If you read Kansas State Board of Education chairman Steve Abrams’ commentary this week in The Eagle, you likely did a double take when you got toward the end. That’s where Abrams claimed that “superintendents and local school boards in some districts continue to promulgate pornography as ‘literature,’ even though many parents have petitioned the local boards to remove the porn.” Huh? What districts? What books?
Abrams told The Eagle editorial board Tuesday that he was referring to the Blue Valley school district in Johnson County, where some parents protested some of the books in high school English classes. Abrams could only remember one of the disputed books, “Beloved” by Toni Morrison (though the challenged books also include “Black Boy” by Richard Wright and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey). This is porn? This is “some districts”?
Not surprisingly, superintendents across the state didn’t appreciate the broad-brush accusation that they peddle porn. And not only does the Blue Valley school district have a thorough process for evaluating complaints about books, superintendent Tom Trigg said, his district also doesn’t force any student to read a book over parental objections.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Brad Beachy of Wichita has a commentary in today’s Eagle about the new documentary “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price.” I haven’t seen the film, but I think Beachy could be correct that it may bring to a boil the simmering debate on “what balance should be struck between low-priced products and a decent standard of living for workers and business owners.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Vice President Dick Cheney and Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts would like to give CIA operatives an exemption from a law that would prohibit cruel, degrading and inhumane treatment of prisoners.
But a Knight Ridder article last week showed that, moral objections aside, many CIA field agents and interrogation experts oppose torture for a practical reason — it doesn’t work. Tortured and mistreated prisoners simply give false information, and they become even more committed enemies. More useful information is usually gained by giving prisoners positive rewards.
That view is backed by another former CIA operative, Larry Johnson, who wrote last week in the Los Angeles Times that:
“What real CIA field officers know firsthand is that it is better to build a relationship of trust — even with a terrorist, even if it’s time-consuming — than to extract quick confessions through tactics such as those used by the Nazis and the Soviets, who believed that national security always trumped human rights. And that’s the point. We should never use our fear of being attacked as justification for dehumanizing ourselves or others.”
Posted by Randy Scholfield
President Bush said in a speech last week that it was “irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began.” But isn’t that what the administration has been trying to do?
As an Eagle reader noted in a letter to the editor Sunday, “we and the world heard: of the imminent danger posed by weapons of mass destruction; that we couldn’t wait to verify the existence of an Iraqi nuclear arsenal, because the ’smoking gun might be in the form of a mushroom cloud’; and that there was a direct tie between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and al-Qaida.”
But after we invaded and learned that none of this turned out to be true, suddenly the war was about spreading freedom and democracy in the Middle East.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
A Government Accountability Office probe has confirmed suspicions about the Food and Drug Administration’s foot-dragging on allowing over-the-counter sales of the Plan B emergency contraceptive: It’s a case of abortion politics overruling scientific expertise — and manipulating and undermining standard FDA procedure in order to do so. Top FDA officials reportedly didn’t even wait for the scientific review process to play out last year before deciding to nix the application. Some administration officials take issue with the GAO’s facts, but women shouldn’t be denied access to what scientists call a contraceptive because some political appointees can score points by treating it as an abortion pill.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Time magazine ranked Kathleen Sebelius as a top five governor, but her tepid criticism of the Kansas State Board of Education sure doesn’t rank high. Sebelius called the board’s science standards vote a “step in the wrong direction.” You think? Even cautious former Gov. Bill Graves was more forceful in denouncing the state board’s 1999 evolution vote, saying that he supported abolishing the board.
Leadership from the business community has been even more lacking. If the state and local chambers of commerce are concerned about attracting new businesses and residents to Kansas, why were they AWOL while the state board was making Kansas and our education system a national laughingstock?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
“Bill Snyder Family Stadium” sounds a bit awkward. But the new name for Kansas State University’s football stadium, which will be officially announced at Saturday’s game, reflects the affection so many people have for KSU’s retiring coach. Not only did Snyder transform the Wildcats from an athletic embarrassment to a national power, he created a sense of family both for players and fans.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
