Mississippi was calling my name the other day, beckoning me softly to pay a visit to the land that often comforts me.

In deference to their privacy, we’ll let our subjects remain anonymous today. Frank and Cora, we’ll call them, an older couple we’ve known for many years. A week or so after Thanksgiving, Cora announced to Frank that she’d been hearing what sounded like the scurrying of some rodent bowling in the attic above their bedroom at night.

We buried my father in law in Boise, Idaho, on Friday. He was, by profession, an electrical engineer. By hobby, he had been an avid backpacker, with his favorite trips taking place in the Sawtooth Mountains.

A news channel featured a program recently and posed the question: “Is this the end of the United States?”

It is not an outrageous question. In our own time, we have seen the sudden disappearance of the Soviet Union as that massive superpower broke into numerous fragments. The Third Reich, which seemed unstoppable, died in writhing agony. History is replete with powers and empires that once ruled the land or the sea yet came to an ignominious end.

Barack Obama has dubbed his behemoth fiscal stimulus proposal the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.” But if truth in advertising were required of White House plans, only one title would fit the trillion-dollar-plus-and-growing bill: The Generational Theft Act of 2009.

The ostensible purpose of the war in Gaza is for Israel to wipe out Hamas and eliminate its capacity to rain rockets down on its citizens. Both the dovish leaders in the current Israeli government — Prime Minister Olmert, Foreign Minister Livni, and Defense Minister Barak — and the international diplomatic community want to get rid of Hamas and leave the more moderate Palestinian Authority as the sole negotiating agent for the Palestinians. So the Israeli attacks have not received the kind of international condemnation and vitriol that they usually attract.

Congratulations! If you’re reading this article, it looks like you made it into the New Year, and since I’m writing it, it looks like I’ve made it as well.

For an outfit known for its lack of drama, Team Obama has become a downright thrill show.

Bill Richardson! Rick Warren! Rod Blagojevich! Roland Burris! Talk about a ride through the fun house.

In my reading over the past several months, I have noticed an interesting use of a familiar word. Much of this reading has been historical. I have been especially interested in the lives of Christians of past ages, especially those known for holiness of life.

With the election of Obama, the United States has moved dramatically to the left in its foreign policy at just the time that Israel, which seems likely to return Bibi Netanyahu to office in early February, is moving to the right. A collision is almost inevitable.

So in a matter of days it’s bye-bye, Bush. Then it’s bye-bye, gradually, to the cottage industry dedicated to ridiculing, castigating, smearing and trashing the 43rd president of the United States, who couldn’t have pleased this surly gang save by expiring in office (even if his expiry would have vaulted Dick Cheney to the White House).

Whoever called politics “the art of the possible” must have had a strange idea of what is possible or a strange idea of politics, where the impossible is one of the biggest vote-getters.

Many professors, mostly on the liberal side of the political spectrum, use their classrooms to proselytize students.

I have taught economics for the past 40 years and challenge anyone to find even one student, among the thousands who went through my classes, who can say, “Professor Williams used his class to proselytize students.” While acceptable at most universities, it is nothing less than academic dishonesty to do so.

I have become concerned about our current leadership and their strange application of what might otherwise be identified as common sense.

Our current local political environment evokes the old proverb, “He who fails to plan, plans to fail.”

The educational SPLOST was narrowly approved by the voters of Fayette County. The additional sales tax can best be described as a Board of Education’s attempt to correct a massive deficiency in planning.

The Hamas Charter proscribes peace with Israel. Ceasefires are possible only when advantageous to Hamas and always are temporary.

Like pigs waiting in line to get their snouts in the feeding trough come many of the nation’s governors — on the heels of the mayors — asking Washington for bailout money.

Publisher’s Weekly, an industry trade publication for the book publishing industry, is always full of interesting tidbits. Annually, it publishes the number of books sold for each title that sold over 100,000 copies in one year. I am always interested to see how these numbers shape up.

It was that quiet time when the light begins to dim, and the sunset splashes one more banner across the western sky. With a few ounces of wine and twilight to loosen the memories, Dave started talking about his childhood, and Christmas time. He speaks of being a boy in St. Petersburg, Florida, and of parents struggling to hold a family together during the war years.

“Our family’s great! I like my family!”

By far the greatest asset existent here in our Fayette community is simply “the family”... including your family. Of all the assets and resources among us, when one studies and analyzes our demographics and community dynamics, it’s “the family” that rises to the top of both the benefit and priority list. And like any other “greatest asset,” of course, we need and want to protect and improve it. We must.

Here’s a quiz my daughter Jean passed on to me years ago. I wish I could credit someone for it, but I’ve never known where it came from. It’s at least 20 years old which means that those of us who have lived through the last two decades should come up with lots of 21st century puzzles.

“How fortunate for leaders that men do not think.”

This sickening, but often correct, piece of political wisdom is attributed to Adolph Hitler. But, of course, such words would never have been uttered by the leaders of the American society during its 200-plus-year history. Our revered leaders in whom “We the people” put so much trust could never, would never, regardless their party affiliation, think such things. Or did they?

January brings a new year and another session of the Georgia General Assembly. I wish January would also usher in an era of political integrity.

Now, I’ve been telling y’all for a few years about the importance of eating your black-eyed peas and collard greens on New Year’s Day and how by doing so, you’ll have more money in the coming year.

Answers to your questions about life, religion and the Bible

Pastors get some of the most interesting questions from people they meet and people in their congregations. Here are a few that I’ve gotten in my ministry over the years and via email for this column.

For years now, as Christmas approaches, I have seen buttons and signs proclaiming, “Jesus is the reason of the season.” Recently, I passed by a church and the sign outside admonished passersby to “Keep Christ in Christmas.”

The whole, absolute point of Christmas is to rise above the things we think we can’t do without, endearing and tasty as they seem, like department store jollity and good things to eat.

This is the last newspaper column this year and perhaps the last column from me – ever.

By the time you read this, I will have had shoulder surgery. Even though the doctor said it’s just a routine operation, it’s not his shoulder. He may have done a thousand of them, but for me this is my first one. So, if I’m not here next week, then you know what happened.

With both Barack Obama’s supporters and the media looking forward to the new administration’s policies being similar to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s policies during the 1930s depression, it may be useful to look at just what those policies were and — more important — what their consequences were.

Americans have been rope-a-doped into believing that global warming is going to destroy our planet.

Scientists who have been skeptical about manmade global warming have been called traitors or handmaidens of big oil.