The last straw.

Before Muhammad invented Islam and turned everyone into religious fanatics, the Arab world was a source of great wisdom. Arab shepherds, lying in the fields at night, gave us much of our early knowledge of astronomy. Watching stars rise in the east and set in the west each night they noticed that some of those "stars" moved along a different path. They gave them an Arab name that meant "wanderer" which word we translate in English to "planet".

The ancient Romans gave us a great alphabet and language, but they were not so good with math. They wanted to use their wonderful alphabet for counting, and chose the letters I, V, X, L and M. That part was good, because those letters formed with straight lines were easy to create in any material and were difficult to forge. But they couldn't figure out how to designate the empty box, and never came up with a zero.

The Arabs, whose alphabet failed to gain wider acceptance because it was too complicated, liked squiggly lines and used them to make numbers... one of which was "0", zero. We owe thanks to the Arabs for much of today's technology developed by the application of advanced mathematics.

The Arabs also gave us the delightful parable of the man who loaded his camel to the absolute limit of its ability to carry. As he embarked upon his journey, the wind blew a single straw onto the top of the camel's load. That straw, added to the load, broke the camel's back.

Through the ages it has reminded us that there are limits... there is a last straw! It may seem we are always able to handle one more pain... one more problem... one more abuse. But, like the old Arab's camel, there could come that single straw that is the back-breaker.

Barack Obama professes to be a friend of the Arabs. I wish one of them would remind him of their ancient parable. For, if he continues to pile abuses on American freedoms, he will surely one day add that last straw.