In the July 11, 2005 edition of the Christian Science Monitor (CSM) online, there was an interesting observation regarding Islamic recruitment among the young people of England. The article observes that "one leading analyst of the Islamic diaspora even compares the lure of extremist Islam to 1950s teens listening to Elvis in an attempt to shock their parents." Apparently, some recruits to radical Islam have tried other ways - the example used was a Pentecostal preacher's son who first tried to get attention by "being a rapper" - to shock their parents. With today's insanely "understanding" (is that an oxymoron?) parents, children apparently will go so far as to be a suicide bomber to have their parents' full sedulity.

Has it truly come to this? Far beyond window-shattering sub-woofers, sexual promiscuity and unprotected intercourse, drug abuse and alcoholism, tattoos and piercings and, most recently, choking each other for kicks, children now must declare their independence and "adulthood" by blowing themselves and, more tragically, others up. Well, that completely tears it. Apparently, we have achieved a spirit of aloof, isolated procreation that mimics the guidance and supervision given to the offspring of the sea turtle. We fertilize the ovum far out in the murky, detritus-filled waters that are our modern world, swim through the 9 months of gestation in our own preoccupied and distracted lives, and leave our eggs on the beach and in the hands of whoever and whatever may befall them. That beach, with it's clutch of unattended hatchlings, is a breeding ground of despair, false prophets and hateful, racist, shallow thinking. These forsaken and abandoned children are, for all practical purposes, on their own, lest we - collectively, the parental units - "interfere with their process of discovering themselves." The pendulum of parental detachment and "Nanny 911" mentality is now, irrevocably, off its natural path. Pushed forward by the children of the 60s and 70s - regardless of ethnicity, religion, or race - the bob has swung wildly off its course.We are far past the apogee of the bell curve that plots the rise and, inevitable, fall of our civilization.

In reports from ABCNews.com, there were the following descriptions of the bombing suspects: "Every week, 22-year-old Shahzad Tanweer joined friends for games of soccer and his beloved cricket. Hasib Hussain, 19, was a charmer who liked to flirt. He wore blue contact lenses and hair so long that one friend said it "fell like a curtain" atop his lanky frame. Thirty-year-old Mohammed Sidique Khan worked as a counselor in a youth center. He seemed to spend more time in the gym than the mosque." Elsewhere, I read that Tanweer often cruised the streets of Leeds in a red Mercedes.