MANE, THECEL, PHARES

"All right, young people, settle down! Now, who can tell me what those words represent and in what book we can find them?"

Looking at the picture might help, but this once-common reference is not familiar to many in today's dumbed-down, culturally illiterate West.

We will find the words (as spelled above) in the Book of Daniel, Chapter 5, in the Douay-Rheims version of the Bible: look them up to learn how the prophet interpreted them. They are better known in their contemporary connotative form as "the handwriting on the wall."

The handwriting on the wall in the United States and elsewhere in the West is now in stroboscopic neon, and it reads something like "Danger, Will Robinson!"

Don't believe it? Here's a headline that lights up the wall: Pentagon Rebrands Protest as "Low-Level Terrorism". Or this one: HR 2749: Totalitarian Control of the Food Supply, which is nicely counterpointed by "And Now: Sh%$ in the Cookie Dough," a story about how food giant Nestle USA has had to recall its Toll House refrigerated cookie dough products owing to the presence of e-coli bacteria. Nevertheless, Big O and the Obots, doing their masters' bidding, plan to fast track and ram through The Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, which "would impose a one-size-fits-all regulatory scheme on small farms and local artisanal producers; and it would disproportionately impact their operations for the worse," stated the June 16th post on the Food Freedom blog.

Ordered those open-pollinated seeds yet? Growing something this season? Have anything critical to say about the government, the Fed (same thing, really) that you haven't stated openly? Doing your bit to derail the Hellbound Train that is picking up speed?

When the time comes to stand up and be counted, will you be weighed in the balance and found wanting?