signs of the times

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-- In Detroit, people are so distressed in one way or another that they are giving up their pets and dogs are roaming the streets, untended to. This has led to a proposal to create a shelter in which no animal will be put to death -- a proposition the ASPCA has not been able to actualize, but some new group thinks it can. Wild dogs in a major city ... what does that say about our economic times?

-- Fearful that their island archipelago may be wiped out by rising, globally-warmed seas, Kiribati is considering a back-up plan -- buying $9.6 million worth of Fiji as a point for future refuge.

-- Coca-Cola and Pepsi, neither of whom wish to affix what could be a mandated cancer label, are changing the formula of their soft-drink offerings. Basically, it's just a change in coloration, but still ... Coke and Pepsi changing the winning formulas?

-- In the United Kingdom,

The move to ban public prayers in tiny Bideford — and potentially across all of England and Wales — has erupted into a national proxy fight over the question of whether Christianity should still hold a privileged place in a modern, diverse and now highly secular society.

Christianity, a once blase axiom, has become an assumption to question.

-- And in the United States, the protected realm of religious institutions has come under fire by lenders unwilling to shoulder unpaid church debt. They are foreclosing at record levels. It's a dog-eat-dog world -- and not just in Detroit. The maxim these days seems to be, "let the big dog eat!"
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