Friday's Odds and Ends

The Dallas ISD spent $57 milllion over a four year period on pricey mieals, costly consulting contracts and hotels. Meanwhile, teachers were paying out of pocket for students to eat during travel to UIL competitions because travel expenses for students was cut.

Do I even have to ask what is wrong with that picture?

Columnist, Lyn Woolley wrote in The Dallas Morning News that the removal of all references to God in schools has "left the schools without a moral compass."

Actually, our whole society has lost its moral compass and that has more to do with what we deem as acceptable in entertainment and general behavior that whether we can say "God" in public.

Speaking of uttering the g-word in public, Texas Governor Rick Perry plans to do that in a big way. He is inviting national leaders to a day of prayer and fasting on August 6, and expecting such a large turnout he is renting Houston's Reliant Stadium.

Hmmm. I thought one of the basic tenets of the separation of church and state meant that no government or government official could impose his or her religious beliefs on others. Since Perry is a Christian, I'm guessing there is going to be a whole lot of Christ-centered praying going on. Where does that leave national leaders who are atheists, or Jewish, or Muslim? And how come Perry can do all that in public and high school graduating classes cannot offer a prayer of any kind?

To end on a more upbeat note, my husband and I are going to Dallas today to attend the wedding of our son, David. We thought he was destined to be a bachelor forever, but several months ago he met a wonderful young woman, Rebecca. She is from Taiwan and has only been in the States for about 18 months.  He popped the question early in May, and they were originally going to have the wedding in September. However, she is going to school and classes start about the time they were thinking, Since neither one of them are teenagers, or even twenty-somethings, they decided there was really no reason to wait.

We are delighted to welcome Rebecca into our family. Now we have one daughter-in-law who can make us authentic Mexican dishes and another who can make authentic Chinese dishes.  We're trying to decide what ethnicity we want our third son to go for.