While doctors are worrying about America’s growing obesity problems, economists are taking a different view. “The obesity problem is really a side effect of things that are good for the economy,” Tomas J. Philipson, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, told The Washington Post. “But we would rather take improvements in technology and agriculture than go back to the way we lived in the 1950s when everyone was thin. Nobody wants to sweat at work for 10 hours a day and be poor. Yes, you’re obese, but you have a life that is much more comfortable.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
As I say in my latest column, I finally got around to seeing "Brokeback Mountain," and I thought it was terrific.
Don’t dismiss this as a "gay cowboy movie," as it’s being dubbed — it’s just a great movie, period, and a good story, well told.
Contrary to some conservative critics, this film is not a plot by liberal Hollywood producers out to push a gay agenda. This film began as a short story written by E. Annie Proulx, one of our best novelists. The script was written by Larry McMurtry, author of "Lonesome Dove," whose Western credentials are impeccable.
McMurtry’s knowledge of and respect for people, language and place in the American West is evident throughout the movie, and the acting is top-notch. Heath Ledger’s performance, in particular, is incredible.
What did you think?
Posted by Randy Scholfield
That 1,100 people were in line to see a dentist when the Kansas Mission of Mercy opened at 5 a.m. today at the Kansas Coliseum, and that many others had to be turned away, is confirmation of what we argued in our editorial today: The Wichita area has a growing problem with lack of access to dental care that needs attention from our leaders. The plan being considered by the Sedgwick County Commission would help — to attract a few new dentists to town with a advanced education program aimed at low-income patients. But it won’t fix the wider problem of the number of people who are missing work and inviting bigger health trouble by neglecting their teeth and gums.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Two anecdotes in an Eagle news article Thursday illustrated the contrast of what many local citizens want and what some local lawmakers don’t want to hear.
Park City Mayor Dee Stuart (in photo) told The Eagle that she was at a rest stop near Emporia Wednesday when she was recognized by some Wichita-area residents who were part of a bus trip to Harrah’s Prairie Band Casino north of Topeka. She boarded the bus, told the riders that she was headed to Topeka to try to get Sedgwick County included in a casino bill, and left to a round of applause, she said. But when she arrived in Topeka, she and two officials from Sumner County weren’t allowed to speak at a lunch meeting of the Sedgwick County legislative delegation and were told that they could sign up to sponsor a future lunch.
Given all the requests that the delegation receives from groups, Stuart and the officials shouldn’t have presumed that they could show up without making any prior arrangements and appear before the delegation. But they also shouldn’t have to buy lunches for the entire delegation in order to gain an audience.
Delegation chairman Sen. Phil Journey, R-Haysville, did say later, when questioned by an Eagle reporter, that Stuart could speak at a future meeting without having to buy all the lunches.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
The White House seems to be using the “executive powers” line to justify just about everything these days. Now in the investigation into the Hurricane Katrina response, the Bush administration is refusing to turn over a number of documents or make White House officials available for sworn testimony. The reason: confidentiality of executive branch communications. That’s the same line Bush officials are using to deny reporters information about the Jack Abramoff meetings and the one used to deny information about the Cheney energy policy meetings. Is “protecting confidentiality” code for “protecting our own hide”?
Posted by Melissa Cooley
Having heard President Bush’s reasonable call at Kansas State University on Monday for a temporary guest worker program for illegal immigrants willing to do jobs Americans don’t want, Kansans will hear from the opposite end of the conservative GOP spectrum today. Immigration critic Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo. (in photo), will address the Kansas Republican Assembly in Topeka. Tancredo, who successfully pushed for the House to pass a tough enforcement bill last month, has likened illegal immigration to a “raging river” and spoken of an unconstitutional proposal to deny citizenship to babies born in the United States to undocumented immigrants as a “damn right” idea.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Rep. Jim Ward, D-Wichita (in photo), is correct: The Kansas education commissioner oversees half of state government spending, so that person needs to be qualified. But the Legislature should avoid setting into law what those qualifications must be, as Ward supports doing. House Bill 2711 would require that the commissioner be either a licensed teacher or school administrator, or have significant training or experience in education. Those qualifications are certainly preferable, and what you would expect in most commissioners. But couldn’t a good commissioner also come from the corporate world — someone who is a great manager and leader who has extensive executive experience?
The problem with the State Board of Education’s hiring of current Education Commissioner Bob Corkins is that he didn’t have any of these qualifications: He had no education experience and no managerial experience of any significance.
