My grandmother, Ferne Schnoor, celebrated her one hundredth birthday last week. My birthday was the same week. In four years, I will be exactly half her age. You can do the math.

Grandma grew up on the plains of South Dakota and western Nebraska, as delicate and beautiful as a cornflower in appearance but as tough as nails on the inside. After Dad graduated from college, Grandma and Grandpa moved out to Santa Barbara, California, and lived the good life way up on a hill overlooking the rest of the city.

When my grandfather passed away in 1984, Grandma moved to Omaha and then later to Minnesota to be with my parents. Grandma has been blind for nearly twenty years; she had heart valve replacement surgery thirteen years ago (she's got synthetic valves now that were guaranteed to last ten years); and twice in the last two years the doctors have said she wouldn't last through spring. She's still kicking.

So here's an interesting statistic for you. The United States will celebrate its 233rd anniversary this summer, on July 4th. One hundred into two hundred thirty-three is approximately 0.42 (rounding down).

What does that mean? My grandmother has been alive for 42% of the life of this nation.

That, to me, is a staggering thought.

Grandma was born on May 15, 1909.

When she was born, Roosevelt was president. That's Theodore, not FDR.

To put things in perspective, that year was:

• only six years after the Wright Brothers' first successful flight (1903)
• four years before the modern income tax was enacted (1913)
  
• five years before the start of World War I (1914)
• eleven years before women were allowed to vote in the U.S. (1920)
  
• twenty years before the start of the Great Depression (1929)
• thirty-two years before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (1941)
  

Yes, you read that right -- Grandma was twenty years old when the stock market crashed in 1929, and she was thirty-two when the United States was drawn into World War II.

We've obviously come a long ways during her lifetime with advances in medicine, technology, space exploration, and things of that nature. She has a lot of reasons to celebrate, though personally I am still holding out for being able to affordably own and fly a jet pack into work every day, as our Weekly Readers promised us in grade school in the early 1970's.

As well as we're doing in technology, it amazes and saddens me to see how we as a people are doing culturally, socially, and civilly.

Oh, it's true that we've made some advances in Civil Rights. There's no denying that.

To be frank, though, I am worried that we are grooming ourselves into a culture of barbarians, a society of people who are unable to relate to each other, communicate with each other, care for each other, and love each other.

I wish I could say that it's just a bunch of little things. There are big things too. We'll get to those in a moment.

Some of these little things are going to sound silly. Stop, though, and think about the impact that these things can have on a society.

• using email to communicate instead of the hand written letter: It's faster, yes, but our thoughts tend to be more rapid fire, less well thought out, and our vocabulary is becoming a set of acronyms instead of meaningful and carefully chosen words (in other words, perhaps our accuracy of expression in written language is fading)
• cell phone interruption etiquette: Am I the only one who thinks it is rude when I'm talking with someone face to face, then his cell phone rings, and he answers it without even so much as an, "Excuse me"? Our conversations are like our attention spans. I'll talk to you as long as another (or more interesting) conversation doesn't come along.
• See no neighbor, hear no neighbor, smell no neighbor: You drive home from work and your neighbor is out on his front lawn, raking leaves. Thank goodness you have a garage with a door opener; you push the button, drive into the garage, push the button again, and you never have to talk to the neighbor. It's okay, because your cell phone would probably ring while you're talking with him anyway.
• We've become a nation that craves stuff. We're accumulating junk that we don't need and that we won't use. And, if I may be a bit blunt for a moment, we're turning into a nation of fat lazy slobs with kids who aren't being held accountable or responsible for anything (and it's not the kids' faults ... the parents are too busy watching television or playing golf with their buddies or doing anything but spending the time that their kids are so desperately craving with them).

Of course I'm generalizing and simplifying, but we've all seen the numbers for rising obesity, and there's no denying the massive sales of anything entertainment related.  Plug it in, turn it on, and turn off the brain.

Those are all minor things in the grand scheme though.

Where is our country heading?

Here's the real kicker.

We are treating unborn children like a problem, an illness, a blemish that a simple medical procedure can fix. How many babies are killed through abortion each year because it's the more convenient route? How many abortions are performed because the mom says she can't handle this in her life right now and the dad isn't around to support the child for whom he is responsible (I'm condemning the fathers, not the mothers here).

Where's this country headed? We promote rights, but only when it serves our own purposes. Animals have more protection and more rights than unborn children do in this country.

And then finally, as if to make a delineating statement on where our country is really going, San Diego County officials this month have issued a citation to a pastor and his wife for hosting a Bible study -- with 15 people -- in their home. The Bible study apparently violates code, according to county officials.

Grandma, you've seen a lot of positive things in these one hundred years. We've made many advances.

The way people treat people; the way a human's value is measured; isn't any better now than it was a hundred years ago. In fact, I believe it's worse, way worse.

Grandma, you've aged with grace and elegance.

I wish I could say the same about this land that I love and call my own.