We had another blizzard this past week! We were warned as early as Monday that there was one coming in from South Dakota way. Wednesday schools were getting out early as noon or shortly after while some up north were closed for the day.
The snow did start that afternoon and into Thursday morning. Schools got a 2 hour late start on Thursday. Up north, they received more snow (as much as 8”) and were still closed. We are watching how many hours are lost because of the weather that could affect when we get out in May or whenever. Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, and a good many of the churches cancelled this service due to the weather.
Monday was Presidents’ Day and MMCRU Schools were out for the day. There was still a School Board meeting that night at Marcus. In order to get our wrestlers back in Marcus, we need more wrestlers. This is where GIRLS are needed! There is really a time now when girls are getting into wrestling. Area schools are seeing where girls are now into this sport.
The community was shocked to hear of Bonnie (Simons) Collins passing away on Tuesday morning at Heartland Care. She died of a very brief illness. She was one of the three women—Sharon R., Judy N. and Bonnie that were at Farmers State Bank for what seemed forever! Bonnie was a friendly person and touched many lives while here. She will be missed. There was a Celebration of Life at 7 p.m. on Sunday, February 26 at Grace United Methodist Church in Marcus. Rest in peace, Bonnie until we meet again.
Southern California was expected to have a blizzard, the first since 1989 on the weekend. There were predictions of mud slides, also.
Are you aware that on March 12, Daylight Saving Time begins? There was an editorial written on “Time is now to end daylight saving time” by the Lincoln Journal Star Editorial Board. Sen. Tom Briese of Albion was for the fourth time in four years with a bill to put Nebraska on daylight saving time year-round. His proposal, LB143, would end springing forward in March and falling back in November if the federal government and at least three neighboring states do the same thing. While the federal government hasn’t acted, 19 states have, including Wyoming and Colorado.
Briese and others have made their case arguing the economic and productivity benefits of additional daylight for part of the year, as well as public safety, health benefits and convenience. Lots of smartphones and cars update automatically, but everyone has a microwave or a guest room clock radio that never gets changed. What parent hasn’t felt the pain of trying to put a 3 year-old to bed at 8 p.m. on the Sunday night right after the time change?
Nationally, polling has shown folks don’t want to change their clocks twice a year. The margin narrows a bit when it comes to the question of whether daylight saving or standard time is adopted. The Senate adopted a bill last year, but it stalled in the House. Arizona and Hawaii are always on Standard time. There are those that argue that their cows don’t give as much milk as they should when they have to adjust to the time change. I would think that nursing homes would have a similar problem with their residents not getting their meal when they were before a time change.
A recent article told of how some church ministers are using computer programs, available online, that can write almost anything if they’re given the right prompt and make it seem as though it were written by a human. A Kentucky pastor says, “It lacks a soul—I don’t know how else to say it. Sermons are meant to be the core of a worship service—and often are faith leaders’ best weekly shot at grabbing their congregation’s attention to impart theological and moral guidance. Lazy pastors might be tempted to use artificial intelligence for this purpose, but not the great shepherds, the ones who love preaching, who love their people.”
A rabbi in New York, told his congregation that he was going to deliver a plagiarized sermon—dealing with such issues as trust, vulnerability and forgiveness. Upon finishing, he asked the worshipers to guess who wrote it. When they appeared stumped, he revealed that the writer was an artificial intelligence program called ChatGPT, responding to his request to write a 1,000-word sermon related to that week’s lesson from the Torah.
“Now, you’re clapping—I’m deathly afraid,” the rabbi said when several congregants applauded. “I thought truck drivers were going to go long before the rabbi, in terms of losing our positions to artificial intelligence”.
ChatGPT might be really great at sounding intelligent, but the question is, can it be empathetic? And that, not yet at least, it can’t,” the rabbi stated. AI has yet to develop compassion and love, and is unable to build community and relationships that are the things that bring us together, he concluded.
“While some of the greatest sermons contain elements of anguish, artificial intelligence can imitate to some level, but I don’t think it can ever give any kind of a sense of suffering, grief, sorrow, the same way that a human being can,” the Kentucky minister said. “It comes from deep within the heart and the soul—that’s what the great preachers have, and I don’t think you can get that by proxy.”
(There are some schools that are dealing with students using this method to write their term paper, etc. Officials have found it hard to determine for sure if the student wrote it or not. If they used this method, what did they learn that will help them after they graduate?)
First Lady, Jill Biden was on a five-day, two-country visit to Africa aimed at highlighting the challenges facing women and young people and the food insecurity plaguing the Horn of Africa.
Africa is the fastest-growing and youngest region in the world, according to the White House, which says 1 of every 4 people in the world will be African by 2050. It’s Jill Biden’s sixth time in Africa, but her first trip as first lady. She previously visited Africa in 2010, 2011, twice in 2014, and once in 2016, all during her husband’s service as U.S. vice president. Two of those trips were with him.
However, there was another first lady that also was in Africa—Melania Trump visited for the first time in 2018, when she spent five days as first lady stopping in Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt to promote U.S. developmental aid and education, cradle babies and highlight animal and historic preservation.
She traveled without President Trump. She learned about Africa’s slave past during a tour of Cape Coast Castle, a former slave holding facility on the Ghanaian coast. She spent time inside the cramped dungeon once used to house enslaved males and walked through the “Door of No Return,” from which the enslaved people were shipped to the New World.
In Malawi, she toured indoor and outdoor classrooms, observed lessons and watched students play soccer with U.S. donated balls. She highlighted elephant preservation at Nairobi National Park in Kenya. She closed the tour in Egypt to highlight U.S. supported preservation efforts there.
I’m hoping that the conclusion of Senior Citizens in our Area will find room in this week’s paper.
Remember in your thoughts and prayers those who have lost loved ones to death, have had their lives changed, have health problems some of which are terminal, are struggling to make ends meet even though they have a job, help those who desire wants rather than needs that prestige isn’t everything and be with those who are still trying to shorten the distance between family/friends to build a bridge instead of a wall. Count your blessings.
I will close with this quote from T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) American poet: “Where is all the knowledge we lost with information?”