It’s difficult to know what was more troubling about Attorney General Phill Kline’s Tuesday strategy session with the State Board of Education on the school finance battle. Was it that the state’s top law enforcement officer was behind a plot to defy the state’s top court, by certifying a year’s worth of money before the court has time to cut off funding and close schools? Or that Kline didn’t seem to recognize his plan’s fatal flaws, which are that the governor had to go along with it and that, as the state board’s attorney told The Eagle, the court could just enjoin school funding at the local level anyway?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Fred Phelps and followers from his Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka love to shock. But have they finally — finally! — gone too far in protesting the funeral in Massachusetts last week of Army Staff Sgt. Christopher Piper, a Green Beret who was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan?
Four protesters from the church held up signs that said, “Thank God for dead soldiers,” “God blew up the troops” and “Fag body bags,” reported the Boston Herald.
And Piper wasn’t even gay — not that his sexuality could justify protesting a funeral. But the Phelps crew blames Sept. 11 and the resulting wars and casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan on America’s tolerance of homosexuality. So it exploited Piper’s death and funeral for publicity.
Piper’s family responded with amazing tolerance. Ernest Piper said the protesters had his brother to thank for protecting their constitutional right to free speech. “Those that go to fight, fight for that right,” he said.
However, the Boston Police Department made sure the protesters couldn’t be too disruptive. According to one report, the police bagpipe band started up whenever the protesters started shouting. And the Herald reported that the protesters were blocked from the public by the Police Department’s mounted unit, “which strategically pointed the backs of their horses toward the group.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
When major news breaks in Washington, D.C., The Eagle editorial board always gets faxes and e-mails from all points along the political spectrum. But nothing in recent memory rivaled the communications blitz in the minutes and hours after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement Friday. Religious leaders, feminists, pro-lifers, abortion-rights groups — they all respectfully summed up O’Connor’s defining tenure, then variously offered prayers and issued warnings. What comes next? A reversal of “32 years of freedom and progress for women” and a “nightmare for reproductive health care and women’s rights”? Or a “watershed moment in American history” that could end “the 33-year war on the unborn”? Fasten your seat belts. This ride could be wild.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
It was a relief to see Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Rogers throw out the year-old lawsuit challenging the Kansas law allowing certain eligible immigrants to pay in-state tuition to state colleges. Anti-immigrant groups can be relied upon to pick another fight but should find a better target. This law passed because lawmakers realized it was wrong to punish the innocent children of illegal residents by charging them three times as much as their fellow Kansas high school graduates to go on to college and, that was in the state’s economic development interests to have educated residents.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The school funding stalemate could be over if House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, would allow lawmakers to vote Wednesday on a spending bill separate from a constitutional amendment.
But Mays has blocked that because he really wants the amendment. And he knows that the only chance of getting that is to hold school funding hostage.
Enough. A constitutional amendment should stand on its own merits. And lawmakers who vote for the amendment should do so because they really believe it is needed — not because it was the ransom they had to pay to adequately fund schools.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Hank Stram, who died Sunday at age 82, did more than preside over the birth of a pro football team that Kansans and Missourians could call their own. As head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs from 1963 to 1974, he was the architect of exciting football. Stalking the sidelines in his red vests and fine suits, he seemed every inch a head coach, too, all 5 feet 7 inches of him.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
I’ve always loved traveling in small-town Kansas. With gas prices soaring, Wichitans might want to consider some day trips closer to home for their summer vacations. For some fun ideas, check out this online guide to offbeat tourist attractions, which includes several little-known Kansas destinations, including the World’s Largest Easel and Van Gogh painting in Goodland, the Safari Museum in Chanute and, closer to home, the Vornado Fan Museum in Andover and the giant Muffler Man statue on South Broadway here in Wichita (look at the fascinating national listing of these mysterious, Easter Island-like Muffler Men).
Kansas adventurers should also consult the Kansas Sampler site and watch for its upcoming release (slated for this summer) of the Kansas Guidebook for Explorers, which will cover every one of the 626 incorporated towns in Kansas.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
The education available at Kansas’ state universities was undervalued compared with peer institutions. But how much longer can the Kansas Board of Regents use that justification for its serial tuition hikes, including another round last month? The cost of attending Wichita State University has risen 65 percent since 2000, which looks bad until you look at the University of Kansas (115 percent) and Kansas State University (98 percent). Where is the outrage? Or at least the official recognition that such inflation has consequences?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
My elementary school-age son is into "Calvin and Hobbes" cartoons — like father, like son, I guess. He read this strip the other night that fits well with my line of work (click on it to enlarge). Still, for those of us who don’t have superpowers. . . .
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
What do you call those wayward plastic grocery bags stuck in the urban trees and fences? The Recycling in Kansas newsletter passes along some common popular names: witches’ britches, urban tumbleweeds, shoppers’ kites, retailed hawks, foulage. There are regional variations: In the South, they’re called "white trash"; in Colorado, such a bag is the "state bird of Wyoming." Virginia calls it the "West Virginia state flag."
Are there Kansas variations or ideas? How about "Oklahoma lawn ornaments"?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Following the lead of states such as Kansas, Congress continues to pursue federal restrictions on the sale of some over-the-counter cold medicines that can be used in the making of methamphetamine, most recently through a revised bill unveiled last week by Sens. Jim Talent, R-Mo., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. As welcome as such efforts are, this issue brings to mind the debate over gun laws, which also penalize lawful users along with would-be crooks. Lawmakers should not focus so much on meth’s supply side that they neglect the needs on the other fronts in this fight, such as law enforcement and drug treatment.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
