Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Serving lots of compassion and food

Houston Chronicle:

Claude Jinks' mission — and he's chosen to accept it with a smile and handshakes all around — is to welcome his guests as if they were walking into a five-star restaurant.

"Ladies, how are y'all?" he asks, reaching out to shake hands with a group of five women.

"This is my lucky day, surrounded by so many beautiful women," he adds, eliciting chuckles from the group as they head toward the breakfast line.

Clearly, fine dining Jinks' style is more down-home friendly than upscale stuffy. And though the bottom line of this operation may be the food, Jinks and more than 200 fellow volunteers at the George R. Brown Convention Center were serving it up with warmth and compassion Thursday morning.

"We want to make them feel that they are not a number here, that they are our guests here in Houston," said the 67-year-old Jinks.

The guests arrive for meals on the escalators from downstairs, where many have sought refuge and shelter from lives devastated by Hurricane Katrina. From the moment they step off the escalators they are in the hands of Jinks and the other volunteers of Operation Compassion, an interfaith effort of people motivated by religious belief to feed the thousands.

...

Fred Williams finished a six-hour volunteer shift at 10 a.m. Thursday and planned to head for his day job as an investment banker. "Here it's a labor of love for everyone," he said. "People want to be here."

By the time the last meal is served in the weeks ahead, faith communities including Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, Catholics and Protestants will have lent a hand. Houston's Muslim community will serve on Sunday, which happens to be Sept. 11.

...

Operation Compassion got its start in cooperation with city and state officials. The program is coordinated by Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston and administrated by Second Baptist. Most of the cooking is done by disaster-relief teams from the Southern Baptist Convention, though they have some professional help. Second Baptist Church was largely responsible for the first week of the effort, which began Tuesday.

The church also trained about 30,000 volunteers over the Labor Day weekend — and organizers now report that they have plenty of volunteers.

Second Baptist is a very large predominately white church. The arms of compassion in Houston are not restricted by faith or color. That is something the race hustlers should at least acknowledge.