The Dutch have discovered that decadence is damaging. A recent article in The Tennessean called “Dutch Rethink Anything-Goes Attitude” reports: ”the country that has been the world’s most socially liberal is rethinking its anything-goes policies.”

The article states that cities across the Netherlands are closing down shops where marijuana is sold and smoked, and closing brothels. Why?

They are discovering that decadence does damage to people and to society. The Tennessean article states that in the Netherlands today there is alarm “over the international crime organizations that have infiltrated the country’s prostitution and drug trades, the increasing prevalence of trafficking in women and children across its borders, and dismay over the Netherlands’ image as an international tourist destination for drugs and sexual debauchery.”

W.B. Kranedonk is the editor of a Christian paper in the Netherlands called: “Reformist Daily”. For years his paper stood alone in presenting traditional Christian values. Recently, however, a Christian political party has been voted into the national government for the first time.

Kranedonk is quoted as saying: “People in high political circles are saying it can’t be good to have a society so liberal that everything is allowed. People are saying we should have values; people are asking for more and more rules in society.”

Maybe the Dutch have found out that the lifestyle of anything-goes is a dead end. Hopefully America and the rest of the world will learn something from the Dutch dance with unlimited immorality!

Why should a person’s skin color mean anything more about a human being than his or her eye color? As far as I know, I have never been insulted, looked down on, disrespected, or discriminated against because of my blue eyes. No one seems to care about or even notice my eye color.

So, why should skin complexion be any different? Why should we care about or pay any attention at all to a person’s skin color? There is only one reason — the effect of slavery is still active in our culture.

The North American slaveholders considered themselves Christians so they felt the need to justify their cruelty and their abuse of Africans, at least in their own minds. Their justification was the myth that dark skin color made a person something less than a human being.

Slaveholders twisted Scripture to claim that black people were descendants of Noah’s son Ham and were cursed by God. They even wrote the myth of black inferiority into the U.S. Constitution with the 3/5th clause which states that there are “other persons” who only count as 3/5th of a person.

Though slavery was abolished, the lie of the inferiority of people with darker skin is still very much alive and active in our culture. That is one reason that an apology for slavery is important and necessary.

Color prejudice is wrong morally, logically, and scientifically. And as long as we continue to ignore and/or justify the crimes and the guilt of many of our honored forefathers, we help keep the lie of black inferiority alive.

No one in American history had the right to hold human beings in a life of forced labor and bondage. Those who chose to do so committed a terrible atrocity. Isn’t it time that we admitted that fact?

You gotta love New York City! They recently named a street for a Nashville, Tennessee hero! In reality, Rev. Grady H. Donald was an American hero!

Donald risked his life and his family’s safety to take a bold stand for freedom and justice in America! He helped form the Nashville Christian Leadership Council, a group that led the city's local civil rights movement in the early 1960s.

Grady Donald was also an active Freedom Rider and was arrested and served 12 days in jail in 1961 while on a Freedom Ride. His ”crime” – drinking from a “white’s only” water fountain in a Jackson, MS bus station.

His family received several bomb threats from terrorists. His son, Grady Donald Jr., said: “I remember one night in particular, our parents grabbed us out of the bed and ran out of the house with us. After that, we had to have police protection around the clock.”

The Donalds moved to New York City in 1965 where he founded and served as pastor of a church for 27 years. He died in 2002. And now New York City has a “Rev. Grady H. Donald Boulevard”.

How about Nashville, TN? Should Nashville allow New York City to out do them in honoring a brave man who did heroic and historic work in Nashville? No way!

Nashville also needs to honor Grady H. Donald! How about both a street and a statue for him here?

The spirit of lynching showed up in Austin , TX on June 20. An evil mob of people beat David Rivas Morales, 40, to death. The terrible event went almost unnoticed in the media.

According to the Associated Press, a vehicle struck and injured a girl. The driver stopped to check on the girl and a group of men began to beat him. Morales was a passenger in the vehicle. He got out to check on the driver and the violent mob beat David Rivas Morales to death.

I would assume that Morales was Hispanic and that the injured girl and the mob were not Hispanic, but Associated Press left racial and ethnic information out of their report. They did report; “Morales was beaten to death by as many as 20 men.”

It is frightening to me to see that the violence and hatred in our society has risen again to the level of public lynching. I have read that during the “Jim Crow” days of American history more than 4,000 people were murdered by evil mobs.

Please America, don’t go back to public hatred and violent racism and mob murder in the streets! Every single person who laid a violent hand on Mr. David Rivas Morales should serve time in prison!

A silly definition for the word "constipation" popped into my mind today. Picture the warden from the movie, "Cool Hand Luke," saying this: "Constipation -- What we have here is a failure to defecate!"