This book is a collection of seven essays on topics that deserve our attention today. We live in trying times; so much so that it often makes one want to scream All over the world, people fight. "My way or the highway," seems to be everyone's motto. No one wants to listen to anyone else. Our world is not a loving place; if anything it is the opposite: a lusting place. Lust, masquerading as love, too often gets us into trouble. We hurt others, we break the law, we spread disease, we often get divorced when lust wears off, and then we break our children's hearts. Rape is a nasty power play. One person inflicts his desire to degrade or control on another. Rape has become more common; it's even part of the rewards of war This is evolution in reverse: the devolution of man. Women, out of dire necessity often choose to prostitute themselves; it is their bodies and they do have that right. Women-kidnapped, sold, or lied to about nonexistent jobs-are forced to become prostitutes. This is a crime worthy of strong punishment. Men who visit them may get a sexually transmitted disease and bring it home to their wives and children. As long as there is a demand for prostitutes, there will be a supply; it is futile to try and stamp it out. The answer is regulation and protection. Make it safer for the suppliers and the demanders. Birth is a natural process, making hospitalization unnecessary in most cases. Home births, unless complications are expected, are actually safer, and they more easily allow for the essential, skin-to-skin bonding between mother and baby, right after the birth. It is not surprising that crime and violence are escalating, especially among our children. Our children are violent because they learn by observation, and what they observe is not pretty. We must change their view. Schools need to do a much better job educating our children. As of now, they are truly failing our children. Single-sex classrooms have proven to be more effective in teaching both sexes than co-ed classrooms. Girls and boys learn differently, and if classrooms, or entire schools, are devoted to one sex, the teaching can be tailored appropriately. Separate can be equal and can lead to more equal opportunities. We are so into technology. It follows us and clamors for our attention no matter where we are. The cell phone is our best buddy. Televisions and computers are even in our bedrooms. They're fun, but they may be the ruin of us, especially television. Television messes with our ability to imagine; if we can't imagine, we can't learn. Read it and weep.

Much has been made recently of the War on Women taking place in our nation's Congress and in the governments of many states. Battles are being waged to wrest control of reproduction away from women, fights women thought had been won with the advent of the Pill and the ruling in Roe v. Wade in 1973. They were wrong. Fear is at the heart of it all, just as it was back in the mid-nineteenth century and early twentieth century when immigrants poured into the United States. At that time, the West was open to settlement, and Yankees were determined that it not be settled by the Irish, Poles, Scandinavians, Slavs, and such like; these people would get too much political clout. White men were in a panic, but what could they do about it? They'd enlist the women by passing laws against birth control and abortion; thereby, literally forcing women into maternity in an effort to outnumber less desirable, in their eyes, the people flooding onto our shores. Information about contraception was considered obscene and prohibited by the Comstock Act of 1873, an act against distribution of any obscene material through the mail. Many states passed similar laws, referred to collectively as the Comstock Laws. Sometimes the states' laws outlawed both the use and also the distribution of contraceptives. The earliest laws against abortion were laws against the commercialization of abortion producing plants. But the push was on, and by 1880 every state had criminalized abortion, with the exception of therapeutic abortion to save a woman's life. Today, white men are again in a panic for fear of becoming outnumbered in the United States by Hispanics, blacks, Asians, and Native Americans, who will by 2050 make up about 54% of our country's population (US census). With minority status comes loss of political power-my G-d we've already got a black President What to do? They decide, consciously or subconsciously, to enlist the aid of white women. Women, however, fight the proposed strictures on contraception and abortion. They've tasted the freedom that comes with control of reproduction, of having a life beyond diapers and parent-teacher meetings. They're becoming doctors, and lawyers, and such: Forced Maternity? No way. Fear of the "invasion of the immigrants" has again raised its ugly head, this time; women will refuse to passively knuckle under.