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30 JAN 04: JUDE LAWLESS
The first thing I noticed were the green cloths. They hang down as if they're covering humans - though some children might think a group of ghosts drank that new "Diet Coke with Lime."
But this exhibit is anything but child's play. I was looking at a Holocaust display currently in the library of Chattahoochee Valley Community College. The green cloths obviously represent people killed by the Nazis. The "bodies" are much too thin to be people enrolled in Weigh Down Columbus.
Each green cloth in the exhibit has a small "star of David" attached, and the word "Jude" on each star. That word made me think first of the short New Testament book, instead of Jews. Despite my last name of "Burkard," most words in German are, well, Greek to me....
What really drove home the Holocaust message for me was what rests below the green cloths: several pairs of empty shoes. The "bodies" seem vaporized. I knew the Nazis sent thousands of Jews to gas chambers, but I never considered they would turn into a form of gas afterward.
The display of Jewish bodies is surrounded by photos from the World War II era, and quotes from Holocaust survivors. To be honest, I didn't read the quotes. I was too distracted trying to figure out how those cloths hung so neatly, while some of my clothes never do.
CVCC's Holocaust display includes a rack of library books about World War II which students can check out. A table has several booklets for browsing, which tell you the Holocaust involved more than Jews. Even Jehovah's Witnesses were killed - though I doubt readers will remember that when members knock on their doors early on a Saturday morning.
In front of the display is a placard listing "three commandments" learned from the Holocaust. Uh oh - when is the lawsuit going to be filed, to move that to a library closet?
As I considered this powerful display, I reminded a library employee many people believe anti-Semitism is increasing again in Europe. Synagogues have been burned. Newspaper writers have claimed Israel has no right to exist. And have you noticed how much more expensive all-beef hot dogs cost at the supermarket?
As it happened, Chattahoochee Valley Community College hosted a forum Thursday on renovating downtown Phenix City. Mayor Sonny Coulter and other city officials now plan to visit downtown Atlanta for some ideas. That's just what this area needs - 25-story skyscrapers on Broad Street.
FREE FOOD FINDER: "God is good all the time!" my fixed-income neighbor said Thursday as she got in my car after loading the trunk with groceries. But then she added, "White folks will help you. Coloreds won't - black people." This African-American woman slowly is becoming the latest person to believe "one Columbus" really CAN happen.
I drove my neighbor to St. Anne's Outreach, a food pantry located in a house down the hill from St. Anne's Catholic School and Pacelli High. Somehow I doubt any students come here to eat - since if you can afford to send children to private schools, they don't need subsidized lunches.
Before the stop at St. Anne's Outreach, my neighbor and I stopped at the Health and Human Services Center on Comer Avenue. I'd never been here before - and it may be the first city government building I've ever seen with a labeled "Food Court." [True!]
Big signs are present around the Health and Human Services Center promoting employment. One of them said, "Think work, not welfare." So why aren't these signs posted in the management offices of area mills?
The Health and Human Services Center handles a variety of local concerns. One of them is domestic violence - and in fact, it helped arrange several forums on that topics last October. I know this because the flyers promoting the forums still haven't been taken down from bulletin boards, almost four months later.
Speaking of FREE FOOD, that's practically what the RaceTrac station on Victory Drive is offering right now. You can get free candy with a fountain drink - or any size fountain drink and a hot dog for one dollar. A 44-ounce soda will wash away that weiner in no time at all....
BLOG-BLAH-BLAH: Have you seen a place with free food, either for one night or year-round? Please write us, to help build an online Free Food Finder for our area.
Now for other things that happened on Oprah Winfrey's 50th birthday (and oh yes, my home state of Kansas's 143rd):
+ Columbus Mayor Bob Poydasheff explained the city can afford big raises for the two Deputy City Managers, because the city is saving money trimming costs in other areas. You won't mind if jail inmates come out to fight fires, do you?
(City Manager Carmen Cavezza told WRBL his deputies were given raises to about $90,000 a year partially because that will "keep them in town." If I had that much money, I'd be tempted to take a vacation even farther AWAY from town.)
+ WRBL's Weather Team backed down a bit, in a TV showdown over the weekend forecast. News 3 was predicting Saturday and Sunday highs around 60, while the other guys said 40's. Now News 3 has dropped its prediction to around 55 -- and if that's wrong, the meteorologists probably will borrow a Howard Dean speech and still declare victory.
(But then again, there's Jim Devitt on NBC-38 - who admitted at 11:00 p.m.: "I don't analyze this stuff. I rip it. I read it." If only he knew what other newsrooms tend to do....)
+ Cusseta Road Elementary School held "Dynamic Dad's Day." This sounds like a great idea to get fathers involved in education. If we had more Dynamic Dads, our schools might have fewer Dropout Duds.
+ Country singer Kenny Chesney gave a benefit concert at Auburn's War Eagle Supper Club. It raised an estimated $3,000 for Lee County Boys' and Girls' Clubs - which reportedly serve 800 children. So this show's benefit comes to four bucks a child. Chesney might as well have given the clubs a stack of autographed programs to sell.
+ The Columbus Riverdragons lost by three points to Charleston, in a game played at Fort Benning's Audie Murphy Gymnasium. But c'mon now - isn't it a stretch to call this "the first professional basketball game ever played at a U.S. military installation?" Somehow I suspect the Harlem Globetrotters played inside a base at least once.
(As part of the NBDL's tribute to the military, the rap group "Nappyroots" promoted reading at Fort Benning's Faith Middle School. I can't help wondering whether any of those students have ever heard of the book "Roots.")
+ Instant message to the last circus to appear in Columbus, wherever you are: Did you forget something when you left town? I found some things you left behind, at the Oakland Park Shopping Center. You might consider them souvenirs, but some of us call it litter.
BLOG CORRECTION The Junior League's Follies actually will begin February 5th, not February 6th. So the cast can put its acting lessons from "Cats" to work even sooner....
© 2003-04 Richard Burkard, All Rights Reserved.