You haven’t read much in The Eagle about what’s going on with parent Knight Ridder, which is under pressure by some shareholders to sell the company. That’s because none of us knows anything. But columnist Leonard Pitts, based at Knight Ridder’s The Miami Herald, used the uncertainty to make a potent statement about newspapers in general.
After recalling how a photographer for the Knight Ridder-owned Sun-Herald in Biloxi, Miss., handed out copies of the newspaper to Katrina victims for whom it was a precious lifeline, Pitts wrote: “Years before I ever drew a paycheck in this industry I was convinced that newspapers — and, more broadly, the news — are not a business. They are a mission — a vital, irreducible mission.”
He’s right about that. The thing is, Wall Street’s concern is not whether newspapers fulfill their mission over time but how much money newspapers make today.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Congress still hasn’t agreed on how much — or even whether — to cut federal spending, but there was a small but significant victory for fiscal sanity last week: Pork appropriator extraordinaire Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, pulled funding for his infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” project. The $320 million savings is small in the context of the federal budget, but the symbolism is large. Now, other lawmakers need to get the message and go on a pork-free diet.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
When state Rep. Jason Watkins, R-Wichita, proposed mandating that school vending machines contain only “healthy food alternatives,” it seemed like more legislative meddling. The bill rightly stalled early this year. But to Watkins’ credit, the industry took the hint: The Kansas Beverage Association will announce at a press conference today that it has adopted the American Beverage Association’s new policy of encouraging that elementary school machines stock only water and 100 percent juice, that middle school machines offer only nutritious or lower-calorie drinks during school hours, and that at least half of the drinks in high school machines be nutritrious or lower in calories. Such self-policing beats a legislative mandate.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
There were two telling points in an Associated Press story about how the Kansas State Board of Education’s recent actions reflect a growing distrust of “government schools”:
The Rev. Terry Fox (in photo), pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Wichita, suggested that half of his 6,600 members have given up on public schools, saying, “I think public education has really become a brainwashing from the far left. These superintendents better realize that they don’t just work for the liberals. I think sometimes they’ve gotten the impression that they own the schools.”
Meanwhile, noted Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt, R-Independence, “The real tragedy in all of this brouhaha at the State Board of Education is that very little of it has to do with providing a world-class education for our children.” Schmidt also said: “The Chinese, the Indians, the Koreans and the Japanese are spending their energy teaching their kids math, science, geography and things that make their kids competitive.”
Step back from all this culture warring over public schools, and it’s hard to see how it serves the goals of better schools, smarter kids and a vigorous Kansas economy.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Wichitans have one more thing to be thankful for this Thanksgiving week: Wichita has the cheapest gas in America, according to the latest Lundberg Survey of 7,000 gas stations around the country. At the time of the survey last week, Wichita’s price for a gallon of regular unleaded was $1.94, while the national average was $2.24. Now, our price is even lower. Of course, it’s all relative. Last Thanksgiving, no one would have thought that $1.94-a-gallon gas was cheap.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Who is the most obnoxious news or talk show personality on TV? Who is the best?
My vote for worst: MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, who can’t keep his mouth shut long enough for guests to get a word in edgewise. I like his energy, but shut your piehole, Chris!
Best: Aaron Brown recently got canned at CNN, but he had a kind of anti-anchor everyman appeal for me with his sad-sack face, and the way he delivered disastrous news with a kind of fatalistic grimace, the corner of his mouth screwed up. As he bravely plodded along, musing on the invariably rotten news, you sensed the existential despair eating a hole in his heart.
And as a print journalist, I also appreciated his nightly rundown of newspaper front pages — OK, maybe it didn’t make for riveting TV, but at least it didn’t condescend to viewers.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Niall Ferguson, in a commentary for the Los Angeles Times, argued that the United States isn’t quite as divided as it is made out to be. He wrote:
“In their book, ‘Culture War: The Myth of a Polarized America,’ Morris Fiorina, Samuel Abrams and Jeremy Pope comprehensively debunk the notion that American society is deeply divided. On numerous issues, which just don’t get debated because consensus is taken for granted, Americans have quite similar views. Even on the issues about which the political class gets excited — abortion, homosexuality, religion — it’s amazing how much middle ground there is.”
Maybe so, but the middle ground in Washington and Wichita must be harder to find.
Posted by Melissa Cooley
Follow the money, they say. Well, in the case of the Bush administration, the federal money for scientific research has followed the priorities of this wartime president: toward projects related to defense and counterterrorism, according to the nonprofit American Association for the Advancement of Science. And because the overall research funding shared by more than a dozen agencies hasn’t risen much, biodefense’s 48 percent funding gain since 2001 has coincided with only a 14 percent increase in nondefense research. Obviously, if these dollars end up helping deter terrorists and win wars, America will benefit tremendously. But less funding in other areas could send those scientists in search of dollars elsewhere, putting our nation’s once-unrivaled reputation for cutting-edge science at further risk.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Time magazine recently gathered a group of panelists to discuss who should grace the cover of its “Person of the Year” edition for 2005. But the most influential candidate was not a person at all. Mother Nature was cited as the driving force behind the major news stories of 2005 — the tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the earthquakes in Kashmir. Other suggestions included the first responders to Katrina, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with Rosa Parks, Bono, Bill Gates, President Bush and the Iraqi voters. Do you have any different ideas?
