"O brave new world...

that hath such people in it," says Miranda in The Tempest. Also, of course, in Brave New World, which I just recently finished rereading (I often feel lost, useless, extremely bored during vacation; I turn to reading as a familiar solace).

Her statement begs the question: What kind of people hath our world in 2005? Yesterday's bombings in London remind us, if we needed a reminder, of humanity's lowest common denominator.

Perhaps a more cogent question to ask is: What kind of people are we?

John Adams, in considering our prospects of victory in the revolutionary war, wrote, "We cannot insure success, but we can deserve it." How we, the American people, allow our government to react to the radical Muslim threat will determine the degree of the former and the quality of the latter.