It is all about odds and ends.
Our thoughts move one moment to many different issues in our world today with instant media. Our mind is a collection of odds and ends. What the odds and ends that pulls me aside.
Our media has been introducing us to some most violent picture that has been seen on TV or Google.
Remembering the Vietnam War, my memory cannot pull up any more horrible pictures than what we are now seeing. Maybe our news people showed more respect of life than what we are witnessing.
The pictures remind me of a film “Night Fog.” It was film taken in the concentrations camps. “Night Fog” was a movie made in1955 the liberation of concentrations.
While the film quality was not good, the pictures showed stacks of skeleton piled up. Slowly a dozer came into the pictured pushing skeleton into a ditch. The skeletons were just skin and bones of people, hundreds of people who finally died in the camps. “Night Fog” showed some the most gruesome pictures of the camps.
I salute Sen. Sinclair and Rep. Fry for “no votes on the gas prices.” Their vote clearly represented the needs of the people in their districts.
We know that gas taxes are hardest on low income or fixed income people. After this bill passed, I received a call from a good friend. He referred to the fact that they removed two senators from the committee considering the gas bill to be sure it passed out of committee to be debated and passed on the senate floor.
A warming feeling of odds and ends occurred on Feb. 13 at Prairie Ridge Church in Ankeny. The “Night to Shine” took place in 26 states and three countries as a Valentine Day Prom for “special needs young people 16 and older.”
Maybe Tim Tebow cannot pass, but he understands the needs of estimated 7,000 special needs young people. Tim Tebow hosted 45 Valentine Day Proms, with the Prairie Ridge Church in Ankeny cooperation.
“The Night Shine” helped young people with dresses and tuxedos. It was their “prom night” with flowers, limo and a tunnel on a red carpet to enter the front door.
There was food and music to make a wonderful evening. About 150 young people attended the prom in Ankeny and they all received a photo for the evening. This was just great.
I have great concerns about the anti-Jewish feelings seeming to grown stronger in this past year.
Anzalone Liszt Grove Research, along with Anti-Defamation League, has released this survey, which found that 1,090,000,000 of total adults, 4,161,578,905 that 26 percent were opposed to Jews.
The break of sex showed 29 percent of males and 24 percent of females, and the age of adults made little difference in survey. You can Google this on Global100adl.org if you would like to look at this survey.
While I would not normally quote from Madonna, I will quote from an interview with French radio where she said, “The intolerance was now so high in France and Europe that it feels like Nazi Germany.”
She said, “We’re living in a crazy times. France was once a country that accepted people of color, and was a place artists escaped to whether it was Josephine Baker or Charlie Parker.”
She concluded the interview saying, “It’s not just happening in France, it’s all over Europe. This level of intolerance is so enormous, it’s scary.”
Urgent need and final point of odds and ends is the schools are short of bus drivers.
I drive a bus for the young people at Clarke. It is an opportunity to be a role model for the students.
Yes, sometimes I have to ask a student to behave, but most of the time I can talk to students getting on the bus and challenging them to have a good day.
At the end of the day I see a smile and two thumbs or my class all received green stars today when I ask them how their day was. The schools and students need your help. You can call Mr. Seid at 641-342-4969 for more information.