Posted by Melissa Cooley
Despite Friday’s strawman vote in the House about immediately withdrawing troops from Iraq, there is a growing bipartisan movement in Congress to pressure the Bush White House to provide a credible exit strategy. It looks like a turning point in congressional and public attitudes toward the war.
The Senate voted last week for the White House to provide a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq as well as quarterly progress reports on the war. Congress as an institution is “rearing up and asserting itself,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., (in photo) a decorated veteran of two wars and one of Congress’ most hawkish Democrats, Thursday called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, saying that the Iraq war was a “flawed policy wrapped in illusion.”
Predictably, Bush defenders quickly attacked Murtha, painting the widely respected defense expert with a Michael Moore anti-war brush. But for White House officials, attacking the messengers is a losing battle. They need to provide a plan that will produce stability in Iraq, and show the way home for our troops.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
One of the thorns in the side of Kansas Republican Party chairman Tim Shallenburger is Wichita’s Mark Gietzen, leader of the Kansas Republican Coalition for Life and a former Sedgwick County GOP chairman. It was at a recent Wichita Pachyderm Club meeting that Gietzen scolded Shallenburger for “welcoming pro-aborts” into the GOP’s tent. And if Shallenburger thought Gietzen would back off after last week’s headlines about Shallenburger threatening to quit over the ideological split, he thought wrong. Gietzen was quoted by The Topeka Capital-Journal as saying he’d welcome Shallenburger’s resignation, offering this odd quote evoking the U.S. Supreme Court nomination switcheroo of Samuel Alito for Harriet Miers, and even the late Rosa Parks: “Tim Shallenburger is Miers. We need to get him out and Alito in. We need to do some housecleaning. The Miers thing has refreshed everyone. We don’t have to take the back of the bus anymore.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Good for Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., for not being content to forget about the nation’s oil needs even though pump prices are no longer over $3 or even $2. He’s the chief GOP co-sponsor of bipartisan legislation introduced Wednesday aimed at cutting U.S. oil consumption by 2.5 million barrels a day over the next 10 years. Its proposed tax breaks and loan guarantees are the sort of incentives that automakers need to step up their efforts to develop alternative-fuel technologies — including biomass fuels that would be good for Kansas farmers as well as American drivers. It’s nice to see that energy conservation isn’t just a virtue anymore in Washington, D.C.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer focused on the Kansas State Board of Education’s evolution decision — calling it a “national embarrassment” — in his column for The Washington Post. He pointed out the folly of placing religion at odds with science, noting that both Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein were religious. He wrote:
“How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God. What could be more elegant, more simple, more brilliant, more economical, more creative, indeed more divine than a planet with millions of life forms, distinct and yet interactive, all ultimately derived from accumulated variations in a single double-stranded molecule, pliable and fecund enough to give us mollusks and mice, Newton and Einstein? Even if it did give us the Kansas State Board of Education, too.”
Posted by Melissa Cooley
Arenas in many cities are having to downsize, The Wall Street Journal recently reported. Because there are fewer and fewer big sellout concerts, arenas are creating smaller “theaters” within the arenas. And it’s more than just curtaining off some sections. Some arenas have custom-made dividers, mood lighting and even chandeliers that descend from the rafters. Is that part of Sedgwick County’s downtown arena plans? Does it need to be?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Peter Drucker, the management guru who died last week, wrote in 1987′s “Management Lessons of Irangate” about the danger of presidents and chief executives who rely too heavily on delegation at the expense of accountability:
“A chief executive officer must delegate, otherwise he’ll end up like Gulliver in Lilliput, ineffectual and ensnared in details, as were Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter. But delegation requires greater accountability and tighter control. Delegation requires clear assignment of a specific task, clear definition of the expected results and a deadline. Above all it requires that the subordinate to whom a task is delegated keep the boss fully informed.”
I think this is a serious drawback of President Bush’s management style that is coming back to bite him — he relies heavily on delegating tasks but offers little follow-up or accountability for failure. Are the objectives in Iraq, for instance, too vague and open-ended?
How good of a manager do you think Bush is?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Global warming is no joke. But that didn’t stop Larry David — co-creator of “Seinfeld” and creator and star of the HBO show “Curb Your Enthusiasm” — from doing a comedy special on the subject, which will air at 7 p.m. Sunday on TBS.
“People have used humor since the beginning of time to cope with tragedy. There are always angles in every subject to find the comedy in it, and in ‘Earth to America’ all the contributors succeeded at that,” David told Salon.
And speaking of humor and global warming, David Letterman did a “Top Ten Signs There’s Global Warming” list Thursday, read by Tom Hanks. No. 10: “I just bought oceanfront property in Topeka, Kan.”