Perhaps the better policy change would be to elevate the education commissioner to a Cabinet position, appointed by the governor. That way the governor would be more personally responsible for the quality of Kansas schools and the quality of the commissioner.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Hamas’ victory in Palestinian elections, the uncertain leadership picture in the wake of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s stroke, Iran’s threats to wipe Israel off the map — there isn’t much to inspire hope this week about the prospects for lasting peace in the region. And with President Bush repeating Thursday that Hamas “is a party with which we will not deal,” the United States’ role going forward is a big question mark. There’s always a chance that Hamas, having risen to power through democracy, will find its way to appreciate and respect the need for peace and cooperation with Israel. But the United States and the rest of the world shouldn’t count on it.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Kansas is a long way from Maryland in more than geography. Because of that, it comes as no surprise that a Maryland-style bill sponsored by Rep. Geraldine Flaharty, D-Wichita, to prod Wal-Mart into paying more of its employees’ health care costs is generating little enthusiasm in Topeka. But one related piece of information should give lawmakers and others pause: Many children of Wal-Mart employees are enrolled in Kansas’ HealthWave program, which provides health insurance for 37,000 kids in low-income families. “They’re threefold more than the second largest employer group, which is McDonald’s,” Robert Day, director of the Division of Health Policy and Finance, told the Lawrence Journal-World. In effect, that means those of us enjoying Wal-Mart’s low prices are also helping offset Wal-Mart’s limited employee benefits.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The Bush White House knows the value of a good photo-op. That’s probably why the administration is refusing to release pictures taken by the White House photographer of Jack Abramoff and President Bush together, saying they are irrelevant to the investigation. It’s true that a few pictures of the two rubbing elbows or shaking hands do not prove that they had a close relationship or that Bush did any favors for the lobbyist. But they would look bad — especially considering Bush has said repeatedly that he doesn’t recall meeting Abramoff.
Posted by Melissa Cooley
Democrats can barely hide their disappointment at how little outrage Americans are showing over the White House’s warrantless wiretapping, which nevertheless is about to get a needed going-over in Congress. But a Zogby International poll this month found that a considerable “52 percent of American adults thought Congress should consider impeaching Bush if he wiretapped U.S. citizens without court approval, including 59 percent of independents and 23 percent of Republicans,” according to a Knight Ridder Newspapers article about the “I” word. Considering that George W. Bush won re-election with 51 percent, such a number could mess up Karl Rove’s sleep for a while.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The conservative watchdog group American Family Association is claiming that its protests are why NBC decided this week to cancel “The Book of Daniel,” the mess of a TV show about an Episcopal priest who has a dysfunctional family and face-to-face visits with Jesus. More likely, NBC dropped “Daniel” because it was a lousy show that got lousy ratings. That’s the way it should work. Rather than pre-emptively block the show, as AMA wanted, NBC aired it and let viewers decide with their remotes whether it was worth watching. It wasn’t.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Rep. Jason Watkins, R-Wichita, has introduced a bill that would force teams from Kansas State University and the University of Kansas to schedule games against Wichita State University. Watkins said he introduced it at the request of a constituent. But like former Rep. Todd Novascone’s similar effort in 2004, this might be cute and amusing if it weren’t such a poor use of lawmaking time and tax dollars.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
President Bush, in his speech at Kansas State University this week, defended his possibly illegal domestic wiretaps by arguing that the phone calls were made from “reasonably suspected” al-Qaida suspects to people in the United States. “If they’re making a phone call into the United States,” he said, “it seems to me we’d want to know why.”
It’s a misleading argument. No one is arguing that such conversations shouldn’t be monitored — of course they should. The concern is why Bush feels the need to bypass the required judicial review that is meant to confirm the “reasonableness” of such surveillance.
If the evidence against a suspect is so compelling, why does the Bush team need to avoid oversight?
The president still hasn’t provided a satisfactory answer to that question.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
It’s disturbing to hear that more than half of American college graduates are not able to handle complex, real-life literacy tasks, such as being able to follow the argument of a newspaper editorial or compare competing credit card offers, according to a new study funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. And it’s no consolation that adults in general showed an even more glaring lack of math and reading literacy skills.
The literacy deficit is not only dangerous to a democracy, which depends on voters’ ability to decipher complex policy issues and debates, but it’s also bad news for efforts to create a highly educated work force for the 21st century information economy.
The study found markedly higher skills in students who had taken classes that emphasized critical thinking skills and applying theory to real-world problems. State education leaders need to ensure students are getting such course work.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
There was only a mild clash of the titanic editorial boards in recent days over Judge Samuel Alito’s nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court.
For The New York Times’ editorial board, which headlined its Monday editorial “Judge Alito’s Radical Views,” it came down to what he isn’t: another “cautious, centrist” Sandra Day O’Connor. It advised voting “no.”
On Jan. 15, The Washington Post editorial board gave Alito less of an endorsement than a shrug: “He would not have been our pick for the high court. Yet Judge Alito should be confirmed, both because of his positive qualities as an appellate judge and because of the dangerous precedent his rejection would set.”
Ditto a Los Angeles Times editorial that day, which declared that “there are no legitimate grounds to entertain a filibuster of this nominee, or to be overly shocked that he is the sort of justice Bush would select.”
Not a lot of enthusiasm out there — or well-founded opposition.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
As Bush promotes the spread of freedom and liberty throughout the Middle East, his continued support of Russia — which is being transformed by Vladimir Putin into an authoritarian state — remains a contradiction.
