it's important to remember that there still are good people on this earth. even in des moines. from today's basu column:

On Jan. 9, Maumi Daffay, a refugee from Sierra Leone and the cook at Soul African Cafe on Sixth Avenue in Des Moines, went home to a burglarized north-side apartment. Missing were a TV, household goods, clothes belonging to her and her three children, and irreplaceable African jewelry. Two days earlier, I had run a column on the cafe, and on Jan. 10, Jim Almquist, whose wife read it, went to eat there. He's with the Urbandale Kiwanis Club. Hearing of the burglary, he alerted the Urbandale High School Key Club, which went out and bought Daffay and her family all sorts of things to replace their losses. They'll deliver them later this week. Almquist says they wanted to go beyond the material and show the family moral support.