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By Mail Bag

Why do I always have to be the one that starts to do laundry and there's no detergent? I guess it was time for me to do my 'Dollar Store' run, which included light bulbs, paper towels, trash bags and Clorox. So off I go.

I scurried around the store, gathered up my goodies, and headed for the checkout counter only to be blocked in the narrow aisle by a young man that appeared to be about sixteen-years- old. I wasn't in a hurry, so I patiently waited for the boy to realize that I was there. This was when he waved his hands excitedly in the air and declared in a loud voice, 'Mommy, I'm over here.'

It was obvious now, he was mentally challenged, and also startled as he turned and saw me standing so close to him, waiting to squeeze by. His eyes widened and surprise exploded on his face as I said, 'Hey Buddy, what's your name?'

'My name is Denny and I'm shopping with my mother,' he responded proudly.

'Wow,' I said, 'that's a cool name; I wish my name was Denny, but my name is Hal.'

'Hal like Halloween?' he asked.

'Yes,' I answered. 'How old are you Denny?

'How old am I now Mommy?' he asked his mother as she slowly came over from the next aisle. 'You're fifteen-years-old Denny; now be a good boy and let the man pass by.'

I acknowledged her and continued to talk to Denny for several more minutes about summer, bicycles and school. I watched his brown eyes dance with excitement because he was the center of someone's attention. He then abruptly turned and headed toward the toy section.

Denny's mom had a puzzled look on her face and thanked me for taking the time to talk with her son. She told me that most people wouldn't even look at him, much less talk to him. I told her that it was my pleasure and then I said something I have no idea where it came from, other than by the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

I told her that there are plenty of red, yellow and pink roses in God's garden, however, 'Blue Roses' are very rare and should be appreciated for their beauty and distinctiveness. You see, Denny is a 'Blue Rose' and if someone doesn't stop and smell that rose with their heart and touch that rose with their kindness, then they've missed a blessing from God.

She was silent for a second, then with a tear in her eye she asked, 'Who are you?'

Without thinking I said, 'Oh, I'm probably just a 'daffodil or maybe even a dandelion,' but I sure love living in God's garden.

Please the next time you see a BLUE ROSE don't turn your head and walk off - take the time to smile and say Hello. Because by the grace of GOD this mother could be you. This could be your child, grandchild, niece, nephew. What a difference a moment can mean to that person or their family.

From just a daffodil.

David Van Os
January 12, 2009

Just over a week from now our nation and the world will exult in the end of eight nightmare years of government by hustlers, liars, thieves, and traitors to our Constitution.

A message from John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address of January 20, 1961 calls just as clearly to us today:

"Now the trumpet summons us again - not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need - not as a call to battle, though embattled we are - but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself."

Now here is my top 25 "wish list" for 2009. What's on your wish list?

• 1. Usury laws are restored, making it illegal to charge over 10% interest.
• 2. The old antitrust laws are replaced by strong new laws to break up the robber baron corporate monopolies and oligopolies, especially in agriculture, banking, financial services, insurance, oil and energy, media, health care, and pharmaceutical drugs. Laws that deregulated utilities are repealed.
• 3. The Employee Free Choice Act is enacted into law to restore workers rights to organize unions and to bargain collectively, and restart the economy from the bottom up.
• 4. The new bankruptcy law passed in 2002, which turned the courts into bill collectors for the banks and finance companies, is repealed.
• 5. All businesses receiving government bailout money are required to immediately reduce their executive compensation rates including all stock options and benefits to no more than 5 times the average wage and benefit packages of their hourly-wage workers.
• 6. A single-payer national health insurance plan is enacted into law, as President Harry Truman proposed over 60 years ago.
• 7. Legislation is enacted requiring that all public elections be conducted by paper ballot (optical scan permitted).
• 8. In order to fight back against the system of politicians and their benefactors buying elections, all television stations are required as a condition of their licenses to devote specified minimum and maximum amounts of free time for electioneering to political candidates and parties during primary and general election campaign seasons. Television stations would be prohibited from selling any time for electioneering, so that the free time would be the only television time for all candidates equally.
• 9. To return the federal courts to their historic duty of protecting the Constitution for the people, President Barack Obama fills federal judgeships with proven civil rights lawyers.
• 10. President Barack Obama closes the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, abolishes the "military commission tribunals", and puts the real criminals on trial in regular criminal prosecutions; revokes all Bushite executive orders and authorizations permitting torture and other deprivations of Due Process of Law; and in all other respects restores the world leadership of the United States of America in promoting Due Process of Law and Human Rights.
• 11. President Barack Obama forbids all wiretapping of American residents and American citizens by all United States government agencies, departments, officers, agents, employees, and contractors unless pursuant to a warrant issued by a judge based on probable cause.
• 12. All United States military personnel and security contractors are withdrawn from Iraq as soon as possible, to begin immediately.
• 13. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleeza Rice are prosecuted for the murder of American soldiers killed in Iraq.
• 14. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Alberto Gonzales are prosecuted for willful felony crimes in authorizing illegal warrantless surveillance of wire and electronic communications. In addition Alberto Gonzales is prosecuted for committing perjury in his testimony to Congress.
• 15. Alberto Gonzales and any co-conspirators are prosecuted for willful felony violations of the civil rights of former Alabama Governor Donald Siegelman and other individuals through the pursuit of trumped-up prosecutions and other illegitimate actions to use the Department of Justice for partisan political purposes.
• 16. All persons responsible for fraudulent vote counts and/or voter disenfranchisement in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
• 17. Antonin Scalia is impeached from the United States Supreme Court for issuing the fraudulent temporary restraining order that stopped the statewide Florida ballot count in 2000.
• 18. Karl Rove is prosecuted to the maximum extent of the law for any and all crimes he has committed in his sinister drive to wipe out the checks and balances of our Constitutional democracy.
• 19. Effective legislation is enacted to counteract global warming climate change.
• 20. The First Ten Amendments, the Bill of Rights, of the United States Constitution and Article 1, the Bill of Rights, of the Texas Constitution are made into a mandatory semester-long course of study in the Texas public school curriculum.
• 21. The Texas Constitutional provisions prohibiting the use of public money for private gain are fully enforced.
• 22. The Texas Constitutional provisions guaranteeing the separation of church and state are fully enforced.
• 23. The 2003 amendment of Article 1, Section 13 of the Texas Constitution (Open Courts Clause) to restrict non-pecuniary damages in civil lawsuits and thus diminish Texans' right of jury trial is repealed.
• 24. All legislation authorizing the Trans-Texas Corridor by whatever name is repealed; and a law is passed requiring that no toll road or part of a toll road can be established in any county commissioners precinct in Texas unless the voters residing in such precinct approve in a precinct-wide referendum. .
• 25. A law is passed prohibiting government at all levels from taking private property through forcible eminent domain for reasons of economic promotion or development, aesthetics, comfort, sports, or private gain (except for indirect private gain that is an unavoidable consequence of the exercise of eminent domain for genuine public necessity, such as construction contractors).

Sincerely,
David Van Os