Opinion

Watching the Super Bowl on Sunday night left me an emotional wreck. And, no, it had nothing to do with the lights-out, down-to-the-wire, officials-blown finish, however dramatic you might have considered that to be.

I didn’t care who won between Edgar Allen Poe’s team and John Wilson Marshall’s team.

Fundraising season is upon us, that time of year when we launch into an annual parade of events that raise much-needed revenue to support a variety of philanthropic efforts in Shelby County.

This past weekend featured the cultural gamut of Ducks Unlimited – with its Duck Dynasty theme this year – to one of Shelby County’s glitziest gatherings, Tres Chic.

On Jan. 29, the state announced an $86 million cut in child-care assistance for low-income working parents. Also included in the cuts are subsidies to relatives raising abused or neglected children. 

That’s quite a statement for a governor who hung his hat on a platform of the importance of early childhood education, created a statewide Early Childhood Advisory Council and a Governor’s Office of Early Childhood, none of which have made any comment on the impending collapse of the system that houses most of our children under the age of 5 on any given day.

If you own property in Shelby County, you pay 3.5 percent of that property’s taxable value for what you might consider to be garbage service. This is what you receive for that payment: A “convenience center” in Waddy that is maintained and emptied, a recycling center that is staffed and an opportunity to transport your garbage or recyclables to those facilities.

What you don’t get is garbage service.

What I have to say about President Barack Obama’s “gun grab” is lengthy but necessary in order to give a proper historical approach and clear up the most recent root cause or the origin of his mindset.

This is not a new idea or effort that has just occurred to Mr. Obama, he and others of his persuasion have labored from time to time toward this end. The horrible event at Newtown, Conn., was not the trigger, but it is just the opportunity to make inroads toward the goal to remove guns and repeal (in some form) the Second Amendment to our Constitution.

Brenda Jackson has served Shelby County Public Schools long and well and, as she has sworn to do, she has put the kids ahead of herself. Her methods can be questioned, as they were last fall when she fought off a challenger to win her seventh term representing District 5 on the Shelby County School Board, but you can’t debate what is in her heart, for she lives from that heart every time she takes her seat on the platform for a board meeting.

Ms. Jackson is all about the kids and making sure they get the best education this county can provide.

A recent post on Facebook displays a series of photos detailing the serial deconstruction of a landmark building in Shelbyville, a building that was once considered among the finest in the state. Soon those shattered bricks will fade into memory and be forgotten,  just the same as the grand cupola that once adorned its rooftop.

Jack Swindler is a fifth-grader at Southside Elementary but he is already a leader, working with school administrators to start a recycling program among the students and staff. He wrote a letter to the teachers that explained, “I’m part of the TAG [Talented And Gifted] program, and I qualified for leadership. As a leader, I want to help this school recycle.”

Southside Principal Suzanne Burkhardt said the students are familiar with ways to help the environment since the school has an Energy Team, made up of students, including Jack.

The topics of greatest collision these days in our national discourse are the centrifugal – if not central – debates about the oversight of our economy and of our right to bear arms.

Almost every person in leadership at every level of our governments – and many of us lowly taxpayers – is debating one side or the other of one topic or the other, some wanting to choke the reins of control while others want at least to maintain the freedom of movement now in place. Oddly the chokers and the relaxers are not consistent along the political spectrum.