supreme Court case a few years ago where the justices ruled that a cross in the desert was constitutional. The cross was first erected in the Mojave Desert back in 1934 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars to honor World War I veterans. The ACLU filed suit arguing that the cross was unconstitutional because it was on government land. Just days after the Supreme Court ruling, vandals stole it. Two years later it showed up hundreds of miles away in Northern California.

At a Vietnam Veteran’s memorial in Coos Bay, Oregon there is a cross that has been the target of the ACLU and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. First, vandals drew a perforation line at the base of the cross with the word “cut” above it and an arrow pointing to the line. In August, someone detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) next to the memorial.

In September, vandals tried to topple an 850-pound, steel-rod enforced monument to the Ten Commandments, which sits in plain view of the U.S. Supreme Court. The monument sits in front of the headquarters of Faith and Action (a Christian outreach ministry). That same month, vandals cut the heads off of statues of Jesus and the Virgin Mary outside a New Jersey church. In California, vandals set a fire at the base of a statue of Ronald Regan at the city’s Ronald Reagan Sports Park. The fire damaged the president’s likeness and damaged tiles on what known as the “Can-Do Monument.”

I suspect you are hearing about some of these acts by vandals for the first time. The press seems to be ignoring these actions. Do you think the reaction of the media would be different if a statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. was defaced? I think we know that answer to that question. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view

Yesterday I talked about why millennials might not buy insurance. The cost under Affordable Care Act is much more than what they would have paid in the free market. But there is another reason why they (and many others) might not buy insurance. They won’t need it because of provisions requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions.

While that is an admirable requirement, it leads to a fear many proponents and opponents of Obamacare have about how Americans will try to game the system. Millions of healthy people may not decide to enroll. The process seems confusing and there have been glitches, but that is not the main reason they will not enroll. They may merely wait until they have a health problem and then decide to get insurance.

We don’t have to guess how this would happen since we already have a state that has implemented a form of Obamacare known as Romneycare. In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the insurance companies call these people jumpers and dumpers. When they have a medical problem or medical emergency, they jump into the insurance pool. They can’t be denied because of a pre-existing condition. They stay in the plan until their medical bills are paid. Then the dump the plan and go on about their life. I predict that one of the problems that will develop with Obamacare is the problem of jumpers and dumpers.

But let me mention one other issue. In order for insurance companies to survive, they will have to do all they can to attract healthy people and dissuade sick people. So I also predict that the plans they provide on the state exchanges will be structured so they can attract more healthy people and discourage sick people.

Forcing insurance companies to take people with pre-existing conditions may have been a laudable goal, but we should also expect a number of unintended consequences. We should have known to expect them if we just observed what was happening in states that had the precursor to Obamacare. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

Lexi Cory titled her article: “Wake Up Millennials, We’re the Ones Paying the Bill.” The bill she was talking about is the Affordable Care Act. She wonders if her fellow millennials really understand the consequences of Obamacare.

Many articles and commentaries have documented the costs and subsidies in the Affordable Care Act. There were promises of lowering the premiums by up to $2,500. That hasn’t happened. There were those who argued that it would harm the economy and increase the deficit. But often lost in the calculation was how it would impact the youngest generation that has entered or will be entering the job market.

Before the implementation of Obamacare, there was a rational relationship between individual premiums and expected health care costs. The young and the healthy were charged less for insurance because they were less likely to consume large amounts of health care. The premiums were actuarially fair.

The Affordable Care Act changed all of that. Insurers are now required to practice a form of community rating in which the healthy and sick are charged the same. The young must pay more than they would normally pay in order to cover the costs of the old and sick. In some states the increased premiums that millennials will have to pay are more but potentially possible to pay on a limited budget. In other states the increase premiums are triple or quadruple what millennials would currently be paying.

Zack Toombs argues that “Millennials Could Wreck Obamacare.” He noted that
They initially approved of the law but may quickly sour on it when they see how much more they have to pay. They could break the program if they choose to pay the relatively small penalty fee rather than sign up for insurance.

I believe he is right simply because many millennials won’t have a choice. They graduated from college with lots of student loan debt and are now headed into a bleak job market. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.