Sudan, Yemen, Bahrein, Kuwait – These are places formerly not in my consciousness. Now part of our global community, they occupy my rapt attention. Virtually every day, I read about the turmoil that has engulfed them and hope for populist forces to win out. But the possibilities for other outcomes, some of them awful, loom in the background. What is going to happen to these vulnerable communities? And what will be the impacts on our mighty, but troubled, nation?