My column Friday wonders aloud about the sanity of the human race, and its future prospects, taking note of scientists’ accelerating warnings on global warming and America’s almost pathological refusal to admit the threat.
According to a Washington Post article, most scientists now agree that human-driven climate change is occurring. Instead, the hot debate is whether we’ve reached a “tipping point” beyond which the changes become irreversible and unstoppable.
Some scientists fear we’re already there. But the media seem more concerned about the threat of Dick Cheney with a shotgun.
Meanwhile, President Bush is safe in his White House bubble. Too bad our children won’t have that luxury.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
I’ve been as bothered by the rabid politicization of the vice president’s hunting accident as by the incident itself. (Why are so many so unable to judge a president’s sexcapades or a vice president’s unintentional shooting of someone without partisanship?)
But leave it to New York Times’ saber-toothed columnist Maureen Dowd to articulate something else that’s been bothering me about this: “With American soldiers dying in Iraq, Five-Deferment Dick ‘I Had Other Priorities in the ’60s Than Military Service’ Cheney gets his macho kicks gunning down little birds and the occasional old man while W. rides his bike, blissfully oblivious to any collateral damage. Shouldn’t these guys work on weekends until we figure out how to fix Iraq, New Orleans, Medicare and gas prices?”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Legal thriller novelist and lawyer Scott Turow, speaking Thursday at the University of Kansas, said that after studying the death penalty in depth, he can’t see how it could ever be made equitable. In his review of first-degree murder cases, he found that only some end with a death sentence. “See if you can find the guiding sense of reason to see who was sentenced to death and who was not,” he told the audience, according to the Lawrence Journal-World.
A good case in point: BTK killer Dennis Rader.
“I don’t know how anybody in Kansas is ever going to get the death penalty if the BTK killer is not going to get it,” Turow said.
BTK wasn’t eligible for the death penalty, because our law wasn’t in effect when he committed his murders. But there hasn’t been a public outcry that justice hasn’t been done because BTK is serving multiple life sentences rather then being put to death.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Some bloggers already mentioned this in an earlier post, but it’s worth highlighting:
Given the opportunity to hear from the chancellor of the state’s largest university, most legislators would want to make every question count. Unfortunately, Rep. Bonnie Huy, R-Wichita, used the time during a House hearing Monday to ask University of Kansas chancellor Robert Hemenway to comment on an incident that didn’t even happen — a student’s throwing of a pie at Ann Coulter. The conservative commentator, a rhetorical bomb-thrower herself, was heckled at a KU speech last March, but no pies were thrown. Hemenway pointed that out to Huy, adding that the university tries to convey to students the value of being respectful of others. “That’s as it should be,” Huy said. “All speakers should be treated with respect.”
That’s a nice idea. But lawmakers surely don’t expect those running the state’s universities to control their students’ exercise of speech. And that the pie question was even asked suggests there is a profound lack of understanding at the Statehouse of the pressing issues facing higher education in Kansas.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
American Joey Cheek defined the best of amateur athletics in winning a gold medal Monday in the 500-meter speed skating event in Turin, Italy.
He also showed that the Olympic ideal still means something, by dedicating the $25,000 bonus he won for his gold medal to Right to Play, a program that provides recreation to underprivileged kids in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. He earmarked the money for children in war-ravaged Darfur.
“I can take the time to sit up here and gush, or I can do something worthwhile,” Cheek said after he received the gold.
It’s good to know in this cynical time that not all athletes are spoiled brats or angling for a lucrative endorsement deal. Athletes such as Cheek can still inspire others to make a real difference in the world.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
