Oprah Winfrey's School for Girls

I watched the ABC special tonight on the opening of Oprah's school for girls in South Africa and was so impressed with these girls. They all have lived in poverty, most are raised by their grandmothers, so many of their mothers died of AIDS and they have witnessed so much devastation and heartbreak in their young lives, but their hunger for education should make many students in these United States ashamed of themselves. We take so much for granted and so many students never live up to their potential and here these girls are, begging for a chance to learn, to grow, to be.

Oprah was struck by one girl's courage to ask the question: "Do you think I am good enough to come to your school?" What a powerful question. And as Oprah said, we're all always wanting to know if we are good enough; everyone wants validation.

God gave us all a purpose in life and I agree with Oprah Winfrey: this was why she is where she is today, perhaps why she never had children of her own---God has sent her 150 "daughters" to guide and educate, so that perhaps they might become the future of Africa.

What an inspiration she is; how compassionate and how unselfish. The world would do better to have a lot of Oprahs in it. She has taken her background of poverty, sexual molestation, and become a voice for the downtrodden.

For those who missed it, I urge you to watch it Saturday at 7 on ABC when it will be aired again.

$12 BILLION UNACCOUNTED FOR IN IRAQ

What kinds of idiots would take duffel bags of $12 billion in cash to a war-torn country to "hand out" and trust the carriers to do just that? One had $7 MILLION in cash--with no accounting of where and to whom it went.

This defies logic. No bloody wonder we are sinking in a stinkhole over there. God only knows who or what faction has the money or if it was ever delivered to responsible people. Every "business" has an accounting system, a "check-and-balances" operation, and the United States Government doesn't? The least that should have been done was to have a ledger as to whom, where and how much this money went. (Frankly, I think $12 billion is just the tip of the iceberg.)

OUTRAGED!

OUTRAGED! That is what all of us should be at the news that a prisoner on Alabama’s death row—Jack Trawick—not only has access to the Internet, but is allowed to draw, sketch, paint and sell obscene art from his prison cell! How can sketches of mutilated bodies come under the First Amendment? Where are the Commissioner of Department of Corrections and the State of Alabama in this?

This man is a serial murderer, for God’s sake! Stephanie Gach’s family has to be traumatized again by seeing pictures depicting their daughter’s murder all over the Internet.

The prisons—even Death Row---offer some people more than they ever got on the outside. I NEVER got to go to college; have worked hard all my life and only acquired a computer within the last five years, and it absolutely infuriates me that the public is paying for these low-lifes to get a college education, have access to computers, law libraries, and three meals a day. I would rather feed and educate people in this state who need a helping hand. I surely want no part of making a prisoner’s life “all fuzzy and warm.”

This is absolutely obscene, and I truly hope that Troy King and the State Department of Corrections do something about it.

I can't believe the people of these United States continue to tolerate such egregious behavior.