There's a proposition floating down in our nation's capital to start importing apples, for American orchards, from China. We picked up on this from local Assemblyman Frank Skartados, who has been looking over the U.S. Department of Agriculture's proposal on the matter and finding himself filled with questions centered as much on the possibility of invasive pests, no matter how carefully we monitor everything coming our way, as well as the effects on local prices and markets.

Of course, we also wonder what this does to the other push of recent years, to bring back heritage crops, and what was once a universe of different apple types, many bred right in our region.

Watch for this issue to grow over the coming months...

On a whole other front, we've been enthused by a sense that this weekend's big climate march down in New York City, for the purpose of alerting visiting dignitaries to the United Nation's new session, will be a very big thing. Sure, there are those down in Washington, as well as around these parts (and in my own family) who scoff at the very idea of such things... no matter the amount of scientific proof that's been amassing for years. But there comes a time when one can no longer pretend the world is flat, or our world, and beliefs, are at the center of everything. My sense is that we'll get a stronger sense of just how opinions have shifted over the coming term.

Similarly, we feel this past week's Immigrants to Citizens marches and rallies in our area, and around the country, will similarly start to point out how important it is to finally get a grip on who we are as a nation these days. Again, there'll be differences of opinion — and we suspect they'll end up codified, at least for a decade or so, with some states being rougher for immigrants than others. But in the end, we come together as a nation on these grand issues because we have to.

It's the same with many issues these days. Just think of those states where gays are not welcome, or the right to vote requires all sorts of IDs. Or those places where people can carry concealed weapons anywhere... making those carrying feel safer, maybe, while others worry about getting caught in crossfire. And yet many more places where the color of one's skin, or accent, or way of dressing, still causes heads to turn and the welcome to drop.

In today's world, economics move. You want tourists; you need new businesses and residents to come to you from other places. That is, unless you want to live in like-minded worlds... which usually end up as limited in financial choices, over time, as they do in culture.

So yes, there's a strong chance we'll splinter more before we come together again... to those places that are accommodating, and those that aren't. But I do believe unity will prevail.

On similar lines, I need to acknowledge the passing of 9/11 last week, and the various local events that took place around our area. And no, we didn't make a big deal about it, or them, this year... except to talk with our kids about what happened, and why, and what's come down in the thirteen years since that fateful day.

I think the time is coming, or has come, when we move away from our focus on how badly we were hurt, and how that defines our patriotism and courage, to the moment of unity we felt for a short while then and have largely lost since. Because that's what we do, as humans (if not always as Americans) with such instances. Think of how we celebrate the ends of wars, and not their beginnings. Or great moments of new understandings.

We worry that mixing up the term "patriot" with 9/11 has only reinforced the bitter competitiveness that's emerged around the term in the past thirteen years, where political parties, and individuals, try to prove that they are more patriotic than someone else, based on their beliefs, or passions.

Moreover, if we're to define ourselves through attack, pitting 9/11 against D-Day, why have we done so little these past two years to commemorate our own War of 1812?

There are lessons in all these things. There are learnable truths in all grand challenges.