It was as if the world did not already have enough to worry about, what with North Korea brandishing missiles, Russia and China rampaging around their respective areas displaying their military hardware and cyber-capabilities, the Middle East and North Africa continuing their slide into chaos, and Venezuela demonstrating how very bad governments can turn a rich country into a starving pauper.
Natural disasters also abound, especially hurricanes and earthquakes, turning various small and large Caribbean islands into basket cases. In the social sphere, we have seen the continued precipitous decline in the West of civility, rational discourse, classical education and the traditional family, all leading to the emergence of populist movements of the right, left and center.