Drove through the heartland of America today, central Missouri, and it’s sure interesting to get out of the “green” environs of Boulder and see how the other half thinks. Billboards “it’s a baby, not a choice”, “adoption, not abortion” and a particularly striking one of a pregnancy test device showing positive (but the positive mark, rather than a pink bar, is a pink cross) with the uplifting phrase “pregnant? Now there’s hope.” Presumably, before the creation of the specific church, there wasn’t any hope once you found you were pregnant, but that’s another story…

The most thought-provoking sign, one I wish I’d taken a picture of, was a crude home-made board in front of a farm saying “Cpl. John Smith” (or some name like that), his regiment and division, and “Deployed in Iraq”….

No political statement, no “we support him” or “kill those foreign lunatics” or “thank God for Bush” or whatever, just “Deployed in Iraq.”

That quiet strength, that support for the man without indicating support for or against the cause, is surely just as much a cornerstone of this nation as the long-haired hippies agitating for peace on Pearl Street in Boulder or the soldiers deployed in Iraq today. I was pleased to see it and it did indeed provoke thought, and make me wonder what Cpl. Smith was doing at that very moment, far, far away from his loved ones.