“American Idol” judge Paula Abdul is the latest celebrity to take up an important political cause. World hunger? Global warming? Nah.
Safe nail manicures.
Seems Abdul suffered a painful thumb infection due to unsanitized manicure tools. She testified recently for a California bill requiring nail salons to adopt hygiene standards for manicures.
Look for more important celebrity-inspired legislation soon: Oprah’s Law, for instance, requires shops to stay open late just for her.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
The U.S. Supreme Court made the right calls Monday on the display of the Ten Commandments in public places. Such displays may be acceptable if they don’t go too far in promoting religion, such as when they honor the nation’s legal traditions, the court said. That’s a subjective standard that likely will result in more litigation. But it seeks a balance between barring all religious symbols and allowing a Christian majority to use government to advance its faith.
Still, do you ever wonder what God thinks about this debate? Somehow, I think he is more concerned about whether we honor Him in our hearts and deeds, not whether there is a display in some government building.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
What did you think of the commentary on today’s Eagle Opinion pages by psychiatrist Michael Welner? (It is available here.) He suggested that Rader might have killed even more people had he not been involved in a church. “Religion can reach morally empty psychopaths where psychiatry and incarceration cannot,” Welner wrote. “To someone who believes himself to be clever enough to fool all of the people all of the time — including his psychiatrist — a higher authority may be the only entity to whom he is capable of feeling accountable.”
Perhaps. But we certainly haven’t seen any remorse from Rader or other signs that he is concerned about what God thinks.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
They say the air is different under the dome. Maybe that’s why so many legislators think a constitutional amendment is urgently needed to prevent the Kansas Supreme Court from exercising a kind of nuclear option come fall — a shutdown of the state’s K-12 schools. But I’m with Senate Vice President John Vratil, R-Leawood, on this: “It makes absolutely no sense to me that the court would close schools when the major contention of the lawsuit is that children aren’t getting an adequate education.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Sedgwick County District Attorney Nola Foulston told the media Monday that “when a community is deprived of information about what happened, it never rests.” And she promised to provide some of that information at the Aug. 17 sentencing hearing. But why wait that long? How about asking for the release of the probable-cause affidavit regarding Dennis Rader’s arrest? Rader has already pleaded guilty, so what is the justification for keeping this information secret?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, blamed Gov. Kathleen Sebelius for the Legislature’s failure to pass a school finance bill. Please. It’s been Mays who has wasted time and taxpayer money trying to pressure House members to approve a constitutional amendment rather than voting on a plan that meets the Kansas Supreme Court’s order.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Obviously, Dennis Rader will never get out of prison. Still, it doesn’t seem right that his criminal record won’t account for the sexual offenses of which he’s guilty, or for his vicious attack on Kevin Bright, who survived. The statute of limitations had expired on all of his crimes save murder. To its credit, the Legislature recently extended the statute of limitations on most felonies and misdemeanors to five years, from what had been two years. But is that really long enough, given the high-tech tools that investigators now have?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