Fred Hiatt writes of Putin in a column for The Washington Post: “This is the man whom Bush will visit in July when Putin hosts a Group of Eight meeting in St. Petersburg. There will be fine photo opportunities in repainted czarist palaces, and the message Putin wants to send his subjects will be clear: I am a czar, and the leaders of the world’s democracies do not care; they accept me. The question for Bush is whether he is happy to help Putin send that message.”
Posted by Melissa Cooley
It was interesting that President Bush got as much media notice for stumbling over the “Brokeback Mountain” question at Kansas State University as for his fervent defense of his decisions on spying and war. The New York Daily News’ headline: “You’d enjoy ‘Brokeback,’ student gaily tells W.” “The Rancher in Chief and a Certain Cowboy Film,” is how The New York Times put it. What Bush said: “I’d be glad to talk about ranching, but I haven’t seen the movie,” trying to get out of the awkward moment.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Few believe that the Kansas State Board of Education’s evolution follies have been good for the state’s image beyond its borders. Yet Kansas Chamber of Commerce and Industry president and CEO Lew Ebert (in photo) recently ducked a legislator’s question about the economic development implications of the evolution flap, according to the Harris News Service: “We’re probably not going to speak on that topic,” Ebert told Rep. Candy Ruff, D-Leavenworth, during a House committee meeting. What about the jokes and editorial cartoons it generated? Don’t they risk discouraging science-related companies from coming to Kansas? “I don’t know if people around the country pay much attention to that,” he said. He wishes.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
A “do not fax” law might not help much, because junk faxers are hard to find, and it would only apply to unsolicited faxes to home fax machines. And it would cost the state an estimated $156,000 to implement. Sponsor Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence, says all the Kansas attorney general’s office would have to do would be to compile the list and then pass it along to a national registry. The Legislature is right to give Sloan’s idea a hard look. That said, lawmakers should always be wary about bills based on the premise that people have some constitutional right not to be bothered. They don’t.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
After all the partisan rhetoric at Samuel Alito’s confirmation hearings, it was no surprise that the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vote today faithfully followed party lines — all 10 Republicans for, all eight Democrats against. The full Senate vote later this week could shake out similarly, which would be enough to put Alito on the U.S. Supreme Court. It won’t be enough, however, to reassure Americans who still believe that the highest court in the land should be above politics. Lately, the confirmation process has been nothing but politics.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Fog forced President Bush to travel from Topeka to Manhattan via sport-utility vehicle rather than by helicopter, putting the president knee to knee for an hour with Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and Sens. Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts. As Bush got to know the Flint Hills, which he reportedly loved, Sebelius got to bend his ear about matters such as the nightmarish Medicare drug benefit rollout (he reassured her Kansas would get its $1.3 million back) and her concern that his new budget may include reductions in National Guard troop strength (he didn’t reassure her). Especially because Bush seemed surprised to hear about the Medicare woes, this seems like a case of Kansas’ capricious weather doing well by Kansans for once.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
The primary point of President Bush’s lengthy, conversational address Monday to a friendly audience at Kansas State University seemed to be that if more Americans understood “there’s still an enemy which lurks out there,” fewer Americans in Congress and otherwise would question his administration’s no-holds-barred prosecution of the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq, including warrantless electronic eavesdropping on Americans.
One regrettable impression left by the speech, part of the Landon Lecture series, was that Bush is having to spend so much time these days justifying his past decisions. Starting with next week’s State of the Union address, he needs to get specific on his vision for the rest of his second term.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Charles Marsh (in photo), a professor of religion at the University of Virginia, had an op-ed piece in The New York Times last week arguing that evangelicals made a “Faustian bargain” with the Bush administration. In exchange for political access and power, the ministers gave their lockstep, uncritical support for the war in Iraq, he charged.
Marsh read their sermons leading up to the war and was surprised by how little attention the ministers paid to Christian moral doctrine. “Some tried to square the American invasion with Christian ‘just war’ theory, but such efforts could never quite reckon with the criterion that force must only be used as a last resort,” he wrote. “As a result, many ministers dismissed the theory as no longer relevant.”
In doing so, Marsh wrote, church leaders have moved away from Christianity’s primary mission “to hunger for righteousness, to pursue peace, to forbear revenge, to love enemies, in other words, to be marked by the cross.” And he argued that they have “undermined the credibility of our moral and evangelistic witness in the world.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
City Manager George Kolb is expected to recommend today that the Wichita City Council put off until fall a decision about the future of the Wichita Boathouse — but the need for such a delay isn’t clear. The council earlier delayed a decision on what to do with the Boathouse in large part because of a proposal to build a new arena over the river by the Boathouse. But the Sedgwick County Commission rejected that proposal last week. So why not go ahead and make a decision? And if it does decide, the council should pick one of the Boathouse proposals that preserves the building, rather than Jack DeBoer’s plan to tear it down and build an office building.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