Posted by Melissa Cooley
Enough major failures happened while Louis Freeh was director of the FBI that his interest in the “Able Danger” controversy sounds a bit like blame-shifting. Still, I agree with him that more investigation of the secret Pentagon program is needed. Here’s part of what he wrote in a commentary for The Wall Street Journal:
“The Able Danger intelligence, if confirmed, is undoubtedly the most relevant fact of the entire post-9/11 inquiry. Even the most junior investigator would immediately know that the name and photo ID of (hijacker Mohamed) Atta in 2000 is precisely the kind of tactical intelligence the FBI has many times employed to prevent attacks and arrest terrorists. Yet the 9/11 Commission inexplicably concluded that it ‘was not historically significant.’ This astounding conclusion — in combination with the failure to investigate Able Danger and incorporate it into its findings — raises serious challenges to the commission’s credibility and, if the facts prove out, might just render the commission historically insignificant itself.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
New Kansas Education Commissioner Bob Corkins and State Board of Education member Connie Morris visited 12 western Kansas cities this week. It didn’t go well.
“The Bob Corkins-Connie Morris road show turned into roadkill in Hays on Tuesday night,” reported The Hays Daily News. One protest sign at the meeting read, “What’s the matter with Kansas? Morris + Corkins.”
Their reception wasn’t much better elsewhere. “It was not a warm and fuzzy meeting at all,” said Marvin Selby, superintendent of the Goodland school district. And Don Hineman, who attended the meeting in Dodge City, wrote in a letter to the editor in Friday’s Eagle that the purpose of the trip seemed to be to promote charter schools, to promote Corkins and to promote Morris.
Three strikes and they’re out?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
President Bush’s second inaugural address made it a priority to promote democracy around the world. But an increasing number of Americans want us to butt out, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Council on Foreign Relations. Just before the Sept. 11 attacks, 30 percent of those surveyed said the United States should “mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own.” Four years later, 42 percent are feeling isolationist. And get this: 35 percent wouldn’t mind seeing a second superpower emerge, presumably to take some of the burden off our shoulders. And to think people said Sept. 11 would give Americans a permanently global view.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Bill Clinton’s assertion to Arab students that the United States made a “big mistake” in invading Iraq was greeted with a standing ovation and cheers. That response doesn’t speak well of our reputation in the Arab world.
Clinton, at a forum at the American University of Dubai, said, “It was a big mistake. The American government made several errors . . . one of which is how easy it would be to get rid of Saddam and how hard it would be to unite the country.”
Posted by Melissa Cooley
Conservative George Will argues in his latest column that social conservatives and fiscal big spenders are undermining the GOP. Here is his take on “zealots” on school boards:
‘ “It does me no injury,” said Thomas Jefferson, “for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ But it is injurious, and unneighborly, when zealots try to compel public education to infuse theism into scientific education. The conservative coalition, which is coming unglued for many reasons, will rapidly disintegrate if limited-government conservatives become convinced that social conservatives are unwilling to concentrate their character-building and soul-saving energies on the private institutions that mediate between individuals and government, and instead try to conscript government into sectarian crusades.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
NUTSCH FAMILY STRIKES OIL IN BACKYARD WHILE SHOOTIN’ AT SOME FOOD; Bubbling Crude Prompts More Grumbling From Locals
RETIRED CHESS CHAMPION KASPAROV DEFEATED BY MEDICARE DRUG PLAN; Genius Admits He Couldn’t Follow Online Instructions
STATE BOE ADDS TORTURE EXEMPTION TO SCIENCE STANDARDS; Allows Board to Inflict Cruel and Degrading Punishment on State’s Image
Posted by Randy Scholfield
It takes considerable nerve for DETAMC, the former job-training success story on East 21st Street, to sue City Hall for $11 million, after the company’s alleged misuse of government funds and mistreatment of employees led the feds to investigate. The lawsuit’s claim of racial motivation seems a particular stretch. But the city should be faulted for its lack of due diligence on this venture. After all, it continued to funnel federal money to DETAMC after the state had seen fit to cut it off. What we said in an editorial early last year still goes: “DETAMC’s story should serve as a pointed reminder of the need for clear-eyed decision making, good oversight and swift response to red flags when they arise.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Considering the uneasy feeling still pervading the local economy, it was sad but not surprising that the United Way of the Plains not only missed its campaign goal by nearly $2 million Thursday but fell $1.6 million short of last year’s total. All the job cuts, ownership changes, contract struggles and other uncertainties have hurt Wichitans’ ability to give as generously as they would like to. The results put pressure on the United Way to get the most out of every dollar of that $14 million and continue seeking more. As fewer feel free to contribute, more are slipping into need, too. But it’s encouraging that 300 companies saw double-digit percentage spikes in their employee pledges, suggesting that those who are able to give recognize how much is riding on their generosity.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The reputation of Washington Post reporter and editor Bob Woodward took a hit this week with the revelation that he was told about outed CIA agent Valerie Plame by an unnamed administration official (whom the Post says wasn’t “Scooter” Libby). Woodward learned about Plame before Libby reportedly talked to New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Yet Woodward never told his Post superiors about this conversation. What’s more, he condemned the leak investigation in TV and radio interviews without any disclosure about his own involvement. Many are asking where Woodward’s loyalties lie — to journalism and his newspaper, or to his book projects. And whether Woodward is too close to his sources.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
