Wednesday Wit & Wisdom

• This weekend my church — St. Ann Catholic in Kaufman — will be having a ground-breaking ceremony for the expansion project of our community center/parish hall. The expansion plan is the first of an overall plan of several phases. St. Ann’s Building Committee has worked hard over several years to ensure that the various phases will reflect the most pressing needs of our parish community. We have approximately 350 students for CCD classes of which have to be divided into 3 days due to space limitations and we have approximately 50 groups, meetings, events, organizations, etc. that use our facilities on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis. The other properties that we are currently using are in poor conditions, whether its roof leaks, or heat and a/c problems. This project will create 6 more classrooms, new kitchen facility, new bathroom facilities and new offices. St. Ann’s through savings and generous donations has managed to save $600,000 for the $1 million project. As one staff member put it to me, "God has blessed us with continued growth and it is time to respond to the Lord’s call and make some more room for all of us to learn and to share fellowship with each other." Whether you attend the church or not, it's always good to see such entities are growing and expanding in our communities.

•  The Supreme Court ruled Monday that elected judges must step aside from cases when large campaign contributions from interested parties create the appearance of bias. It will be interesting to see how that affects things in the future.

• A longtime, avid Craddick supporter, State Rep. Betty Brown of Terrell has finally thrown her support behind the new Speaker of the House. I'm working on a story for the Tribune on it.

• Kaufman's Deon Wells earned a bronze medal this past weekend at the Class 3A state track meet. Interestingly enough, another former Kaufman County resident owns the state Class 3A record in the event: Forney's DaBryan Blanton.

• This time next month I'll be sitting on a beach in Jamaica. I'm still looking for a good book to read on the trip. Any suggestions?

• Jim is down on the NBA today. I'd argue with him, but I have to admit I haven't watched one second of the finals because I know the Lakers will win.

• I had a lady at a school the other day ask me whatever happened to ONF's blog. Well?

• When Democrats made their case during the 2006 elections about why they should control Congress, they offered up Republican lawmakers like Mark Foley and Rick Renzi as examples of the "culture of corruption" they wanted to rid from Washington. But when the limelight faded, the controversies took an unexpected twist: Democrats, now in control, sought to block or limit prosecutors from gathering certain evidence of corruption against members of Congress on constitutional grounds, complicating the criminal cases against the two Republicans. Full story.

• I think the next race for county judge in Kaufman County will be really interesting. I also think there may be a crowded field of candidates. I know it's hard to believe, but the candidate filing period for the 2010 elections really isn't that far away...and I've already heard rumblings about different people putting together election teams.

• I was in a hurry this morning and somehow made it to work without my glasses. It's going to be a long day.

• A new report shows a decade's worth of modest gains in graduation rates. In 1996, the national on-time graduation rate was 66.4 percent; by 2006, that figure had risen to 69.2 percent. Much greater gains were made by thousands of school districts, including some struggling with high levels of poverty. Link.

• The photo at the top shows us that sometimes it's just our perspective of things that makes the world look different than it is.